I feel urged to express my gratitude to God for all the blessings my family and I have been privileged to enjoy in the ten years I have been studying Christian Science. Although I had a very religious training, I could not find anything that really satisfied me. During practically twenty years of suffering I never looked to God for help. God seemed to me to be more of a foe than a friend. I suffered a great deal, and more than once I was very near suicide; for I was obsessed with the thought that I could never be anything but a burden to my family, and that I ought to rid my relatives of this burden.
I had consulted many doctors and professors, among them renowned specialists. We looked for help in a number of sanitariums. We tried every method of healing that was recommended, but not only were they all unsuccessful, but my numerous complaints became more and more aggravated. Every doctor said that my whole body was diseased. During the last five years of my suffering I was told that my numerous complaints were incurable. And so, like the one we read of in the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy (p. 221), I had become reconciled to the thought "that death was indeed" my "only alternative." But "at this point Christian Science saved" me.
Blessed be the day on which my family and I learned of Christian Science. At last, after my husband had entreated me for two weeks, I decided for his sake and that of our child to make this last endeavor to bring about my healing. And with what wonderful success this last effort was crowned! After I had read a few copies of Der Herold der Christian Science a great change took place in me. I began to have a better understanding of God, seeing Him above all as the God of love. Hitherto I had not had any comprehension of Him as Love. It was soon possible for me to decide to attend church. I shall never forget the first Christian Science service I attended. To be sure, the great simplicity I found there was very strange to me, for in my childhood I had been reared in a religion in which great value is laid on ceremonies. The simplicity had an extremely beneficial effect upon me, and I took a great deal home with me.
