Let Your Armor Shine!

One night my 12 year old son asked me why he always feels like he has one challenge after another, and how it seems sometimes that his prayer isn’t effective.  I thought, how many times have we all asked that question. Recently he was on crutches for a knee injury that kept him out of sports, due to another team’s player wearing metal cleats during a scrimmage.  But then, after being unable to walk or bend his knee for a week and a half, he got up one Thursday morning and was able to walk and run and go to practice that afternoon.  He played in his next football game on Saturday, completely free.  

Two days later I received an urgent call to come to the field toward the end of his football practice.  He had been hit during a play, and was unable to get up. When I got to the field, he was on his stomach, crying out in pain.  The team trainer was there with one of the Assistant Coaches and a couple of moms, all trying to take care of him.  His team had finished practice, and were getting group pictures taken.  The trainer began giving me a long list of possible injuries, admitting that he really couldn’t tell the severity of the injuries. He did his best to make me aware of what I could potentially expect. 

I listened to what he said, declaring mentally that God knew the truth of man’s being and refuting that human opinion could have any ill effect on God’s man.  I immediately spoke to my son, knowing that the appearance of pain and injury was not the truth of his expression.  He had never been out of God’s care.  He was in the everlasting arms of Love, around, beneath, above.  He was able to stand up, even though it seemed very painful for him.  The trainer was amazed and said it was the most amazing thing he had seen (given his long list of diagnosis).  He also told me several times that the only explanation was that it must be all psychological on my son’s part.   I was able to get him home, cleaned up and comfortable.  I called a Christian Science Practitioner and asked for Christian Science treatment for my son.  

My son told me that before he hit the ground during practice that day, he declared that God was right there with him and that he was protected by his spiritual armor.  He was referring to the Bible, in the book of Ephesians 6:11-17 NRSV, where it says, “Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh...Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness.  As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.  With all of these take the shield of faith...Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”  He had an understanding and expectation of that protection.

In answer to his question about always feeling challenged, I relayed this analogy.  There is a movie called “A Knight’s Tale” where the main character, a peasant who works for a knight, puts on the knight’s armor when he can no longer compete, in order to finish the  jousting tournaments.  The armor serves its purpose when he is getting started, but it becomes damaged.  When he takes it to get repaired, he finds that new armor is what he needs.  The old armor served its purpose, but as he became more skilled and knowledgable, or more challenged, in this work he would require armor that suited him better.  

So when we feel challenged, we can think of it as getting fitted for new armor.   As we grow in our understanding of our relationship with God, we get opportunities to prove our understanding and oneness with God.  Each opportunity can make our expectation for good stronger and our demonstration of the protection and guidance of Divine Love become so natural and effortless that we learn to be grateful for the good that comes from each challenge. 

This quote from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, reminds me of the armor that is our protection.  “At all times and under all circumstances, overcome evil with good.  Know thyself, and God will supply the wisdom and the occasion for a victory over evil.  Clad in the panoply of Love, human hatred cannot reach you.” page 571. 

“Neither organic inaction nor over-action is beyond God’s control;” Mary Baker Eddy writes in her book Science and Health page 125.  She also states in the Preface, “Many imagine that the phenomena of physical healing in Christian Science present only a phase of the action of the human mind, which action in some unexplained way results in the cure of disease.” “The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus’ time, from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation.”  

Be sure to affirm the good you are already doing, with humility, knowing that is your armor because it reflects God, good. God is All-in-all. Stand firm in your understanding of Truth, allowing God to show you every step.  Walk with Love.  Guard against the arguments of time, matter, human opinions, doubt, fear, and human history.  Know that God’s work is done, and as the first chapter of Genesis declares, “Behold it was very good.”  

These hymns from the Christian Science Hymnal are comforting reminders:

Eternal Mind the Potter is,
And thought th' eternal clay:
The hand that fashions is divine,
His works pass not away.
Man is the noblest work of God,
His beauty, power and grace,
Immortal; perfect as his Mind
Reflected face to face.

God could not make imperfect man
His model infinite;
Unhallowed thought He could not plan,
Love's work and Love must fit.
Life, Truth and Love the pattern make,
Christ is the perfect heir;
The clouds of sense roll back, and show
The form divinely fair.

God's will is done; His kingdom come;
The Potter's work is plain.
The longing to be good and true
Has brought the light again.
And man does stand as God's own child,
The image of His love.
Let gladness ring from every tongue,
And heaven and earth approve.

by:  Mary Alice Dayton

Everlasting arms of Love
Are beneath, around, above;
God it is who bears us on,
His the arm we lean upon.

He our ever-present guide
Faithful is, whate'er betide;
Gladly then we journey on,
With His arm to lean upon.

From earth's fears and vain alarms
Safe in His encircling arms,
He will keep us all the way,
God, our refuge, strength and stay.

by John R. Macduff

I am so grateful for the opportunity to witness this healing, and for my son’s firm understanding and confidence in his relationship with his Father-Mother-God.