A number of years ago when I was working overseas, I took a business trip to another city and at one point went out for a jog. However, I wound up turning my ankle very badly and had to stop and sit down.
When I’d been cheerleading in high school, I’d had a similar experience and had ended up on crutches for a period of time. This initially felt much the same, but there was a difference. While my first thought was “Where can I find a taxi to carry me back to my hotel?” my next and much better thought—as someone who was learning to rely on Christian Science—was to know I had what I needed right with me.
So I got quiet to listen for how God was guiding me. I wondered, “What would Jesus do?” In her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy wrote that Jesus never feared or obeyed error in any form (see p. 244).
Individuals who study Christian Science recognize the word error as a term for evil or anything not good. We recognize God, divine Love, as the great and only cause and creator of the universe and accept that, as stated in the Bible, “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). We also recognize man (including each of us) as made in God’s image and likeness, as stated in Genesis 1:26, and that “God is a Spirit” (John 4:24). This being so, I saw myself not as a material person inside a material body, but as the spiritual image and likeness of Spirit, God.
I decided that I could truly trust and rely on these truths. I stood up and started jogging again. At first it felt as though I might not be able to continue, but I kept uplifting my thoughts away from the material picture. And as I ran, I started reciting “the scientific statement of being” from the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health. It says: “There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual” (p. 468).
As I kept repeating this, acknowledging and feeling the truth of it, I gained more and more confidence, joy, and freedom in my movement. I jogged another twenty minutes or so back to my hotel with no problem.
As I was bathing afterward, I recognized that I still needed to further clear my thought. I remembered that earlier that day I had wandered into a carnival going on in the city and had felt it had a bit of an ugly or evil atmosphere. I decided to know the truth about this, and saw more fully that God is the only Mind and that God is entirely loving and good. Since I was aware that God is infinite, filling all space, I reasoned that this left no space for any other atmosphere than that of divine Love.
I felt at peace then and was able to return to work the next day in my high heels with not even a trace of a limp or swelling of any kind.
But my story didn’t end there. The next month I was working in another city in another country and was out jogging in the evening, when the same thing happened again. I turned my ankle, and this time it felt even worse. I thought, “Oh, no! I’m going to have to heal this all over again!” But the next instant, a thought came to me that this was just an evil suggestion. I remembered that people often refer to “the power of suggestion,” and then I smiled broadly and with confidence.
The reason? I knew for certain that there is in reality no power of suggestion, because the only power is God, who is absolute Truth. These Bible passages confirm that: “He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he” (Deuteronomy 32:4), and “God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this; that power belongeth unto God” (Psalms 62:11). As before, I knew that I am only the spiritual image and likeness of God.
I quickly ran back to my apartment in that city, and the healing was complete. I was out jogging again the next day, completely free.
I am so grateful for Christian Science and the many healings I’ve experienced in all aspects of my life. And I love how each healing teaches me something new about God and makes me stronger going forward.
Judy Woodson
Palm Desert, California, US
