I love winter activities and feeding birds in winter. One bright, crisp December morning in 2024, my puppy and I went out to feed the birds after a snowfall of almost two feet. As I was filling the feeders, watching my puppy frolic in the snow, I suddenly crashed to the ground, having fallen over a boulder hidden in deep snow. I lay there disoriented for a moment, then quickly turned my thought to God. I knew that divine Love was with me and surrounds us wherever we are or whatever seems to be.
My right arm was extremely painful and unusable. It occurred to me that it might be broken. My puppy, seeing me on the ground, began licking my face and encouraging me. But my house, across the garden and yard, seemed a mile away. Right then, a strengthening thought came to me: “Rise in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike good.” I’ve read this call to action by Mary Baker Eddy many times in the Christian Science textbook. The sentence that follows assures us, “God has made man capable of this, and nothing can vitiate the ability and power divinely bestowed on man” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 393).
Despite struggling, I was able to get up. I felt dizzy, unsteady, not ready to walk in deep snow. But I clung to the truth that God was ever present and empowering me. With the strength of divine Spirit I made it all the way back to the house and called a Christian Science practitioner to pray for me. He reminded me that I was always in divine Love’s care and gave me a hymn that begins:
