One morning in spring 2022, during my time serving as First Reader of my branch Church of Christ, Scientist, I woke up to find it difficult to walk. I was unable to move one leg at all without intense pain. My family patiently helped me get where I needed to be, but I had to stay close to my study room and just pray.
I needed to get ready to conduct the Sunday service two days later, and when a family member suggested that I should get a substitute, I said that God had given me a job to do, and with that job came the ability to do it. As it says in the Bible, “For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me” (Job 23:14).
There was progress as I worked closely with a Christian Science practitioner. I held to the truth that Life is God, good, and not evil; that I am not material but rather a complete and spiritual expression of Soul, God; and that there is no sin, no error, in God’s creation. I had to know that sin, sickness, and death never came from God, so I could not be made to bow down to them or give them power.
