In two days she had recovered from her wounds

I feel more confident in the practice since reading the compilation of testimonies. If Science and Health and the Bible are our Pastor, then the Bound Volumes are our law books. They show us, case after case, precedent after precedent, the way things really work, the healing power of the Christ.

For example, four weeks ago I got a call from a dear friend who had just found out that her 21-year-old daughter had been stabbed multiple times. My friend was on vacation in Florida, her daughter was in college in California. It was the middle of the night in Santa Barbara and the daughter was about to undergo emergency surgery to stop the internal bleeding and try to stabilize her blood pressure.

My friend is a lifelong student of Christian Science. Her daughter, though raised in Science, had fallen away, as they say. My friend was calling me as a practitioner, not a friend. She asked me to pray for her and for her child, if possible. The situation being one of those exceptional cases Mrs. Eddy mentions in her article “Obtrusive Mental Healing” (see Miscellaneous Writings, page 282), I agreed to pray for both of them.

The details of how I worked don’t seem that important right now. What I remember most was the confidence I felt in God—His law, His power, His love. I felt absolutely certain of that fact, and reversed any aggressive claim that argued to the contrary.

A few hours later, my friend called to tell me that her daughter was out of surgery and in intensive care. My friend had also been able to get on a flight home that was leaving in a few hours. We rejoiced in the progress and were grateful for the calm that we both felt. Both of us continued to pray.

She called me back before she got on her flight to let me know her daughter had been moved out of intensive care and into a regular hospital room. My friend arrived in L.A. and was able to drive up to Santa Barbara and stay with her daughter that night.

The details of the stabbing were that her daughter and roommate had been attacked by the roommate’s boyfriend. The roommate was killed, and after attacking my friend’s daughter, the boyfriend killed himself. My friend’s daughter had been able to call 911. 

I felt I had to include everyone in my prayers—the roommate, the boyfriend, and their families, as well as my friend and her daughter. One of the things I am most grateful for is that in spite of the fact that the story was all over the local news (and internet), the names of the three people were never released to the press. I felt God’s mercy was being expressed.

Two days after being stabbed, the girl was released from the hospital. She had recovered from her wounds, including a collapsed lung. Yesterday I spoke to her on the phone for the first time since the incident, and she lovingly thanked me for my prayerful support.

That is my “new view of the serious practicality of Christian Science practice.”