My father attended a Christian Science church before he got married. Although he greatly respected and valued Christian Science, he didn’t feel ready to commit to it fully, and when he married my mother, he no longer attended. However, when I was in fifth grade, my father found out that children on our block went to a Christian Science church, and he made arrangements for me to go to Sunday School with them. I loved it immediately. Once I had a taste of it, you couldn’t keep me away! I rode my bike the mile and a half to church whenever the neighbors couldn’t take me.
The Sunday School teachers spoke to me intelligently, and Christian Science made sense. It was logical. What I was learning about God had substance. The teachers asked deep questions, and the definition of God was clarified as I had never heard before (see Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 587).
An early experience I recall happened when I was a teenager. While I was working at a soda shop, very hot water was spilled on my hands. I had learned to pray and turn to God to find healing, and I trusted the power of prayer. No pain developed. I was able to continue working, and there were no aftereffects from the incident. There were also times when I asked my Sunday School teacher to pray for me.
