Angels were all around me

On Christmas morning, I had read the lesson for the week, the subject of which was “Christian Science.” It was full of images of light and promises of God’s enveloping care. I had liked one citation so much that I had written it in my notebook twice: “The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light” (Rom. 13:12). I had been praying all week to cast off a sense of darkness about family arrangements for the holidays that seemed less joyful than usual, and also to see that the world was not lost in darkness, even though a new variant of Covid was much in the news. That morning, I had found a place of quiet rejoicing that Jesus had been on earth, showing us how to live, and that Mrs. Eddy had dedicated her life to explaining the Science of Jesus’ teachings and healings. This was the Christmas we would celebrate that day.

It was a grey morning and had been raining, but the rain had stopped. I leashed up our two dogs and went outside to take them on a short walk before breakfast. What I didn’t realize was that the temperature was just low enough to turn the rain on the sidewalks into sheer ice. As I turned out of our driveway, my feet went out from under me and I hit the ground hard. One of my knees hit the pavement first, and the pain as well as the fall were startling. My first thought was “ow.” But because I had been so full of gratitude for the true light of Christmas, my second, insistent thought was, “This is NOT Christmas.” And faster than even that short sentence came the understanding that any projected darkness of a Christmas ruined by a fall was an impossibility, because angels, God’s glowing, loving thoughts, were all around me. My thought was an instantaneous dismissal of the suggestion that anything could “ruin” Christmas.

I repeated that healing thought, “This is NOT Christmas,” a couple of times, and suddenly some very tangible angels surrounded me. The dogs came and stood quietly next to me, as if protecting me; then I was aware of my husband lifting me onto my feet. Next my daughter appeared from the house, took the dog leashes from my hand, and marched off down the middle of the road – where it was less icy – with the dogs. I turned to my husband, who was steadying me, and said, “I’m OK.” That wasn’t a brave human declaration in spite of difficult human circumstances, but a spiritual declaration that as the loved reflection of God, good, I could never be anything but OK.

For much of the day, I was conscious of a pain in my knee, but I kept right on with the Christmas I knew was unfolding. When I was tempted to look at the knee to see if there was bruising or swelling, the angel thought that came, “Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not?” (Prov. 23:5) I was able to keep myself from looking at the knee all day, took a long walk in the afternoon, and by the evening was free of pain. The next day in the shower, I noticed that there was no sign of any fall. It was literally as though it had not happened. Which of course, it hadn’t.