Healed of a broken back

Here’s an account of a healing I had last summer. I had been showing some contractors around in the attic of our Sunday school. In my excitement to get their help with insulation, I lost my balance and ended up falling through the drop-ceiling.

Immediately I tried to get up, but couldn’t. One of the contractors quickly came down the ladder and asked if I was ok. I said I would be fine – I was in the military. He responded, “Yes, but you’re still human.” I appreciated his concern, but mainly wanted to be alone. The contractors left when my wife arrived on the scene. My wife asked how she could help. We were surrounded by hymnals, and although she hadn’t sung a hymn in many years, I knew I could ask for one now. It was wonderful to hear her sing!

I was able to crawl down the stairs and into the car. But the next day, I was still on my couch and realized I would not be going back to work soon. It was hard to sleep because of the pain in my back. I remember that it seemed ironic that the lesson that week was “Adam and Fallen Man.”

Since I’m a veteran, I decided to go to the VA hospital to see if any bones should be set. My dad and wife drove me to the hospital very carefully, but the trip was painful. The hospital had no X-ray or surgeon available, so they provided an ambulance that took me to a regional medical center. I was grateful for all the care the drivers took to make sure I was comfortable. After a long day of scans and waiting, the doctors said I had three fractures in my spine, but there was nothing they could do. They offered me pain treatments, but I refused because I was already relying on the might of that one Mind who rules out every pain.

A loving practitioner took up my case. When I didn’t know what else to affirm, she said, “Just obey.” That simple action, obeying God and his good thoughts, quieted worn-out assertions and revealed the truth that things were already good. Throughout this experience, my favorite new truth was, “Outside the material sense of things, all is harmony” (Science and Health, p. 489:28–29). This concept shifted my standpoint from reaching for a healing to letting the truth come out.

A pattern was emerging to me: If I should “banish the belief” that I “can possibly entertain a single intruding pain which cannot be ruled out by the might of Mind” (Science and Health, p. 391:9-12) and at the same time live “outside the material sense of things,” then the pain I thought I felt just wasn’t real – it was a belief that couldn’t change reality, and never had. Instead of Spirit being the point I was striving to reach, it was actually where I already was. 

The initial prediction from the ER doctor was that my recovery would take three to four months. But within a few days I was walking with a soft brace, and within a few weeks I was back at work at my remote desk at home. Thanks to God and Christian Science, by the end of the summer I was wrestling with my kids on a paddle-board. In the fall, I was able to build a patio that involved moving 375-pound rocks with a dolly.

I find it interesting that a student remembered Mrs. Eddy saying, “whenever anything happens to you of an unfortunate nature, do not admit anything on the wrong side, but instantly declare that the experience does you good. Even if you should fall down and break your leg, get up and say, ‘I am the better for this experience.’ This is the [t]ruth as God would declare it, for every attempt of evil, when surmounted and destroyed, helps the one who is attacked . . . ” (We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, Expanded Edition, Volume 2, p. 424).

We are blessed to have been taught this Science of Life, which is freely given. I’m so grateful to be in this Association that doesn’t rest on personality, but on Principle – the Truth.

Practitioner’s statement Throughout my work on this case, my patient was expectant, unfearing, obedient. We both accepted the fact that unlimited power could be found in making God everything.  There was genuine evidence of steadiness of unfoldment, of obeying new views of perfect God and perfect man. His willingness to live, not on the level of a broken body, but in the allness of God, healed him.

Learning to communicate lovingly with those from differing backgrounds

I’m happy to be sending in this account of God’s work in His universal Church, of which all mankind is a member.

My young Sunday School students have been learning the usual Sunday School lessons specified in the Manual. My class has also been a laboratory for learning how to communicate solid, correct Christian Science, while expressing love, patience, and tolerance for those with diverging views.

Five or six years ago, a boy who was originally from Vietnam became a regular visitor to my Sunday School class. This boy and his family also attended a fundamentalist evangelical church. Because of their differing backgrounds, the students in my class would sometimes have disagreements concerning the truth about God.

At one point there were so many comments about the old theological concepts of sin and punishment that I decided to create a lesson to directly challenge those ideas. Although the lesson was presented with love, all that it accomplished was to make the student feel confused and sad. As a result, I decided never again to directly challenge false religious beliefs in that way. Instead, my job would be to present correct Christian Science, letting God leaven thought in His own way and in His own time. Mrs. Eddy instructs, “The way to extract error from mortal mind is to pour in truth through flood-tides of love” (Science and Health, p. 201:17–18). She does not say to pour in corrections through flood-tides of love! As I focused on pouring in truth, class conflicts about religious concepts lessened and then disappeared.

