I came into Christian Science because several doctors, one a noted specialist, said that I could not have a child or be a well woman without a major operation. I had gone to a large city to have this surgical work done. After my appointment with the doctor, I went into a practitioner's office in the same building, for the words "Christian Science" stood out in bold relief on the door, and they penetrated my darkened consciousness, bringing to me the remembrance of the many healings my mother had had through its ministrations. With a heavy heart I told the practitioner my troubles. She too had had the same difficulty. Christian Science had found her in a wheel chair because of three operations. Her healing was complete, as anyone could readily see.
I returned to our little town without the advised operation being performed and began a most earnest and joyous study, spending many hours with the Bible and my newly purchased Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy. The stories of Elisabeth (Luke 1) and of Sarah (Gen. 21) were pondered often. I had help from the practitioner for about a month. When our baby boy was born two years later, it was indeed a proof that God's promises are kept. He is a strong, fine lad now, doing a man's work, and I am a decidedly healthy woman, never having spent a day in bed since his birth twenty-three years ago.
During the so-called depression years, when loss seemed to be always present in our experience, black discouragement crept in, and our study of Science was dropped. This interval was terrible and without hope, for I knew that if Christian Science could not help us, nothing could. Truth would not let me go, however, and these words of Mrs. Eddy's from her Message to The Mother Church for 1901 (p. 2) proved indeed true in my case: "What Jesus' disciples of old experienced, his followers of to-day will prove, namely, that a departure from the direct line in Christ costs a return under difficulties; darkness, doubt, and unrequited toil will beset all their returning footsteps." The following experience proved this to be true.
