My gratitude prompts me to share what took place a few years ago after human impulse overtook wisdom and I intervened in an aggressive three-dog fight. As I attempted to separate the animals, I was severely bitten, and my hand was badly mauled.
When I was finally able to separate the warring dogs (two of which were mine), I quickly ran into the house to care for the wounds. The appearance was quite alarming, and my hand was bleeding profusely. While cleansing the hand, I prayed for inspiration and also to determine what steps I needed to take in caring for my hand.
Regardless of the physical appearance, I was confident I could never be separated from God, the source of my spiritual perfection, for I am one with Spirit, God—in thought, substance, and being.
Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “You cause bodily sufferings and increase them by admitting their reality and continuance, as directly as you enhance your joys by believing them to be real and continuous. When an accident happens, you think or exclaim, ‘I am hurt!’ Your thought is more powerful than your words, more powerful than the accident itself, to make the injury real” (p. 397).
Realizing God was forever with me, there was no fear to overcome, just the pain. But this pain couldn’t convince me that God was not present, or that we were or could be separated. I knew that was an impossibility!
Mrs. Eddy’s comforting words, “O gentle presence, peace and joy and power; / O Life divine, that owns each waiting hour” (Poems, p. 4), rang in my thought as our two little dogs stayed faithfully by my side, licking my legs as if to comfort me.
I wrapped my hand and didn’t look at it again, while praying diligently over the next day and a half to erase feelings and imposing mental pictures of intense pain and accident. I neither slept nor ceased praying.
Mrs. Eddy further writes in Science and Health: “Declare that you are not hurt and understand the reason why, and you will find the ensuing good effects to be in exact proportion to your disbelief in physics, and your fidelity to divine metaphysics, confidence in God as All, which the Scriptures declare Him to be” (p. 397).
On the third day, all was quiet. There was no more pain or distracting thoughts to tempt me into believing something awful had taken place. It was then that I removed the covering and discovered that my flesh, which had appeared so badly mangled, was now completely healed. However, the joints in the little finger on that hand continued to be troublesome, so I prayed to handle the lie that there could be any separation from my forever God-given perfection. And I also prayed to know what more needed to be uncovered in my thought to remove all vestiges of the experience.
It was then that I received a phone call from our neighbor, the other dog’s owner, who expressed great concern for my welfare and told me through tears that he and his wife had decided to find a new home for their beloved pet, because she had harmed me. I assured him that it was not necessary, as the dog hadn’t realized what she had done while trying to defend herself, and that she would never intentionally have attempted to injure me. This phone call was an answer to prayer, enabling me to erase my neighbor’s fear.
I assured him that I blamed the dogs for nothing, and he could relieve himself of any guilt concerning me, for in fact, my hand was healed. He continued crying, but now in amazement; and he asked if he could see my hand.
As I put down the phone preparing to go to the neighbor’s house, I realized my finger was totally free from any sign of dislocation. This was invaluable proof of the presence of God, divine Love, overcoming any alarming effects of accident and aggressive behavior.
“Accidents are unknown to God, or immortal Mind,” we read in Science and Health, “and we must leave the mortal basis of belief and unite with the one Mind, in order to change the notion of chance to the proper sense of God’s unerring direction and thus bring out harmony” (p. 424). That was the perfect outcome! All concerned were able to witness the inevitable effect of accident erased.
The dogs have been free from altercations since, and I continue to witness their true nature as God’s precious ideas.
How grateful I am that Christ’s Science meets every human need perfectly.
Lynne Adams Morrow
Grafton, Illinois, US
