Someone has said, "Testing times come to us no oftener nor more violently than is needed to make us listen and obey." Because such a testing time came to me a few years ago, and I know that I can never be sufficiently grateful to God for His love and care during that experience, it is my desire that this testimony may bear a helpful message of encouragement to others.
During the experience about which I write, because of a business transfer, I was living away from home in Southern California, alone in an apartment. One morning I awakened violently ill, with all the symptoms of ptomaine poisoning. Every effort that I made to arouse myself or to arise seemed only to aggravate the situation.
The most persistent and, at times, terrifying thing I had to combat was the suggestion that I was alone. It was Sunday, and many occupants of the house were away on week end trips. Other friends, who were students of Christian Science and ordinarily available, were on duty at their Sunday school work, and I had no convenient telephone. As the morning advanced, the situation became more alarming, and I more helpless. Never before nor since this experience have I been placed in a situation that appeared so desperate. Like Jacob, I continued wrestling alone for many hours; and, also like him, it was an angel message that rescued me, in this inspiring line from our textbook (Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, p. 567): "The Gabriel of His presence has no contests." As the waves of error continued, I clung as best I could to the truth of this one statement until about two o'clock in the afternoon, when I succeeded in reaching a practitioner in an adjoining apartment.
