One winter morning years ago when I was teaching middle school, I arrived at my portable classroom to find that ice covered the ten steps leading up to the door. I carefully walked up the steps, making a mental note to remind the janitors to sand them before the children arrived. Yet shortly afterward, in my haste to attend an early morning meeting, I forgot about the ice and slid down the steps on my shins. After hitting the pavement below, something felt wrong with my leg. The pain was so aggressive, all I could think of was to say aloud, “No! No! No! I won’t accept this as true.”
After some time, I was able to hobble to the nurse’s office to borrow some crutches. The nurse asked to see my leg and expressed alarm at the possibility of permanent damage, a permanent limp, if I didn’t get the bone set immediately.
I prayed to eliminate the fear I felt. I recalled what Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, says in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “Stand porter at the door of thought. Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily results, you will control yourself harmoniously” (p. 392).
