While leading a group of students on a trip to Iceland, I tripped and fell, catching the fall with one of my hands. My wrist hurt, but I immediately thought of “the scientific statement of being” from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy (p. 468). This passage, read at the end of each Sunday service at Churches of Christ, Scientist, was a ready and welcome comfort, leading my thought away from a focus on matter—the condition of my wrist—to the substance of Spirit, God.
However, as the day went on, my wrist and hand swelled and became more painful and unusable. I held my hand close to me and carried on with the hike we had planned for the group that day. At one point, I used my other hand to assist a student who was struggling when we needed to scramble over rocks.
I finally realized I needed to step aside from the group and pray more diligently about this. I thought, “Here I am on a mountainside in a faraway place, but I will try texting a Christian Science practitioner for help.” I did so and immediately received the most loving response, over the many miles to this remote place, assuring me that the practitioner would be happy to pray for me. He also sent this statement from Science and Health: “Matter can make no conditions for man” (p. 120).
Wow, that idea really popped. It made so much sense to me as I thought about what man is, what I really am. Man, including each of us, is an entirely spiritual idea, the image of divine Mind, the reflection of divine Love, God. Of course matter could “make no conditions” for a spiritual reflection of Mind. God sustains all harmonious conditions for man, His very image. The condition of God is ever harmonious. God, infinite Spirit, can neither cause nor experience an accident or injury. His spiritual likeness could not be unlike Spirit, so we cannot be subject to accident or injury, either.
It made utter sense to me. As I accepted these spiritual facts, I felt really lifted and totally assured that I could carry on. I did so, feeling buoyant and confident in these truths.
In fact, I began to see all kinds of applications for the idea that matter makes no conditions for man. I saw that the same held true for time, economics, persons, governments, psychological or physiological makeup, history, fear, etc.—none can make conditions for spiritual man, who is the likeness of the all-good God. God alone makes our conditions.
I spent the hike pondering this powerful truth and its application to me, those I know and love, and the whole world.
Quickly the pain lessened, although I was still unable to use my hand. I wrapped the wrist to keep it still to finish the hike, and I continued to feel really joyous and thrilled about this concept I was praying with. During the night, I took off the bandage and went back to sleep, and I woke up completely free in the morning. No vestige of the swelling, pain, or incapacity remained. I was totally free and in awe. Wow.
The application of spiritual truth to our experience is truly profound. Life is not mired in matter, in what we see and feel with the material senses. Our inherent spiritual sense enables us to discern, beyond the outward appearance, the underlying and enduring spiritual reality of our real substance. Prayer awakens us to what we actually are. Then we experience here and now more of what we are seeing spiritually.
This experience occurred about a year ago, and I have had no further trouble with my hand or wrist since that time.
The love of God is never distant, wherever we are, whether we reach a Christian Science practitioner or not. But I am so grateful to the practitioner for his immediate prayers and for the citation that came to him to share with me. It exactly met the need.
If in one modest way we prove the reality of our being in Spirit and the power of realizing this truth to transform our experience, think of the larger implications for a world yearning to be lifted up, to have spiritual reality revealed. Our work awaits us. Not to change the reality, but to awaken to the true universe, that of Spirit, as it already exists.
Susan Oakes
Hope, Maine, US
