Mrs. Eddy says, "To the Christian Science healer, sickness is a dream from which the patient needs to be awakened" (Science and Health, p. 417). I have learned that this is absolutely true. For over twenty years I suffered from nearly all the ills that flesh is heir to. Until I had my first child I was healthy and well, but from then on I came through great tribulation,—stomach disorder, neuralgia, varicose veins that caused the leg to swell terribly and irritate me to the last degree, an internal trouble from which I was told I would never be free, and other ailments. I always dreaded the morning, when I must awake to it all, and many times wished I could sleep and never wake again.
In spite of all this the thought of God was always before me; I knew that He was a just God, a God of love, and I never believed that He sent these ills upon me. When a precious child passed away, a friend said to me that God had done it for some wise purpose. I answered that I could not believe this; but if I could, I should be able to bear it better. My husband, children, and friends did all they could to help lighten my burden, and I was grateful for their love, but still the burden pressed heavily. I had been a member of a church from the age of seventeen.
One never to be forgotten evening a dear young friend told me about Christian Science. Some of her relatives had been healed of many troubles. She talked to me for an hour or more, and I drank it all in greedily, and there and then lost much misery and suffering. I retired to rest in a very happy frame of mind, knowing that at last I had found the way of healing. Life from that day to this, nearly eleven years, has been glorious; for I have been enabled to rise above fear and suffering. I can always do my work with comfort, lift heavy weights, and go wherever I please; whereas before I could do little work, dared not lift anything heavy, and if I attempted to walk far, my back and legs seemed to fail me. Two doctors said the trouble pointed to paralysis.
