Injured foot healed

I love exploring my city of Los Angeles on foot. I enjoy meeting new people, looking out over the Pacific Ocean, observing the flowers and the colors of this vibrant area.

One day, I returned home from one of my long evening walks and went straight to bed—I was exhausted, and my feet felt unusually sore. In the morning, I noticed my left foot was tender and painful.

But instead of being alarmed by this, I prayed about it, and soon the pain was gone. But as the day wore on, the pain returned, and although I continued to pray, it persisted.

By the next day, my foot was swollen, and I noticed what looked like a bone sticking out, although nothing had broken the skin. Soon I was in so much pain that I could no longer pray for myself. So I called a friend, who is a Christian Science practitioner, to help me.

One concept my friend and I prayed with was in the Bible story of Jacob, who wrestled with an angel. We talked about the fact that, like Jacob, I needed to face the angel thoughts—or divine messages I had from God—and not let them go until I understood their meaning.

Soon after I spoke with the practitioner, the persistent pain was gone, which enabled me to really listen without distraction for God’s angel messages. I took a close look at my thinking, and the first thing I recognized was a persistent thought I had been getting that clearly wasn’t coming from God.

It went something like this: “Sure, I’m the image and likeness of God as the Bible states, but that will probably appear true many years from now, or when I leave this body, or when I just stop messing up. And anyway, this spiritual perfection is truer for other people than for me.”

As I faced this thought, a clear angel message came to me: My identity, as created by God, is forever pure, unchanged, and untouched. I made an effort to think deeply about this angel message and not let it go until I understood it. I thought about the practitioner’s reminder to me that with prayer, God does the healing work—not us.

By the end of the week, on Sunday, I felt comfortable enough to walk to church. Although my foot was still not its normal shape, I remained free of pain. As I was walking and praying on the one-and-a-half mile walk to church, I thought about God as Mind, which is one of the synonyms I’d been focusing my spiritual study on recently.

I saw that this divine Mind—the only intelligence—created everything good and perfect, including me.

Mary Baker Eddy defined man, in part, as “the compound idea of God, including all right ideas.” I concluded that as God’s idea, I must also include purity, love, kindness, health, and harmony. I realized that God, Mind, maintains all of these ideas as perfect and unchanged because He is also Love.

I saw that these ideas were true—and that they in fact presented a clearer picture of my identity than the picture of a hurt foot. As these truths and my relationship to God became clearer to me, my fears receded, too.

I stopped feeling that I was responsible for the healing. I even stopped fearing that this problem would recur, or that any walking I’d done could in some way damage me more.

After church, I sat in the lobby, continuing to contemplate these thoughts. I rejoiced in the clearer view I had of my unchanged spiritual selfhood. At that moment, I heard a crack and felt something adjusting in my foot. The pressure of the displaced area of the foot against my shoe completely disappeared, and my foot looked normal again, although it still felt a bit tender.

At that moment, I prayed to see that this healing was complete. I reaffirmed that a painful experience could never truly have touched my real, spiritual identity. After all, how could an idea actually suffer? Within a short time after this, the tenderness in my foot completely disappeared.

This healing has given me a greater sense of peace and a more secure sense of self-worth. I’m back to enjoying my long daily walks, rejoicing in how God must see everyone—as loved, holy, sinless, and whole.

And I’m grateful that God’s healing messages never give up. They’re always available, communicating to each one of us in just the way we need to hear them.

Eric Oyama lives in Los Angeles, California, United States.

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