The claim of discomfort just dropped away

I am most grateful for a healing that took place on a recent excursion. I was visiting my brother and his family in New Zealand. It was early in the trip, and one of my hips began to bother me. This was concerning because I was on this trip with my grown son and daughter, and they were hoping to go on a series of hikes in that very scenic and hilly country.

Then this mode of thought came to me: There is no location, no history, no story, nor cause for this suggestion of pain or discomfort, so don’t probe to look for any of those descriptors. (I don’t recall where I found this idea—maybe in a JSH-online article or a Sentinel Watch episode—but I have found it useful when suggestions of discomfort have tried to impose themselves upon me.) I identified myself as the perfect spiritual man of God’s creation and not a material individual who is subject to material so-called laws.

Another helpful thought came from a recent article by Lynn Gray Jackson entitled “Rules for Understanding and Healing.” At the beginning of her piece, she describes how a bird that sees its own reflection in a glass may think it is a rival and attack it. She refers to this imagined enemy as a phantom. She continues, “We may ask ourselves, ‘Do I have a phantom enemy or threat—a false belief, an illusion, something I believe to be existent in my life but that is not real?’ If so, wouldn’t wakening from this false belief to see reality—our perfect relation to God—bring healing?” (Journal, April 2026) I saw that phantom bird situation as a parallel to viewing ourselves (or others) as mortals. This is the phantom man that we are not to be impressed by.

At the end of our trip, I realized that the claim of hip discomfort had just dropped away. I couldn’t have said exactly when, but it was early on in the trip. It was very gratifying to see the power of Truth in action and to have the opportunity to keep thought aligned with God!