
I remember thinking it was a great idea. But I didn't do it.
So when I was in my thirties and developed arthitic symptoms in one of my hands, I felt guilty and scared. All the shoulda, woulda, coulda thoughts hit me like a falling anvil from the Coyote and the Roadrunner cartoons of my youth.
I berated myself with the question, Why didn't I deal with this sooner? Now that the problem had taken hold, it felt too late. Guilt and fear duped me into ignoring the problem for some time. Then the condition worsened and my knuckles became malformed.

I thought of a flower with a broken stem, and a candle that is snuffed out, with nothing but a plume of smoke to indicate the flame that had once been. Divine Spirit can restore life even where it seems to be completely over.
I stopped condemning myself and started to pray for healing. I can still remember certain elements of that prayer because they produced such memorable and quick results.
I considered a statement from Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "The measurement of life by solar years robs youth and gives ugliness to age. The radiant sun of virtue and truth coexists with being. Manhood is its eternal noon, undimmed by a declining sun." (246)

As I prayed about what it meant to be fully spiritual now, equiped to be and to do anything God prepared for me in life, I looked down at the painful, disfigured knuckles and said aloud to myself, "That has nothing to do with me."
I remember, upon awakening the next day, I discovered my knuckles to be smooth, supple, painless, and restored to their normal color and function - in a word, perfect.
In the years since, no such symptoms have ever recurred.
Sure, we are never too young to handle the problems of aging. Or too old, for that matter. It looks to me like understanding God as Spirit and what it means to be truly and fully spiritual as God's creation, is the key.
Remember, you are like the indestructible Roadrunner!
"That coyote is really a crazy clown.
When will he learn that he never can mow him down?"
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