As I was heading off to church one freezing Sunday morning, I slipped on the icy concrete outside my house and landed on the grass. I was fine except that my wrist didn’t look normal.
Prayerfully affirming that God loves me and is always taking care of me, I went back into the house to call a Christian Science practitioner for metaphysical treatment. He reminded me of the spiritual fact that I could never fall out of God’s infinite presence, in spite of the physical evidence.
In the textbook of Christian Science, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy writes, “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).
I asked my son and daughter-in-law to take me to the hospital so I could have the wrist examined. On the way I continued to pray, and the practitioner prayed with me. When we arrived, my wrist was X-rayed, and a doctor told me it was broken. He tried to set the wrist, but further X-rays showed that it still wasn’t properly aligned. A cast was put on my arm to protect it until I could see an orthopedic surgeon.
When I met with the surgeon, he looked at the hospital X-rays and told me I would need surgery. An appointment was made for me to come back in two weeks. In the meantime, the Christian Science practitioner was praying daily with me. “Know that the healing Christ is just as present with you as it was with Jesus and the disciples,” he assured me.
I prayed and studied the Bible and Science and Health each day and continued to know that I had never fallen out of God’s care. I saw that nothing could change the truth—that God had made me “unfallen, upright, pure, and free,” as Science and Health puts it on page 171.
I gave particular attention to another statement in the textbook: “Christian Science brings to the body the sunlight of Truth, which invigorates and purifies. Christian Science acts as an alterative, neutralizing error with Truth. It changes the secretions, expels humors, dissolves tumors, relaxes rigid muscles, restores carious bones to soundness. The effect of this Science is to stir the human mind to a change of base, on which it may yield to the harmony of the divine Mind” (p. 162).
During this time, I continued with my duties as Second Reader of my branch Church of Christ, Scientist. The only Sunday I missed was the day I went to the hospital right after the fall.
It wasn’t long before I sensed that my wrist was healed, and I thanked God. When I returned to the orthopedic surgeon after two weeks, he had X-rays taken and confirmed that my wrist was completely healed and that I did not need surgery. But he left the cast on, saying that he wanted the mended wrist bones to strengthen.
The Christian Science practitioner and I continued to pray daily, knowing that “the Lord is my strength” (Psalms 28:7), and in another two weeks the cast was removed. I rejoiced and thanked God for this healing.
It has been over two years since then, and I have been pain-free and have had complete use of my fingers, hand, wrist, and arm. I am very grateful that my family and friends witnessed this evidence that God does heal.
Carole Bell
New Braunfels, Texas, US
