A quick healing of a fractured wrist
When a high school basketball player was told that he would have to miss the rest of his season due to an injury, he turned to God for help – and a fresh perspective on our true nature as God’s children brought quick and complete healing.
The basketball season was well underway, and things were getting pretty intense. Early in the second half of one game, another player knocked me down, and I noticed some pain in my right wrist. It didn’t seem too bad, and I thought I might be able to just put some ice on it and play in the next game. But when my coach saw how swollen my wrist was, he asked me to get it checked out before I played again.
A few hours later, I found myself at a medical clinic, where a doctor was explaining to me that I had fractured my wrist. He said that in order for it to heal I would need to wear a cast for about six weeks – meaning I would miss the rest of the basketball season and have to take my final exams left-handed.
I was surprised, and after hearing his assessment, had a lot of negative thoughts – like that my basketball season was over and that I wouldn’t perform well on my finals because I couldn’t write. I also had to decide what care to accept for my wrist. While the doctor had recommended a hard cast, he was also willing to let me use just a temporary sling.
In thinking about which option to choose, I realized that using a hard cast sort of implied that it would take a certain amount of time for my wrist to heal. As a Christian Scientist, I’d learned that healings can happen through prayer and can be quick, even instantaneous, like they are in the Bible. I wanted to leave room for that possibility with my wrist, so I decided that putting my wrist in the sling would help me put full faith in God for healing rather than time.
Though I wanted to stay positive and was expecting healing, I found the next few days mentally challenging, and it was hard to keep my thoughts focused on God. Then on Sunday I went to Christian Science Sunday School, which ended as it always does with a passage called “the scientific statement of being” from “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mary Baker Eddy. The part that stood out to me was: “Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual” (p. 468).
Yes, I’d heard these words hundreds of times, but this was the first time I took them to heart. They gave me a new outlook about God and about my real nature. Since God is Spirit and man (including everyone) is spiritual, I am – like God – without limitation. I didn’t have to wait to become spiritual or complete; that’s what I already am.
At that point I decided to stop looking at the problem and start looking at the solution. I started praying with a Christian Science practitioner, and I read a lot of the chapter on physiology in Science and Health. Many things from that chapter stood out to me, but something that was especially relevant to my situation and inspired me a lot was this: “Jesus cast out evil and healed the sick, not only without drugs, but without hypnotism, which is the reverse of ethical and pathological Truth-power” (p. 185).
This gave me the confidence to keep looking to God, divine Mind, for answers and to focus on healing rather than on frustrations about what I couldn’t do physically.
After just a week and a half, my wrist was completely fine. My coach said I couldn’t play, though, unless the clinic gave me a clean bill of health, so I went back. Everyone at the clinic was pleased to see how quickly the wrist had healed, and they cleared me for play. This meant I didn’t need a sling anymore – and I was able to finish out the rest of the basketball season and take my finals with ease.
Although I was grateful that my wrist was fine, the most important part of this healing was the spiritual growth I experienced, because I now know that I can turn to God in any area of my life and He will give me the spiritual understanding and guidance I need.
Originally published in the Christian Science Sentinel’s online TeenConnect section, Feb. 22, 2022.
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