Prayer relieves pain, restores normal mobility

Last year, I began to experience intermittent pain in the lower part of my body, particularly in the pelvic and hip areas. The discomfort eventually became so aggressive that it virtually immobilized me. Standing and moving around for hours at a time, which is part of my daily work routine, became nearly impossible.

As a lifelong Christian Scientist, I’d learned through many experiences that I could totally depend on God for healing. I knew that the only way to a permanent resolution of this challenge was through gaining a clearer understanding of the spiritual fact that God made all in His image and likeness, and by discerning that His law of harmony applied to me right then. This law would also lead me to the specific healing truths I needed.

I prayed for many weeks. Although it was still difficult for me to move normally, I persisted in my prayers. I knew that God loved me as His very own, and as I continued to reach out to Him for direction, one day this verse from Isaiah came to my thought: “Shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding?” (29:16). As I reasoned with this idea, I became increasingly aware that my framework was not a physical body at all—as the material senses would have me believe—but the complete and perfect creation of God, Mind. I was supported not by bones, muscles, ligaments, and tendons, but by the strength and permanence that I reflect from my Maker, God.

Then I decided to look up any references that Mary Baker Eddy might have made to the word frame, and found this passage in her book Rudimental Divine Science: “You must learn to acknowledge God in all His ways. It is only a lack of understanding of the allness of God, which leads you to believe in the existence of matter, or that matter can frame its own conditions, contrary to the law of Spirit” (Rudimental Divine Science, pp. 10–11). The Christian Scientist, she continued, “… never introduces the subject of human anatomy; never depicts the muscular, vascular, or nervous operations of the human frame.”

That was the answer I needed. I had a firm conviction that God was unfolding these truths to me, and that they applied directly to what seemed to be a debilitating bodily condition. In God’s allness, matter could neither structure nor influence the true essence and nature of His creation—our spiritual individuality—and certainly had no power to form harmful conditions.

With this realization, I was healed that very day. My fear of being immobile or unable to perform my normal functions dissolved. The pain vanished and has not returned. I’ve been able to walk and stand freely as I’d always done.

I’d learned once again that to gain dominion over the belief in a power apart from God brings healing. How increasingly grateful I am for this logical and conclusive Science—the truths of which are always available when we listen for and follow Mind’s direction.

Lee Thursby | Birmingham, Alabama, US