One balmy summer day over three years ago, I went out onto a rock pile behind my house to admire the late afternoon. While all was going smoothly in my personal life, I didn’t feel I was growing spiritually, and I wondered, “Is this all there is for me? Have I no higher purpose?” As I stepped down, a large rock suddenly gave way beneath me, and I fell. My left wrist was visibly broken.
Very shaken and in pain, I went into my house and called a Christian Science practitioner for help through prayer. I wondered whether I should get the bone set by a doctor, and the practitioner kindly assured me she would give me a Christian Science treatment either way. I struggled with this decision late into the night until it dawned on me that all I needed to do was to be obedient to this statement in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy: “Until the advancing age admits the efficacy and supremacy of Mind, it is better for Christian Scientists to leave surgery and the adjustment of broken bones and dislocations to the fingers of a surgeon, while the mental healer confines himself chiefly to mental reconstruction and to the prevention of inflammation” (p. 401). This helped me feel at peace about getting the bone set.
The next day at the emergency room, the X-ray technician explained that one wrist bone was broken, another was shattered, and both arm bones had been fractured at the wrist. An orthopedist set my wrist in his office with the aid of an assistant and put a cast on my arm.
