Liz Denison - Adapted from the Christian Science Sentinel, March 26, 2007
As I stepped off the plane in the middle of the summer, I began to think about all the commitments I would face during my upcoming sophomore year in high school. Between homework, volleyball practice, exams, and college visits, I wasn’t going to have much unscheduled time.
I was returning home after taking Christian Science class instruction. During the 12 days of the course, I’d had several hours each day to study and pray on my own. But now that I was back home, I began to worry that I might not be able to balance a busy daily routine with quiet time for spiritual study.
I’d been interested in having this instruction ever since my Sunday School teacher suggested I might want to look into it. I’d always assumed you had to be at least college-age to participate. But I was so glad to find out that I didn’t have to wait! For me, class instruction was more about feeling prepared and spiritually ready than it was about my age.
Shortly after that conversation with my Sunday School teacher, I started looking into finding the Christian Science teacher that was right for me. I figured the sooner I took this class, the more equipped I’d be to pray about challenges during my remaining high-school years and in college. I thought about how prayer is a little like working out a problem in math—the more you practice, the better you get at it and the easier it becomes to solve the problem.
Within a few months, I’d found a teacher and was accepted into the next class. I loved learning more about God’s nature and my relationship to Him, and having the time to dig into the Bible and Science and Health. And I couldn’t wait to put the spiritual concepts I’d learned into practice. My class experience gave me a new view of the importance of helping and healing myself and others through prayer, and I didn’t want to get so busy that I neglected my focus on continuing this spiritual study.
When summer ended and I went back to school in the fall, I made an effort to really practice what I’d learned in class. And I had some pretty amazing healings. For example, I was healed of recurring headaches, a sprained ankle, and other sports-related injuries that had happened while I was playing volleyball. With each healing, I gained more confidence in my ability to pray successfully.
But I wanted my Christian Science practice to be more than just an individual one—I knew I could be open to helping others, too, just as we’d discussed in class. I liked this passage from Science and Health:
Love for God and man is the true incentive in both healing and teaching” (p. 454)
This became my new focus and challenge for the school year. Then, during club volleyball season, the setter for my team began to ask me questions about Christian Science. One day, we were in the middle of warming up for a game and she mentioned her wrist really hurt. “You’re a Christian Scientist,” she said. “So can you fix it?”I knew I couldn’t fix anything myself, but this seemed like an opportunity to have a front-row seat to watch God work. I agreed to pray for her, and, as we continued to practice, I searched my thought to find something from my class training that would be applicable in this situation. At first I questioned my capability, but then I remembered that during class we had discussed the importance of responding with readiness when someone requests prayerful help.
I loved the idea that a good indicator of readiness lies simply in the request for help. That is, I realized that if God had led my teammate to ask for my help, then God would be right there guiding me in my prayers. It could be that uncomplicated. Once that stumbling block was out of my way, inspiration about my teammate’s spiritual identity flowed naturally into my thought. Even though I don’t remember exactly what I prayed about, I know it was along the lines of knowing that she was God’s spiritual reflection and that God could never create anything that could be flawed or break. I went back to warming up, trusting that these inspired ideas were enough to bring healing to my friend.
About five points into the game, my friend turned around between plays and yelled over to me, “Liz, what did you do?” I was kind of perplexed, thinking that she might be referring to how I was playing the game, so I asked her what she meant. “My wrist doesn’t hurt anymore. That’s so cool!” she exclaimed. At that moment I got a rush of gratitude for everything I’d learned in class instruction.
Since that day, this friend has asked me to pray for her several times, mostly during practices. She’s also told other players to ask me for help when they’re dealing with problems.
I’m learning the deeper meaning of this verse from the Bible: “Pray without ceasing” (I Thess. 5:17). Now, I’m able to share prayerful ideas more frequently and confidently with friends on and off the court. And even though I still work on having a balance between quiet prayerful study and my other activities, I’ve realized that as long as I keep my thought open to growing spiritually and helping others, prayer can happen anywhere!
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