It was the morning after Christmas, Boxing Day. I had studied the Bible Lesson from the Christian Science Quarterly, which was on the subject of “God.” The whole Lesson brought out the entirely good nature of God, who is Spirit. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy also describes God as “omnipotence,” “omnipresence,” “omniscience,” and “omni-action” (see p. 587).
One of the Bible Lesson citations was from Romans, where Paul says, “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38, 39). I saw this as Paul saying that nothing can separate us from the goodness of God’s nature.
And then I read this on page 518 in Science and Health: “Love giveth to the least spiritual idea might, immortality, and goodness, which shine through all as the blossom shines through the bud. All the varied expressions of God reflect health, holiness, immortality—infinite Life, Truth, and Love.” I spent some time thinking more about the might of “the least” spiritual idea in God’s creation.
I prayed out loud the Lord’s Prayer.
After finishing my daily study, I prepared to walk my Labrador, Sasha. I asked my husband if he would like to join me. A riverside walk together seemed like a good idea.
Off we went. When we got to the riverbank, I let Sasha off the lead to give her a bit of freedom. She got out in front of us, and after a couple of minutes she found something to eat in the grass. It then looked as though she’d swallowed something which had become stuck in her throat. I gave her a chance to expel it but she couldn’t, so I put my hand deep into her mouth, but that was no good. The situation looked dire. She was having a tremendous struggle, so I tried a second time to put my hand as far as possible down her throat, but this only caused her to become even more agitated.
Sometime during this incident I remembered seeing a Facebook post about a dog that had swallowed an object and choked to death before its owner’s eyes. I realized I had taken this awful scene into my thought without correction—without asserting God’s power to heal and save.
I stopped. I said to my husband that we must pray. I prayed out loud the Lord’s Prayer, finishing with, “Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever” (Matthew 6:13). I declared that harmony is the fact and that God, divine Mind, alone governs. I said that Mind governs all action and that there is no other action. There is no obstruction to Mind’s harmonious action!
With that last declaration of truth, Sasha was immediately free. She stopped struggling and was fine. She didn’t expel anything and had no aftereffects. We carried on walking for another hour before returning home for lunch.
There is no obstruction to Mind’s harmonious action!
During our walk back home I thought about what had happened. Earlier that morning, the speaker on a Christian Science podcast—the Daily Lift—talked about voicing the truth with calm authority; not with anger or panic. I realized that this is what God had enabled and impelled me to do.
I also acknowledged that God had answered me before I had called on Him. All the teachings of divine Science I had been learning, including in that morning’s Bible Lesson, had already met my need.
How blessed we are to be able to put the healing teachings of Christ Jesus into practice, through the understanding Mary Baker Eddy has given us in Christian Science, which she dedicated her life to sharing with the world.
