One evening as I climbed into bed, I felt a sharp pain in my thigh. As I tried to go to sleep, the pain became a constant throb of increasing intensity. Since I couldn’t sleep, I went downstairs to pray and to try sleeping on the couch, but the pain made it very difficult to lie down or to sit.
I began pacing and praying and singing hymns in my head. As the pain continued, I began to pray and sing hymns out loud. I relied on the instructions found in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy to “deny sin and plead God’s allness” (p. 15). I denied the possibility of power, cause, or effect in matter, knowing that God, Love, is the only power, the only cause, and harmony the only effect.
Days previously I had given a lot of thought to an article printed in the April 2019 issue of the Journal entitled “Easter and the real deal behind Christian Science healing” by Susan Booth Mack Snipes. The article explains that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb seeking the Christ. Upon seeing the resurrected Jesus, she was overjoyed and considered his resurrection a “big deal” (which it was). But the really big deal, as I understood it, was the ascending thought—the increased understanding of eternal Life—which brought about this resurrection and later Jesus’ final demonstration, his ascension above materiality. I was thinking how easy it is to get stuck on the idea of resurrecting or healing the body, and desiring that above all else; but what is really needed is the ascending thought. As thought glimpses the spiritual reality of eternal Life, resurrection or healing is the natural effect.
