Sports injury healed
By Leslie J. Revilock
From the June 2016 issue of The Christian Science Journal
Last summer, while playing tennis, I reached to hit a shot and injured my back to the extent that I could not continue playing or even bend down to pick up my tennis bag. The people I was playing with were helpful but concerned.
I started to pray immediately, thinking of myself as the joyous expression of divine Soul, and knowing that, as an idea of God, I was made of the substance of Spirit, which couldn’t be damaged. I felt comfortable enough to drive home, and continued praying and declaring the spiritual fact of my true identity as God’s child. I was able to cook supper and sit and read, and I went to bed that night peacefully.
But when I woke up the next day, I could hardly get out of bed or walk. I called a Christian Science practitioner to help me. We talked for a while, and she lovingly encouraged me to completely yield to divine Love in my thought. She also said that we walk in the direction in which we look (see Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 451), so I should keep looking and walking mentally and prayerfully in the direction of Truth and Love.
I turned my thought to the contemplation of God’s love and of my holiness as God’s reflection, and the practitioner and I stayed in touch throughout the day. I could walk and move more easily by that evening. The next morning I was feeling much better, but I asked the practitioner to continue praying for me during the Sunday service at my branch Church of Christ, Scientist, as I was First Reader and would need to be up in front of the congregation to conduct the service. Progress continued, and after the service the pain was gone, and I could walk and move freely by the next day.
However, a few days later the pain suddenly returned more severely in a different area of my back. I could hardly walk at all and spent most of the day in bed, singing and praying with hymns from the Christian Science Hymnal, and pondering some passages from Mary Baker Eddy’s writings that the practitioner pointed out to me.
The first passage was a statement Mrs. Eddy makes in No and Yes on page 11: “Man has perpetual individuality; and God’s laws, and their intelligent and harmonious action, constitute his individuality in the Science of Soul.” The second was from Science and Health: “The recuperative action of the system, when mentally sustained by Truth, goes on naturally” (p. 447). What I took away from these statements was that I am naturally and inherently harmonious and perfect because this is the spiritual fact of my being within God’s creation and law. When I still couldn’t move by that evening, a substitute Reader was graciously able to step in on short notice and read for me at the Wednesday evening testimony meeting at church.
I remember telling the practitioner that I could feel the light of Truth, and I knew God was with me, but that it seemed there was no fresh inspiration coming. She assured me that God’s angels, His angel messages, were bringing God’s Word to me. All I needed to do was listen for them.
And listen I did. The next day my thinking was much clearer. I could feel God’s presence and love more tangibly, through the power of Spirit acting in my thought, and I could get up and move much more easily. By Saturday I was completely well and rejoicing with gratitude for this proof of God’s power and of my perfect being as His expression. I’ve been playing tennis every week since then.
I am grateful that we can prove that we are never separated from God and that we are truly, “Sinless, fearless, whole, rejoicing, / Now and through eternity” (Violet Hay, Hymnal, No. 175,
© CSBD).
Leslie J. Revilock
Williamsburg, Virginia, US