Seeing God’s natural progress and harmony brings healing

With the focus for this year’s Association on healing (I suppose it always is, but this time oh-so-more-overtly!), I have to share a very fresh healing I’ve just had.

Yesterday morning I awoke with a tight feeling on the left side of my chest. I wrote it off as the result of having slept in a funny position, and went off to the gym for a vigorous “spin” class on the indoor bicycles. I didn’t feel any discomfort during the class or as I got ready for work, but after a few hours at the office the pain in my chest returned, this time sharper and more uncomfortable.

As I got up from my desk to clear my head, the thought came forcefully that Life is the only power. The next thought was just as clear: I needed to address this now, rather than waiting for the physical discomfort to go away.

I cut short my day at work and headed home to call a practitioner. It was about this time that mortal mind stepped in. Suggestions of discomfort—in hindsight, I see they really were only suggestions—took over, and the sense of pain spread down my left arm.

When I reached the practitioner, she immediately reminded me that there is only one force. She said she’d been thinking about wind recently. She pointed out that in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, which was in that week’s Responsive Reading, the wind carries away the broken pieces of the statue like chaff, and “no place was found for them.” In this same way, a suggestion of poor health could not cling to me; there was no place for it to lodge.

The practitioner was aware of my dad’s sudden passing several years ago from apparently similar symptoms, and she told me briefly and firmly that I was not to be afraid. In the past when my dad’s passing had come to thought, I had often been quick to block the fear, without pausing to consider why it couldn’t have any power over me. But when the practitioner mentioned my dad this time, I acknowledged right then and there that I had nothing to fear. My heritage is through God, not man, and the belief of heredity through matter has no basis, no foothold in thought or practice.

After we hung up, my husband helped me get comfortable in bed and I pulled my books and laptop close by. My first step was to support the practitioner’s work by calming my thought and ensuring that I was receptive to good. I then looked up “wind” in the dictionary. There were a number of definitions that I could find meaning in, but the first one caught my eye: “air in natural motion.” I recognized that circulation is “natural motion”—constant movement forward. Whether we’re talking about the motion of an idea or something seemingly more substantial, that movement is fluid and harmonious.

Lately, however, everything around me—work, church business, our extended family—had felt very inharmonious. Pressing most heavily on my thought was the resignation of my manager at work the previous week. Her resignation had been in the works for months, so it wasn’t a surprise to senior management or those of us who worked for her. But since her resignation, a colleague and I had become resentful about how little forethought had been put into managing the additional workload in her absence.

The increasing pressure had been a major obstacle to harmony, to say the least. I seemed to be projecting this pressure onto those around me, even going so far as to think, “If so-and-so isn’t careful, he’s going to make himself sick with all that stress.” (I’m actually embarrassed to admit I was thinking this way.) To top it off, there seemed to be an up-and-down aspect to the whole circus: I’d feel on top of things one day, only to get discouraged the next. Talk about animal magnetism!

But like the air’s “natural motion” in wind, God’s very natural motion is proved in man’s progress—progress that is undeniable and unstoppable for all mankind, regardless of how big the obstacle(s) appear(s) to be. And progress is harmonious. As Paul tells us, and as I’ve been reminding myself often, “All things work together for good to them that love God.”

I opened my books to read the Lesson and was immediately put at peace by the message of God’s spiritual foundation and goodness. There is no authority in matter and no authority in the five material senses, irrespective of how temptingly beautiful the matter-picture may be. Thinking about that idea more as I type this, I see the idea is quite literal. There is no author-ability in matter; that is, it doesn’t have the ability to author (write, create, manifest) our experience. All is under the control of Mind, the only source and the only creator. And we can recognize this reality through spiritual sense.

I fell asleep and awoke a few hours later to the most beautiful feeling of calm and strength. It was such a change from how I’d felt when I came home, that I caught myself questioning whether I’d blown the chest pains out of proportion. Of course, it was my thought that needed to be healed, not a physical condition, so the question was moot. (I’ve gotten clearer on this as I continue reading Christian Healer.)

But this experience has been a wake-up call. And it’s provided the foundation for me to see confidently that the Christ is present each step of the way. There’s no need to fear or to try to take this on single-handedly through self-determination. Beautiful! I have so much to be grateful for—mere words can’t describe it. But they are a start.