A profound statistic to consider
When illness spreads, statistics play a big role in containment and information efforts, but they also stir fear. Here’s an article exploring a number the author has found particularly meaningful, even healing: the spiritual perspective that God, good, has 100% of the power.
I keep hearing authorities say, in relation to COVID-19, that it’s the numbers that tell us the real story of how things are spreading, how hospitals will cope, and when it will be safe to return to normal. I so appreciate the systematic and attentive care being given to seeing our way through this pandemic as quickly and safely as possible, yet it is all too easy to become fascinated by, and fearful of, these statistics.
In light of that, I am impelled to share a healing I had years ago that helped shed light for me on a number of a different kind, namely the amount of influence God actually has on our lives.
My grandson Collin’s school was facing a flu outbreak. A caring note was sent home that said, in effect, “Sixty-five percent of the children are absent from school; please watch your children carefully for symptoms, and keep them home until they are healthy.” Accordingly, my daughter kept Collin home the next day, as he woke up listless and feverish. But she needed to go to work, so I had Collin over to my house.
I thought of a passage I love in the Bible. The 91st Psalm assures us that we are safe in God, who is divine Love, and our awareness of this spiritual reality is like being in a secret place that cannot be assailed by illness or injury. We can experience this tangibly when we’re listening for spiritual and pure thoughts from God, who is also divine Mind. These thoughts help us know the oneness, allness, goodness, and harmony of God’s entire creation. They awaken us to the spiritual view of creation, how God sees each of us: as spiritual ideas that are always held safely in divine Mind.
I was inspired by these ideas, and by lunchtime Collin was able to eat some soup. When his mom picked him up in the late afternoon, he bounded joyfully to the car, free of the symptoms he’d been experiencing previously.
But just after Collin left, I suddenly felt quite ill with all of the symptoms that Collin had had earlier, and had to sit down. My heart went out in protest against the notion that caregivers could somehow be punished for expressing God’s love toward others. God’s love is powerful and healing – more powerful than any disease.
Then the 65% figure from the letter sent home from school came to thought. It occurred to me that, as the Bible declares, God is all-powerful – not just 35% powerful, but 100% supreme. A passage from 2 Corinthians refers to “casting down” whatever would hinder “the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (10:5). In my prayers, I was really defending my right to know what Jesus knew to prompt such healing effects, to entertain the Christly understanding that God is All. And I refused to marginalize God by seeing divine Mind as merely a possible source of help that could be appealed to with only a vague hope.
With great inspiration, I felt the certainty that God, good, is 100% of the power in our lives, and I saw that this is the most profound and significant statistic, because God having this amount of authority means that divine goodness is the only true determiner of our health. A dynamic one-liner from the textbook of Christian Science, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” declares, “The allness of Deity is His oneness” (p. 267). The book, written by Mary Baker Eddy, also says of all of us as God’s creation, “As a drop of water is one with the ocean, a ray of light one with the sun, even so God and man, Father and son, are one in being” (p. 361). In our spiritual oneness with our heavenly Father, God, we have perfect health.
At that moment, I got up. I’d been completely healed within the 10 minutes I’d been praying. I went on to fix dinner and have a normal evening.
Even as we are sheltering in place in support of efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic, we can shelter in “the secret place of the most High” (Psalms 91:1), the one God, whose power is truly 100%. Caregivers on the front lines, patients, others yearning to help the best we can – no one is helpless. Through prayer, each of us can become more aware of the spiritual reality that God’s love is always enveloping, comforting, reassuring, and supporting everyone, everywhere.