Christian Science came into our home thirty years ago at a time when my father had been given up by the doctors. Exclusively through Christian Science treatment he was healed of what was diagnosed by many physicians as an incurable disease. During this experience with my father, my mother was also instantaneously healed of varicose veins which had held her in bondage for over twenty years.
Though I acknowledged the blessing this new religion had brought to my parents, I did not accept its teachings. Two years later I went to a distant city to accept a promised fine position and a home with my employer. Upon my arrival the pleasant home and fine position failed to materialize and a menial position was offered in its stead. I was eighteen years old, fifteen hundred miles from home, and practically deserted. I was not only disappointed but quite bewildered; I was lonesome, disillusioned with life, and homesick. While in this frustrated mood, alone at night on a park bench, I prayed for help. Then I recalled my father's healing and the parting gift from my mother, a copy of the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy. The next evening was Wednesday, and I attended a testimony meeting for the first time. The readings from the desk and the testimonies soon convinced me that this new-found religion of ours could help me as well as my parents. It was what I needed.
The next Sunday, in closing the service which I attended, the First Reader read from the Bible (I John 3:2), "Beloved, now are we the sons of God." I was startled. Had I heard right? I, a son of God? Impossible! A boy from whom all joy and hope had just been taken away could not be a son of God. The sentence kept runing through my thoughts, until I gradually pieced together fragments from the copy of Science and Health which my mother had given me and it dawned upon me that the statement referred to the true man, God's reflection. My thinking changed completely; I studied our Lesson-Sermon in the Christian Science Quarterly daily and joined the branch church in that city. My employment improved greatly and so did my living accommodations. I was a new man, God's man.
