Recovering quickly from injury

Many people think that when they sustain a physical injury, recovery has to be slow or only partial. Yet this isn't the case. By gaining a spiritual view of cause and effect, one can cope quickly and successfully with the situation.

Christian Science, in accord with the inspired Word of the Bible, teaches that God, Spirit, is the only genuine cause, the sole creator of the universe, including man, and that the true nature of His creation is spiritual and wholly good. As the Bible declares, ''God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold , it was very good.'' n1

n1 Genesis 1:31.

What of the evil - the sickness, accident, and sin - that appears so real? We need to face up to it and heal it. And we do so more effectively as we begin to see its actual nature. The phenomena of evil are really manifestations of the basic misconception that there is a power opposed to God. But because God in His all-encompassing goodness never created evil conditions, they cannot affect His perfect reflection, man. In fact, they have no actual existence in God's sight. They are powerless, without substance.

Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered and founded Christian Science, says in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: ''There is but one primal cause. Therefore there can be no effect from any other cause, and there can be no reality in aught which does not proceed from this great and only cause.'' n2

n2 Science and Health, p. 207.

I proved the efficacy of this statement last year. In dashing to answer the phone one evening, I slipped on a throw rug and slammed into a door, badly injuring a toe. The pain was so intense I felt faint for a few moments. But as soon as my thought cleared, I began declaring some of the spiritual truths I had learned in my study of Christian Science, one of which was the statement quoted above. For the next several hours I continued acknowledging the truth of my unity with God, divine Mind, realizing that in reality nothing had happened to separate me from His omnipresent care. I knew that in His kingdom, where man truly abides, there could be no accidents and therefore no painful effects.

I also remembered this statement from Science and Health: ''The standard of perfection was originally God and man. Has God taken down His own standard, and has man fallen?

''God is the creator of man, and, the divine Principle of man remaining perfect, the divine idea or reflection, man, remains perfect. Man is the expression of God's being.'' n3

n3 Ibid., p.470.

By the next afternoon the pain and swelling had diminished to the point where I could walk around some, and within two more days all evidence of injury was gone.

Christ Jesus clearly understood man's eternal likeness to God and man's unchanging spiritual wholeness. On this basis the Master healed all kinds of physical troubles. His works brought to light the fact that man has never really fallen from his original spiritual state of being, and that nothing can interfere with his freedom and well-being as the offspring of God.

Because God is Spirit and infinite good, the real man and universe are entirely spiritual and good. The physical senses and human reasoning may insist this is nonsense, a meaningless abstraction. But through spiritual sense and purification of thought, we begin to see that all evidences of physical injury, no matter how real they sometimes appear, are never more than temporal illusions - corrected through a humble, prayerful realization of man's real, always intact , immortal being.

Through a thoughtful study of the Bible in the light of Christian Science, one can gain a demonstrable understanding of God as the only cause and successfully apply this understanding. Whatever the condition confronting him, he can experience restoration to health and normality and freedom - and this need not take time. Thus, he can prove, in some degree, that man is subject only to God's beneficent laws; that in reality, there can be ''no effect from any other cause.'' DAILY BIBLE VERSE Thou, O Lord, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head. Psalms 3:3