Though my husband and I had reared a family of three children in Christian Science, had witnessed many healings, and had had evidences of God's bounty, which enabled us to maintain the children in colleges away from home all at the same time, still I was overwhelmed with a sense of loss and loneliness when my husband passed on and within a short period of time the children married.
My usefulness seemed to have come to an end despite the fact that I kept busy by going to business and engaging in church activity. Soon I found myself suffering from insomnia. For weeks and months at a time it was impossible for me to sleep more than two hours a night. My nervous system was affected, and I suffered from pressure in my head and a blurring of vision. Many hours were spent in study and prayer, and the help of Christian Science practitioners was sought.
My study brought to light that loneliness is a form of self-pity and that what I needed to be healed of was a personal sense of self, including self-righteousness, self-condemnation, and willful human planning. In humility I prayed to be ready to follow wherever God would lead me.
