Although I attended a Christian Science Sunday School as a young girl, I became a member of The Mother Church and a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, only a dozen or so years ago. During the intervening years after leaving Sunday School, I married a non-Scientist, whose father was a missionary. At the beginning of my married life I did not attend church services, but I regularly studied the Lesson-Sermon, outlined in the Christian Science Quarterly. I was very grateful that my husband was never antagonistic towards my religion and allowed me to rear our son without doctors or medicine and eventually became a Christian Scientist himself.
On one occasion I became ill with pneumonia. (I had had similar attacks as a child and as a young woman.) I decided I was not going to telephone a practitioner for help but was going to overcome the condition for myself. I would hold my breath as the pain grew worse trying in this way to clear my thinking so that I could realize God's healing presence. I did not seem to make any progress, and to mortal sense I was suffering great pain; then the thought came to me, "God does not want you to hold your breath in order to be harmonious," and with that I let go of this false sense of freedom, and within a few minutes I was free of pain. This healing has been complete, and I have never had a return of the condition.
Since I have had the blessed privilege of class instruction, I have made it my practice to do faithful protective work each day for myself, for my family, and for mankind. Through this prayerful work, I have become surer of God's presence.
