Do you like to have quick healings? I do. They don’t always happen as fast as hoped, but there are several rules to follow that enable rapid healings to occur.

One of those rules is to dismiss the claim of suffering quickly. Don’t examine it, wonder about it, mull over it, argue with it or consider for a micro-second that it is real or worthy of acceptance. Dismiss it promptly.

Two Sunday mornings ago, I woke up feeling fine, but when I started to walk around the house I had an odd limp in my right leg that wouldn’t straighten out. The day before I had spent several hours on a vigorous snowmobile trip in the wilderness. But I could not recall any reason to suffer from the outing. My muscles didn’t hurt. But something was mechanically wrong in my hip, like the bones weren’t lined up right making it impossible to walk correctly.

I wasn’t sure where to focus my prayer.

I remembered Mary Baker Eddy’s statement, “Treat a belief in sickness as you would sin, with sudden dismissal.” This was not a belief of sickness or sin I was struggling with, that I could tell anyway, but of anatomical malfunction, but I figured the rule would work just as well anyway.

So, I dismissed the claim. Like dismissing a class of students and watching them promptly exit the room, I dismissed the belief that something was wrong with my hip or leg or whatever, and that I had God-given freedom to walk with ease and without difficulty. I was a spiritual child of God, immune to hurt or harm of any kind, and that was that.
I put it out of my mind.

After church, I dressed for a 1:00 tennis match, and noticed that I was still hobbling around from this weird limp. “I can’t play tennis,” thought protested. “I can’t even run to a ball!”

I thought back to my earlier dismissal of this claim, and did it again.

Obviously the error had not exited my thought even though I had expected it too. It needed another heartier dismissal that left no room for misinterpretation. A dismissal of error by truth must not leave opportunity for error to decide whether it wants to be dismissed or not. The dismissal needs to be emphatic enough to send error out the exit door of possibility without fuss or resistance.

So, I did it again. I dropped any consideration that there was a reason to suffer. Instead of seeing the claim as a physical problem in my body as that I needed to dismiss, I saw the claim as an attempt to halt my progress as a spiritual thinker, as some sneaky evil at work in the background of consciousness trying to hobble me mentally and physically and prevent freedom of movement in my life and in my healing practice.

I didn’t know what the sneaky culprit was, but I didn’t need to know. Having a sense of its intent was sufficient.

With a definitive declaration of “You don’t belong or exist here in my experience, and I refuse to accept you,” I dismissed the suggestion that I had anything to fear on the tennis court. Off to the club I went without giving the belief another second of attention. I forgot about it, put it out permanently and didn’t look back.

It wasn’t until three days later that I remembered the healing. Evidently on the way to the club, the physical healing occurred, for I played tennis with total ease, joy and freedom, and the limp hasn’t even remotely presented itself since.

I’m grateful for the quick healing and lessons learned.

Bodily suffering may feel physical, but it never is. It’s mental, in mortal mind. It’s a belief entertained, not dismissed. So, don’t be bashful about sending it out if you don’t want it hanging around in your experience. Dismiss the unruly intruder and slam the door shut as it leaves your mental precincts.