Governed only by God’s law

One day I did a strenuous activity that required some agility. That night I woke up and found that one wrist was extremely painful. The next day I couldn’t use my hand.

As I prayed that morning, these statements by Mary Baker Eddy particularly stood out: “We cannot in reality suffer from breaking anything except a moral or spiritual law….God is the lawmaker, but He is not the author of barbarous codes…. It is man’s moral right to annul an unjust sentence, a sentence never inflicted by divine authority (Science and Health 381:10–12, 15–16, 28).

I reasoned, I am innocent. There is no material cause. God, the only lawmaker, never inflicted pain, so as His image and likeness, pain is not mine to experience.

I went about my day doing things that I needed to do. I was able to do everything without drawing attention to the lack of mobility of my hand.

Soon the pain stopped entirely. The swelling and discoloration disappeared a couples of days after that. A key lesson for me was the conviction that I was governed only by God’s law, not a material law.