When I was about eight years old, my mom fell hard while we were ice-skating. Her head hit the ice, and when my dad and I went to help her up, she couldn’t tell us who she was. As students of Christian Science, we chose to turn to prayer in the face of this alarming situation. To us, this meant looking away from what the physical senses were telling us and seeking to understand what was spiritually true about my mom as God’s dear child.
We prayed with this statement by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science: “Accidents are unknown to God, or immortal Mind, 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” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 424). I also thought about a favorite children’s book, Travis Talks with God by Jack H. Thornton. In this story, a little boy named Travis is healed after a sledding accident. Just as he could hear God talking to him, I was certain that my mom could hear God talking to her, too.
On the car ride home, we prayed aloud together the Lord’s Prayer, as well as Mrs. Eddy’s “Daily Prayer” and “scientific statement of being” (see Church Manual, p. 41, and Science and Health, p. 468). I was delighted that my mom knew every word. God’s comforting truths were being expressed through her with great clarity—proof that her identity could not be lost. My mom also sang along to our favorite hymns. Her unity with God, the one Mind, shone through.
