It is with sincere gratitude that I offer this testimony for publication. At the time of my deepest struggle, while hungering for rightness and desiring to come closer to God and to know Him aright, it seemed to me that everything went wrong. I was a widow with four children to support and educate, and the daily grind was at times almost beyond human endurance. At last I had a nervous breakdown, and for nearly four years life was a burden. I seemed to fall heir to all the diseases supposed to be hereditary in our family.
In 1909, although not in a position financially to take such a trip, I stored my goods and went to Eureka Springs, Ark., to drink the water, take the baths, and rest, as the physician said medicine could do me no good, because my stomach would not stand it. He did all he could for my relief, but that was little. I seemed to be at the parting of the ways, for everything appeared to be slipping from me. I ceased my long prayers and every effort I had made, and cared for no special thing and very little for any one. I tried electric and other treatments, also salt baths, but nothing seemed to revive me. While there was not much physical pain, the mental depression was indeed a nightmare.
My first awakening was a letter from my husband's aunt in Kansas City, who is a Scientist. Among her many kind words only these stayed with me: "God is your life," and they came constantly to my thought, together with a certain quickening of interest. Finally I went to visit this aunt, and in November of the same year took treatment of a Christian Science practitioner, which opened up a new life before me. I decided if there was anything in Christian Science I was going to have it, and like the disciple of whom Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health (see p. 21), I was honest and in earnest from the first. I cannot say, like so many, that the healing was instantaneous, but all material remedies were laid aside from the first treatment and were never used again. My greatest fear was of a bowel trouble believed to be inherited, my father having passed on as a result of it.
