I am one of a large family in which there was a great deal of sickness, my father and five brothers and sisters having passed away. I became so accustomed to illness that I did not expect to be free from it, and my religious training taught me that God sent sickness, as it was good for our development; that I must not expect to be happy in this life, but if I bore my lot with patience, I would reap my reward after death. Consequently, while other girls of my age were thinking about pretty clothes and enjoying themselves, I was thinking what a serious problem life was. If, perchance, I did forget and enjoy a few hours, I would reproach myself and fully expected to suffer for my forgetfulness. The parts of the Bible that referred to punishment, sin, and affliction were the most familiar to me. All around me I saw trouble and sorrow, and I accepted these as a necessity.
Fourteen years ago I spent three months in a hospital, where I passed through a fever, congestion of the brain, rheumatism, and an operation. This was followed by six months of mental and physical suffering. During these nine months I had constant fear of insanity, and toward the end the thought of suicide was continually suggesting itself. I did not presume to rebel against what I believed God was sending me, but many a time it required an effort to say, "Thy will be done." I tried every doctor and medicine that was suggested to me, but each new hope turned to bitterness. For nine months my only prayer was to beseech God to hear me. And He did, but not in the way I expected!
One day I read an account of the dedication of a Christian Science church in the city where I was living, and then I recalled that I had heard somewhere about Christian Science people healing by prayer. After some inquiry I found I could apply for help to a practitioner, and I consulted one just as I would a doctor, resolving to give Christian Science the same honest trial which I had given physicians and their remedies. I told the practitioner I was using material remedies, but I would give them up. I could see at once that if the treatment was prayer and God did the healing, I must rely upon nothing else. I believe my healing was hastened by my willingness to be obedient in this regard. At my first treatment I was given Science and Health to read. I had never heard of the book or its author, but at the first line I was interested; every page had something for me, and I continued to read with an eagerness which hungered for more and more of it. I had come for mental and physical relief, and found a religious work which interested me more than anything else I had ever read. It was not hard for me to believe that God was able and willing to heal, but it seemed almost too good to be true that it could come to me, so accustomed had I become to postponing all that was good. I learned later that all which is true is good, and that things for which I had made God responsible were too bad to be true.
