I was born and brought up in a Christian Science family and did not have all the various illnesses to which children are subjected. I remember with joy the first demonstration of Christian Science healing I had without help from my mother. When I was about ten years old, a friend and I were crossing some open fields toward a tennis court. The grass was damp, and spying a board I jumped on it. One foot went down on a rusty nail which I had not seen. The pain made me withdraw my foot and in stepping down again I landed on another nail. Both nails pierced the sole of the sneaker and entered my foot about half an inch. My companion voiced fear of lockjaw. Not seeing any connection between my foot and my jaw, I dismissed the suggestion as unreasonable, realizing that God's child could not be in pain. I changed my socks so as to have the clean one against the foot, and we went on to the tennis court. The pain was completely gone.
Some time later when my friend's sister called for us, she too spoke of lockjaw. Still, knowing nothing of this trouble, I realized that because it was not God-given I could not express it. Then I dismissed it from my mind and promptly forgot all about the incident. I did not experience any more discomfort from my foot.
Another healing I had occurred at the close of my third college year. For the two weeks preceding summer vacation I had been occasionally bothered by a toothache. A night or two after arriving home I awoke in great pain. I went over the truths contained in some of our Leader's poems and other passages from her writings that I had memorized, but to no avail. The pain was so severe that I finally turned on the light and walked up and down my room declaring "the scientific statement of being," found in Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy (p. 468). I clung to the sentence, "Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual." After a time I sat down on the bed to read the pamphlet entitled "God's Law of Adjustment." The first sentence, "Man lives by divine decree," released me from a great deal of pain, and I fell asleep.