Another time, this student’s parents wrote a letter saying that they would no longer attend our church. It was simply too much driving for them to attend our church and then drive an hour to attend another church. Soon they stopped coming. After a while, however, the family returned. The boy and his brother said that they liked coming to our Sunday School and insisted on attending. Soon they resumed regular attendance and no longer attended the evangelical church. As the Bible tells us, “and a little child shall lead them” (Isa. 11:6).

I am happy to report that this boy is now an integral part of our church and has shared testimonies of healing in our Sunday School class and at the Thanksgiving service! An added bonus is that we have all been learning to communicate lovingly and tolerantly with those from differing backgrounds. Isn’t that the need of the hour in this world?

Further growth in church began six months ago, when another new family began attending our church. The family – a mother and two children – had recently arrived from Iran. The 10-year-old boy joined my 4th graders, and the teenage girl attended the high school class. The mother was very intent on learning about Christianity. In fact, besides leaving an oppressive government, the woman’s main motive for moving to the United States was to learn about Christianity. Since Christianity is outlawed in Iran, she had never attended a Christian church.

One day after Sunday School, the woman told me that she wanted to learn what her son was learning, and she wanted me to teach her. I was a bit shocked, but said I would be happy to help. Thus began a series of weekly Bible-Lesson study sessions, each of which lasted about 2 1/2 hour. On the first day, we could only get through the Responsive Reading and Section 1. She grappled with the English vocabulary and metaphysical concepts. The next week we finished the entire lesson. We have now worked together for six months, and she is literally soaking in the Christ! I have rarely seen anyone so hungry for the Truth. She and her family attend every Sunday and Wednesday, and she has already inquired about church membership.

During this time, we have marveled to see that all along she was being called to learn about the God of Love, not a false God of oppression. It was no accident that her new home is within easy walking distance of our church. Recently she was amazed to learn that our church publishes the Monitor, a newspaper she has read and appreciated for years because of its truthful and balanced reporting.

During the recent crackdown in immigration policy, my new friend became extremely fearful that she might be deported back to Iran. At certain times she would find herself crying uncontrollably and being unable to sleep. At one study session, she told me she was so upset that she couldn’t concentrate on the lesson we had been trying to read.

She had tried to pray about this, but felt she was getting nowhere. She asked me how to pray. I asked her what she had learned in Christian Science that caused her to love and trust God, or that made her feel safe. In other words, what spoke directly to her heart? She said she had learned that God would always love her and take care of her. He would never abandon her. I told her to write that down on a piece of paper, and just feel the power of the message. I would write down something that spoke to me in the same way. Then we would share the messages with each other. We did this a few more times, sharing as we went. Soon the fear lifted and she was free.

Afterward, she gave this testimony at our Wednesday service. My friend confided in me that she had been a doctor in Iran and brought with her a basket of pills to help her and her daughter sleep at night. But since coming to the United States and learning about Christian Science, they no longer needed them; they were sleeping peacefully. This was a revelation to her. She had already been questioning the practices of medical science, and now Christian Science was giving her answers. 

This lovely family has brought huge blessings to our church congregation, which has embraced them into our church family. All three members of the family are drinking in the message of the Bible and Science and Health. It is changing their lives. They are learning what it is to feel the joy and security of walking with God in His own kingdom of heaven, the heaven Jesus said was at hand!

Not guilty in the Supreme Court of Spirit

I’m especially grateful for the healing of a back injury that occurred earlier this year. One afternoon while going out to play tennis with my wife, I responded to a friend’s request to roll his ball toward him on an adjoining court. The ball was at my feet, and as I bent over to return it, I suddenly found myself in severe pain. Although I was able to walk and even hit some balls, getting beyond the claim of pain seemed difficult, despite my best efforts to work about it. I held fast to the scientific statement of being, silently declaring every truth I could, and we managed to get home without incident.

Over the next day or so, I constantly found myself facing the argument that an injury had occurred as the result of responding to a friend’s request for help. Mortal mind was determined to have me believe its lie.

Then all of a sudden it hit me: Divine Mind doesn’t know anything about this. Tremendous freedom came with that realization, and the claim of severe injury lifted. I knew I could rest assured of the truth of that statement, because it is a spiritual fact. It is undergirded by God’s law, so there is nothing that can change or contradict it. The carnal mind’s insistence that its view of the situation was the only legitimate one was of no importance so long as I didn’t give it any authority. I recalled a statement that a wonderful Christian Science practitioner shared with me many years ago: “You can have millions or billions of zeros lined up one after another – just remember that they’re meaningless as long as you don’t put a number in front of them.”

