During the years that I have been a student of Christian Science I have been healed of many physical troubles. When I first began to read "Science and Health with key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy I was melancholy, worried, and distressed over conditions in my home, filled with self-pity, and full of ceaseless questionings. What I found in Science and Health answered, and is continuing to answer, these questionings in the most satisfying and practical way. During my first week's study of Science and Health a pain at the back of my neck, which had bothered me for some six months, disappeared and has never returned. Conditions around me seemed particularly difficult and the problems almost more than I could bear. The church services and attendance at the Sunday school were a real "covert from the tempest," a true "shadow of a great rock in a weary land."
The beautiful idea of God as Father-Mother healed the grief caused by the passing away of my mother three years before. This healing meant the dawn of a new day to me. The first year of my study of Christian Science was spent in a boarding school and during that time I was never in the infirmary, although I had always previously suffered with throat and catarrhal troubles and had been subject to periodic bilious attacks. While there I sprained my ankle and found to my joy that the application of the little I understood of the truth made it unnecessary for me to submit to usual effects of a sprain, the pain being quickly overcome and the swelling disappearing in a short time. I was able to walk, and did everything I had to do. I will enumerate a few of the other physical healings I have had, which include those of jaundice, influenza, a nervous breakdown, malarial fever, colds, an infected foot, burns, warts, sore throat, toothache. Twice through the advertising columns of the Monitor I have found work and have been brought in touch with people who have become real friends.
Christian Science gave me courage to start out to earn my living when I had had no training for self-support and was almost overwhelmed with a sense of my own limitations. But the help that this knowledge of God was to me when facing a terrible bereavement was so wonderful that I do not know how to express it. Truly, as Mrs. Eddy says, "Spirit blesses man, but man cannot 'tell whence it cometh'" (Science and Health, p. 78). My husband was killed in France during the last days of the fighting. This seemed the very end of things to me but there was a light shining in the darkness, and Truth sustained me. The healing was not quick, but for the tender lessons learned alone the way I am more than thankful. A desire to die was gradually overcome, a nervous collapse was presented, and the fear of losing my mind was vanquished in the months that followed. A great weariness that seemed more terrible to me than an illness was healed as well. I can never think of this experience without realizing the debt of gratitude I owe to all the friends who encouraged, cheered, and comforted me. For the tenderness, loving comprehension, and warm humanity of the practitioner who stood by me during this struggle I am profoundly grateful.
