Healed after being thrown from a horse

I’ve loved and owned horses for many years. Whether I’m competing in dressage or riding or training, I’ve always made a point of seeing and acknowledging God’s qualities in myself, my horses, and others in my sport.

One Saturday in the spring of 1995, I drove several hours from my home to look at a new horse I was considering purchasing. When I arrived, I found the horse was young and beautiful, and I enjoyed talking to the owner about him as we got him ready to ride.

Once I’d mounted, however, the horse bucked me off, then kicked me forcefully in the back and ran away. The owner was very concerned and wanted to take me to a hospital, but I assured her I was all right. I told her I was a Christian Scientist, and that reliance on God through prayer had always been effective in meeting my every need. I asked for some quiet time to myself. She helped me over to the fence, and then went to catch and attend to the horse.

I immediately turned wholeheartedly to God. That morning I’d spent considerable time in prayer, and I knew now that God was right with me, and that I was safe and loved and cared for. Many healing ideas from the Bible and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy came to mind, including this familiar passage from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “Accidents are unknown to God … and we must leave the mortal basis of belief … in order to change the notion of chance to the proper sense of God’s unerring direction and thus bring out harmony” (Science and Health, p. 424).

I also prayed the Lord’s Prayer, thinking carefully about each of the qualities of God it brings out, and about what these meant to me as His child. I silently sang the words of a favorite hymn, “Everlasting arms of Love / Are beneath, around, above” (Christian Science Hymnal, No. 53). Along with these messages of truth that filled my thought came the wonderful feeling of being enveloped in God’s love.

When the owner returned, she wanted to know more about how prayer would be a viable help, as I was having difficulty walking. I explained a little about Christian Science and how it had been my only means of care my whole life.

My husband was not at home, as he had taken our kids for an outing, but I felt I would be OK driving myself home, and welcomed the time to be alone with God. Although I was in quite a bit of pain, I prayed and sang hymns the whole way, confident in God’s power to heal.

When I arrived home, I called a Christian Science practitioner. He spoke with conviction and clarity about my spiritual nature, as well as that of the horse and owner, and agreed to give me Christian Science treatment through prayer. I remember sinking into the most comfortable chair I could find, and quietly nurturing my expectation that healing would be very quick.

However, that was not the case. The material picture was that my back was injured, and that there were possible internal injuries. I was grateful to be able to walk slowly, and get around enough to be able to work and fulfill my church duties in the days that followed. But the pain did not abate.

The practitioner lovingly prayed with me daily, and shared wonderful metaphysical truths. I would sometimes call him several times a day, and always he assured me of my wholeness and my intact relationship with God, based on the laws of Truth as taught in Christian Science. I spent several hours every day, morning and night, reaching out in prayer to determine what I needed to learn. I studied and sang hymns more diligently than I had for years. An increasing sense of closeness to my Father-Mother God resulted from this, and I treasured it.

My husband, who is also a Christian Scientist, was very loving and supportive. He cared for our children and the home, and read to me from the Bible and Mrs. Eddy’s writings. Sometimes when I woke up in the night in pain, he would get up and declare spiritual truths to me, or read to me, or sing hymns until I was at peace and able to sleep again.

Although I knew intellectually that the truths I was praying were true, I began to have doubts about healing. I feared that my back might never heal properly, and at one point entertained some thought of having medical care. My husband was not raised in Christian Science, and had come into it after being healed of chronic back pain before we were married. From his own experience, he felt that Christian Science was the most reliable and practical means for me to achieve my complete dominion.

This was a great encouragement, and I continued to pray with a favorite passage in Science and Health: “Fear never stopped being and its action” (Science and Health, p. 151). Many other passages about overcoming fear were very helpful, and the practitioner aided me in facing down this false power. So when at one point I began having trouble breathing, I was not afraid, and this difficulty vanished quickly.

Another turning point came one evening when I read a healing account in an issue of the Christian Science Sentinel. The testifier explained that when she realized that error, or evil, is always an illusion, and never the truth about us or anyone else, she had a complete healing.

Of course! It immediately became obvious to me. All this time I’d prayed to know that God would heal me, confident of His power and presence. But I’d accepted the fundamental lie that I’d been injured. I’d been duped into believing that there were two of me—my “spiritual, intact, loved, and cared for” self, and my “injured, trying to get healed” self. In fact, there was only one of me—and that involved my spiritual identity as God’s likeness. I was not an injured mortal, and never had been. God had never left my side for an instant. I saw that what was needed was a change in my thought to recognize and claim my uninterrupted unity with God right then and there.

It was as if a light went on and the whole scene changed. After this, whenever my back started to hurt, I affirmed my oneness with God, and that this fact had never changed. I saw that any evidence to the contrary was just a lie trying to tempt me into accepting a false view of myself. As I prayed along these new lines, within days the pain that had been so acute was completely gone.

The next week, our family went on a previously planned vacation trip to a camp in another state. While we were there, my favorite activity was running down a ramp, swinging on a rope, and dropping into the lake below—which I was able to do freely and exuberantly. My healing was so complete that the experience with the horse wasn’t something I thought about anymore. The only aftereffects were the spiritual lessons I learned and the increased sense of God’s allness I gained.

I am so grateful for this healing, and for the fact that each demonstration proves the law of God to be operating not only in my own life, but as a universal law that encompasses all humanity.

Nancy Michalski | Sunnyvale, California, US