In her poem "Christ My Refuge" (Poems, p. 12) our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, describes the comfort of the Christ, Truth, as it establishes one securely on the rock of Life. My husband and I experienced this comfort when we were faced with a very serious illness of our small daughter. Being misinformed as to what was necessary according to law, we rushed her to a large hospital, where we were told that she had one of the worst cases of spinal meningitis the doctors had ever seen. Because I had allowed myself to become somewhat apathetic toward Christian Science, I was nearly overwhelmed with suggestions of inadequacy and loss. I had already begun to think that our little girl was lost to us.
Through God's loving guidance we were impelled to call upon a Christian Science practitioner, who immediately allayed our fears. When I voiced to him my fear that I did not have a working knowledge of Christian Science and that I could not decide to rely wholly upon divine metaphysics for help he lovingly replied: "You do not have to do anything yourself but turn her over to her Father-Mother God. All she needs is more love. Release her to divine Love, and rejoice in the fact that you have a God to whom you can turn." Immediately the burden was lifted. My husband, who knew little of Christian Science but was never adverse to it, made the immediate decision to rely wholly upon God and to take our daughter out of the hospital only a few hours after she entered it. Thus new hope and faith were born in us.
Through the work in Christian Science we were able to secure the services of a stanch and loving Christian Science nurse, to whom I shall always be grateful. The doctors insisted that the child would not survive the thirty-minute trip home in the ambulance, that she could never take nourishment except through the veins, and that only the hospital equipment could sustain her life. But every so-called material law was reversed by the Christ, Truth, which became tangibly felt in our home. That night we retired and slept well, never entering the child's room, confident that she was sustained by the one Father-Mother God, her only Life. Mrs. Eddy assures us (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 215), "Whatever is governed by God, is never for an instant deprived of the light and might of intelligence and Life."
