A number of years ago on Thanksgiving Day I read and pondered Mrs. Eddy's words on page 3 of Science and Health: "Are we really grateful for the good already received? Then we shall avail ourselves of the blessings we have, and thus be fitted to receive more." I was conscious of much for which I could be grateful, although I had recently lost home and loved ones. My husband was out of employment, and the one to whom I had always turned, my mother, was no longer able to give me any material aid. But I could think, and I was grateful for a concept of gratitude as an intelligent activity. And recognizing this as a blessing I had, I expressed gratitude in every way I could through doing joyfully whatever came to my hands to do.
At this time I had two small sons so that I could not go out to seek employment in the business world, but was privileged to join my mother on a farm to which she had gone immediately after my father's passing on, to work out a financial problem. Here, with a few conveniences, we set about proving that Love alone is power, and literally turned mourning into joy. Clinging to gratitude as an intelligent activity I sought means of using this quality, realizing it was also a joyous activity. During this time, I gained much needed encouragement from the study of our Lesson-Sermons in the Christian Science Quarterly and from the periodicals, especially the testimonies, for they related the practical application of the Christ, Truth, in everyday human experience. I longed for a better understanding of God, and for a truly happy home. Here let me say that I was grateful that a university education had rather stimulated a desire to know more of God in a scientific and usable sense. And now, as I honestly hungered and thirsted, I was filled. Class instruction was my privilege during my third year in the country. And through this experience a new sense of values took the place of what I had cherished. The truths taught by Christ Jesus be came alive and applicable to my life. I realized that Mrs. Eddy's gratitude for the revelation of these truths must have been very great to enable her to carry on the activity of establishing the Christian Science movement. I became humbly grateful for the workers in the churches who have helped to preserve this pure, healing religion.
As I have gained a greater understanding of Christian Science, problems which have presented themselves have come to be recognized as opportunities for growth. I have witnessed in my own home the healing of numerous diseases, including scarlet fever. This healing was accomplished in a very short time through diligent application of God's unfailing law of health for His children I have seen my family saved from serious injury when the car in which they were riding was demolished. I understood and declared audibly, "God is the only Life." And I have grown in my concept of home so that while it is necessary for my husband to be away much of the time, we are more closely united than ever; for as Mrs. Eddy says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 289), "Oneness in spirit is Science, compatible with home and heaven." I should not want to have the responsibility of rearing my children without the help of Christian Science. Our Leader, in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 165), says, "As an active portion of one stupendous whole, goodness identifies man with universal good. Thus may each member of this church rise above the oft-repeated inquiry, What am I? to the scientific response: I am able to impart truth, health, and happiness, and this is my rock of salvation and my reason for existing." — Sandwich, Illinois.
