A few years ago I strained my lower back while gardening. Over the coming week, the problem quickly deteriorated until I was bedridden and could barely move without painful back spasms.
I called a Christian Science practitioner to pray for me. As I also prayed, I sensed the need to examine my thought more deeply. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, states in one of her writings, “Ofttimes examine yourselves, and see if there be found anywhere a deterrent of Truth and Love, and ‘hold fast that which is good’ ” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, pp. 128–129). She discovered that sometimes “a moral question may hinder the recovery of the sick” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 419).
So, as I began to examine myself mentally, I realized that for some time I had been troubled with a sense of disappointment and discouragement over my inability to see others make progress in their health. My first reaction to that thought was, “That can’t be! Being disappointed or doubting God’s care of others would be a sin to me because it would be breaking the First Commandment: ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me’ (Exodus 20:3).”
