Sprained Ankle Healed

I was raised in a home where we relied on Christian Science treatment to heal our problems. Our parents took us to the Christian Science Sunday School where I learned about the all-loving God, who is Love itself. I knew I could trust Love’s constant care of me. As a young boy, through my mother’s prayer, I had experienced spiritual healing of an extremely painful ear infection. I had also successfully healed a burn on my finger when in grade school through my own prayers. So I felt pretty confident that God could always help and heal me.

As a teenager, while playing football with some friends, I severely sprained my ankle. It quickly swelled up. The pain was so severe I couldn’t walk on the foot at all. I had to be carried home. I called a Christian Science practitioner to pray with me for healing. She gave me hymns from the Christian Science Hymnal to read and think about. They mostly had to do with not being afraid because God’s power and goodness are always all around me, caring for me and protecting me.

I talked with the practitioner every day and prayed the best I knew how while the practitioner prayed for me, too. I don’t recall exactly how I prayed, but I knew I had to overcome the fear that something was terribly wrong with my foot and that I could have a permanent injury. It was very frightening. So my prayer generally had to do with striving to feel God’s love and becoming aware that I could never be outside that always-present Love—and consequently not be hurt or suffer pain.

After three days there had been little improvement. I had been confined to the couch for those days, not able to walk or put any pressure on the foot because of the pain.

However, I felt tremendously motivated to be healed quickly. Besides being bored sitting on the couch all day, I was about to start tenth grade at a large high school that was all new to me. It was scary to think about going to a new big school where I would have to find my way around and be with all new kids. I wanted to be there the first day with all the other new kids and not come in a few days later being the only new kid, and get lost and look like a dork.

Yet, on this third day of sitting on the couch, school had already started and my ankle was no better. I felt sure God was there for me and would heal me, but it wasn’t happening.

I also knew that something needed to change in my thought for the physical healing to take place. One change that was taking place ever so slowly was that I was becoming less and less afraid. That was happening because I was spending so much time reading hymns and thinking about God and His constant care for me. I began to feel more connected to God.

So with a combination of frustration of not getting anywhere with this, and a solid confidence in God, I stood up on my one good foot and hopped to the end of the couch. I thought I’m going to stand here all day if I have to. I knew that there was no reason that I couldn’t hear God’s messages of love and assurance and comfort, and be healed.

I didn’t feel that it was God’s fault that I wasn’t healed. I felt I wasn’t being receptive enough to hear what I needed to hear. So I closed my eyes and thought about my conversations with the practitioner about God, and the messages of the hymns that I had read, letting those words of reassuring truth about my spiritual, perfect nature fill my thought. The best way I can describe it is that I wasn’t thinking intellectually about facts, but rather, I just wanted to feel in my heart what I had been thinking about over those days. So I let all those inspiring thoughts in and tried to see only God and His creation, including me, as completely spiritual.

In a few minutes, I felt God’s presence with me, and I knew I had experienced a complete healing. I proceeded to walk normally into the kitchen. All the pain had gone. There was no discomfort at all. Since that moment, I have had no more problems with my ankle.

Now, here’s the interesting thing. Although this sudden change was pretty dramatic, it wasn’t like some big excitement where I danced around the house. I just felt an inner, peaceful excitement. I felt so overwhelmed with experiencing God’s presence with me—kind of a light and warmth—and knowing that everything was okay, I just felt that it was so normal to be able to walk with no pain. At that moment it was no big deal—it just made sense. The truth about my constant perfection as a child of God was evident to me.

This healing occurred many years ago. In all the years since then I have continued to have spiritual healings, never needing to rely on any other kind of treatment besides prayer.

 Originally published in The Christian Science Journal, January 2007.