Profound gratitude to God for the entire change which Christian Science brought into my life forces me to put this gratitude into words as a testimony, in the hope it may help others as I have so often been helped by reading or hearing testimonies.
Before I heard of Christian Science I was not in good health for twelve years. During the last three of those years I was under the treatment of a well-known specialist in Holland, who declared that I should never be able to enjoy good health or lead a normal life.
When for the first time I heard somebody tell about Christian Science, I thought, If you are so stupid as to believe in it, I will be so clever as never to accept it. This woman had told me that a friend of hers had been healed of tuberculosis of long standing.
Half a year later I witnessed a healing of somebody else, and I thought, Now I must try to learn something more about it. I began to study, and after a few weeks I asked for treatment, with the result that very soon my health improved and I was able to lead a normal and active life. That was over twenty years ago, and since then I have enjoyed excellent health. During those twenty years there was only one week in which I was unable to do my work. Instead of having an abnormal amount of rest and being spared in everything, I am now able to have long working hours and less rest. I learned the meaning of what our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 218): "The consciousness of Truth rests us more than hours of repose in unconsciousness."
I could go on endlessly telling about the many healings and blessings I have experienced. One thing I am especially grateful for is that my association with other people has entirely changed. Formerly I used to be oversensitive. I was easily offended and always worrying. In overcoming these traits I have been helped by two testimonies which I read, and which made it clear to me that when I had difficulties with other people I did not have to try to change those people, but needed to change my own thinking, casting out self-pity, reproach, and wrong, and replacing them with love. When I did so I always was able to prove this statement in Science and Health (p. 574): "The very circumstance, which your suffering sense deems wrathful and afflictive, Love can make an angel entertained unawares." My outlook on life has become much happier, because I have learned that the words and acts of other people cannot prevent me from being conscious of my oneness with God, Love.
I am unspeakably thankful to Mrs. Eddy that she was pure and loving enough to receive the revelation of divine Science and to give it to the world; and I am likewise thankful for the great love and steadfastness wherewith she faced every adversary in order to demonstrate the healing power of Christian Science and teach others to do likewise.— Amsterdam, Netherlands.
