You can stop blaming yourself

Years ago, the day before a weekend trip with a friend, I’d hurt my foot and couldn’t walk on it. Because I’d been weighing the pros and cons of a job offer that would require selling my home and moving to another state, I felt my indecisiveness had contributed to the mishap.

Now, maybe that sounds strange, but as a student of Christian Science, I understood that thought affects the body. However, I’d missed the vital point that it’s God’s perfect thoughts – not human, imperfect ones – that truly govern one’s experience.

In “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, assures us that we can trust those divine inspirations to guide us: “In Christian Science, man can do no harm, for scientific thoughts are true thoughts, passing from God to man” (pp. 103-104). Acknowledging this fact spares us from useless, mental “witch hunts” like the one I went on, blaming something in my thinking for the injury.

I called a Christian Science practitioner, who agreed to pray for me. Soon after, something a friend told me dispelled my self-criticism and stress. And I saw that what needed healing was the belief that indecisiveness had caused an injury.

With this realization, I felt happy, free, and receptive to the practitioner’s prayers. I also felt impelled to stand up, put my full weight on the foot, and walk across the room – which I did with total comfort. The pain and swelling had vanished along with my worries about the job offer.

Science and Health explains such a turnaround: “When one’s false belief is corrected, Truth sends a report of health over the body” (p. 194). In reality, God, Mind, is always conveying truthful messages that guide and bless. “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end” (Jeremiah 29:11).

This divine assurance nullifies the belief that we’re capable of wrong thinking or acting that can do us harm. For example, “I didn’t dress warmly, and now I’ve got a cold.” As justified as self-blame may sometimes seem, it’s really the self-justification of mortal mind, a false nonintelligence claiming to be our mentality. In truth, God, the only Mind, reveals our innocence with loving thoughts that heal.

Christ Jesus, our Exemplar, never blamed his patients, but compassionately freed them from their fears and misconceptions. For instance, a man with a 38-year infirmity was convinced he could be freed only by entering a pool of supposedly healing waters.

Dismissing that false belief, Jesus told the man, “Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.” The account continues, “And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked” (John 5:8, 9). In another instance, Jesus assured a paralyzed man, “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee” (Mark 2:5), perhaps discerning that the person felt responsible for his illness.

We can hasten our “expected end” of healing by acknowledging our spiritual oneness with Mind, as God’s expression. Then we find ourselves increasingly receptive to Christ, God’s message of loving care for all.

Rejoicing in this healing, I left the next day and was able to walk with freedom throughout my trip. Soon after I returned home, a man came to my door asking if I knew of any homes for sale in my area. I thought for a minute and responded, “Yes!” I knew at that moment that it was right for me to take the job I’d been unsure about.

Within weeks, my cats and I were happily settled in our new city. Best of all, I had a surer sense of God’s guidance and a better grasp on the fact that blame has no part in healing.

Now I keep close to my heart the following message: “Know, then, that you possess sovereign power to think and act rightly, and that nothing can dispossess you of this heritage and trespass on Love. If you maintain this position, who or what can cause you to sin or suffer?” (Mary Baker Eddy, “Pulpit and Press,” p. 3).

Adapted from an article published in the April 24, 2023, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.