How I Healed Sudden Numbness with Prayer

Janis Hunt Johnson
6 min readJul 17, 2023
Peter Conlan — Unsplash

The what-ifs.

I felt a weird tingling on one side of my lip — pins and needles. Then in my fingers on that same side. I didn’t think too much of it, until it didn’t go away.

That’s when the what-ifs began. What if I’m having a panic attack? What if I’m hyperventilating? What if this is a stroke? What if this is a heart attack? What if this is anxiety catching up with me?

Since I always turn to God as a first resort, I began to pray. This meant I had to clobber all those what-ifs with the reassuring truth of what is. With what is spiritually true. With what God — the One Mind, the One Spirit, the One Cause, the Only Power — knows about me, right here and now and always.

What is: the spiritual reality.

My prayers went something like this:

I am not a mortal, physical being. I am therefore not subject to human beliefs about diseases and ailments. I am not in danger. I am safe in God’s care. I am not material. I am wholly spiritual. The Almighty God is my very essence. As God’s image and likeness I can reflect only balance and wholeness, not upset or angst.

I was still afraid, so I prayed repeatedly with Mary Baker Eddy’s “Scientific Statement of Being,” which I put into my own words:

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Janis Hunt Johnson
Janis Hunt Johnson

Written by Janis Hunt Johnson

Author, 5 Smooth Stones: Our Power to Heal Without Medicine through the Science of Prayer. Transformational Editor. From Chicago to L.A., now in Pacific NW.