I’m also very grateful for the loving support of a Christian Science practitioner. Within a couple of days, I was completely free from the problem. The trial in Science and Health, where the prisoner is found not guilty in the Supreme Court of Spirit – the only court having jurisdiction to hear the case – was also a strong reminder of the basis for my freedom.

On another occasion last year, I was able to be at my post as Second Reader despite having had the symptoms of a heavy cold earlier in the week. Upon inquiring if a friend could possibly substitute for me that Sunday, she reminded me that freedom is normal and that we both have a healthy disbelief in matter. With that reminder, I continued to work with expectancy and joy, and I was able to go forward with the reading. The Word was unobstructed.

Seeing what is already true

Here is a wonderful healing from this past fall. As I was preparing for a very busy season with my business, my forehead started to hurt in a way that was very distracting. This claim dragged on for more than a week, and I called a practitioner to pray with me. The practitioner encouraged me to watch my thought by mentally saying, “Get thee hence, Satan,” anytime a claim of pain tried to distract me. I realized I needed to do that instead of probing my forehead for pain.

On Wednesday, a testimony at church helped to break the mesmerism of fear. The testifier mentioned a statement I didn’t remember ever reading in Science and Health: “Principle is not to be found in fragmentary ideas” (p. 302:1). The testifier also mentioned how an article called “Man Is a Unit” by Paul Stark Seeley connected to Mrs. Eddy’s statement (Sentinel, August 21, 1943). Then another person gave a testimony telling how she’d had a healing after reading that article. I felt very inspired and read the article the next morning.

That day I felt so much freer in my thought—the cloud of worry that had been hovering for more than a week disappeared. I felt joyful again as I worked on a project with a friend. I wasn’t tempted to touch my forehead at all that day. When I washed my face that night, I noticed it was still tender, but I knew that healing had already occurred in thought. I felt happy the next day, too, and the physical claim started to lift and then vanished over the next day or two.

I am very grateful for this healing! One additional aspect of this healing was that I learned that Christian Science is a science or knowledge of the way things are, not a healing approach that may or may not work. I am not making something true but rather seeing what is already true.

Awakened to the need to pray about everything

My stepdaughter was getting married the day after Thanksgiving, and I was busy with my seasonal business. On Wednesday when I got home from church, I discovered a note on my apartment door saying my upstairs neighbor had found a big box of merchandise addressed to me outside his door. I went upstairs and discovered that someone had opened the box and taken several thousand dollars’ worth of merchandise. Thanksgiving was the next day, and this was the last thing I wanted to deal with.

I was, frankly, very angry. Based on video footage from the lobby, my building’s super suspected that a man who had previously stolen packages from our building had also taken my merchandise, and I was feeling personally angry at him. (Rather than praying about the claim of package theft in my building, I had just assumed that my 50-lb boxes would be too heavy for anyone to walk off with.) I called the police to report the theft and was told to wait until the officers arrived.

At this point, I thought I should really pray! My thought was rather agitated, but I picked up a Sentinel and read an article called “Humility, not reaction” by Thomas Mitchinson (Sentinel, December 2, 2024), which helped calm my thought. I felt led to pray for the person who had taken my merchandise, to try to see him as God sees him and to know that he could hear God speaking to him.

One idea from Science and Health that I pray with every day is “All of God’s creatures, moving in the harmony of Science, are harmless, useful, indestructible” (p. 514:28–30). I love to pray with this statement when I am driving, and I find it helpful in praying for the world to know that we are all moving “in the harmony of Science,” that we each are useful and cannot harm one another.

As I prayed about the theft, I realized I also needed to pray about the upcoming Thanksgiving gathering and the family wedding on Friday. At the wedding I would meet my husband’s ex-wife for the first time. I was nervous about meeting her, and there was also a claim of some family tensions. By the time I went to bed, I did feel a sense of peace. 

As we prepared to leave for Thanksgiving, I decided I was not going to mention the package situation at all. I just kept praying that we could only see, express, and experience Love. And it turned out to be an absolutely wonderful Thanksgiving! There was no evidence of family tension, and I had lovely interactions with my husband’s ex-wife and all the very kind people I met. The wedding the next day was similarly harmonious and really joyful. We were so grateful for this love-filled time and for the expanded sense of family. Thank you, God.

In a nice little coda to this, my stepson encouraged me to file an insurance claim for the missing merchandise. I did and to my surprise, my claim was accepted. (I had thought my renter’s insurance would not cover a package for my business that was stolen from outside my door.) I did have to pay a deductible, but was very grateful to receive enough to cover quite a bit of the stolen merchandise. I think the most important part of this whole experience, though, was that it awakened me to the need to pray about everything!