"Except ye . . . become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 18:3). I have always been so grateful that this text was sent to me when I made the decision to have Christian Science treatment. It made me resolve to lay aside any personal ideas or human arguments, and I realized later that this was a great help to me in assimilating Truth.
From birth I was considered very delicate. My childhood was a continual succession of illnesses, and as I grew older I suffered among other things from stomach disorders, which finally culminated in an illness lasting four years. When I was at my utmost extremity I turned, as many others have done, to Christian Science, of which I knew nothing except that it was possible to be healed through its means. I did not even have the faith that it would heal me, but felt that at least it could not harm me. My mother called a practitioner who on her first visit spoke to me so lovingly and wisely of God's love for His children and the impossibility of such a Father sending disease and sorrow, that I at once felt the healing touch of the Christ, and the hope that I could be strong and well replaced the utter hopelessness and unhappiness in my mind.
I had been unable to sleep without taking drugs, was kept on a very strict diet, and dosed daily to relieve constipation. After the first visit of the practitioner I laid aside all medicine except that which I took for indigestion, and began to sleep naturally and to eat more normally. Within three weeks I was well enough to go to the practitioner's office. I very soon realized that to continue to take the medicine was not at all in accord with the spiritual ideas that were being presented to me; that one cannot work with Spirit and matter. The fact that I was daily discovering the power of Spirit helped me to relinquish this last material remedy. How grateful I felt, and still feel, to be completely freed from the bondage of materia medica!
