In my childhood I was surrounded with fear, medical beliefs and laws, domestic misery, suspicion and bitterness, ill health and apprehensions. My young womanhood was colored with much of the same. Then I halfheartedly attended a Christian Science service with a relative. I was given a copy of the Journal as I left.
Sometime later I was led to choose a name from the list of practitioners in it and to go to her with my long list of worries and ills and confusions. That was the beginning of a long, slow process of emerging from material beliefs to a glimpse of spiritual understanding.
I was subsequently married. A few years later I was left alone with two young children to rear and support against a background of many complications. Through Christian Science I have successfully overcome self-pity and have kept out of the children's experience the bitterness and resentment with which my own young life had been blighted. A home has been maintained which has from time to time been a haven for others too. The impartial love reflected in warmth of welcome and hospitality has been made possible by my reliance on God for supply.
For years my earning power was inadequate for our requirements. However, we had what we needed from remarkable and unpredictable human sources when it was needed. Outsiders were not aware that there was no money for clothes, yet during that period we were always well dressed. When I learned to accept gratefully Love's provision instead of deploring the inadequacy of personal love, the clothes became increasingly in better taste and of better quality and becomingness.
At one time we experienced a fire, in which all our clothes were lost, the furniture was ruined, and almost everything destroyed —our own possessions and those of a young woman sharing our home at the time. As I stood watching the conflagration, I realized that all that I had in the world was what I knew of God and that it was enough —adequate to supply us with everything we needed.
In the Lesson-Sermon for that week, outlined in the Quarterly, was an account of Jesus' feeding of the multitude with a few loaves and fishes, after which twelve baskets of food remained. Friends and strangers opened their closets and their hearts to us and were blessed themselves in the doing. There were literally twelve baskets of things which we could not use to pass along to bless others.
Friends helped to establish us comfortably in another home. It was found there was a fire insurance policy which covered the loss to the owner and the young woman and helped us at this very difficult time. It was a purifying experience in many ways.
My son lacked the size and weight usual for a football player, but he played happily on the varsity team, with no ill effects. One time in practice he was injured in the spine. He was in great pain and could not move. The help of a practitioner was promptly given. It was realized too that he did not receive the injury from playing according to the rules of the game, but from not playing according to them. There had been foolish and careless playing around. The one responsible was freed in our thought from condemnation as the true selfhood of both boys was acknowledged. My boy was free and back playing the following day to the amazement, but satisfaction, of the coach.
At one time my daughter was sent home from school with what had been diagnosed by the school doctor as a very bad case of measles. It was recommended that care be taken to avoid the complications which seemed imminent. The doctor's kind interest was appreciated. Christian Science treatment was asked for from a practitioner. By the third day the child was out of bed completely free and happy.
During the Second World War, I was employed in a plant doing work that was very different from anything I had done in my previous experience. I was sustained through long hours and difficult working conditions. One day I was overwhelmed with the symptoms of influenza. I was unable to think clearly in order to help myself or to get to a telephone to call a practitioner. I put my head down on my desk and said to myself, "At least I can be grateful that some other people have been healed of this in Christian Science." In a matter of minutes I was completely free, and no one had noticed the period of indisposition.
I suffered severely from blisters on my heels as I adjusted to the new experience of being on my feet all day. The practitioner's reply to my complaint was, "'How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings'" (Isa. 52:7). I realized there was a great deal of friction in the department, and I had allowed myself to become involved in it and was suffering as a result. As I resolved to have no part in anything but the "good tidings," the situation in the department and the blisters on my feet cleared up.
Before I became interested in Christian Science I was subject to infections and the fear of them. Frequently surgical opening would be required. Thus the healing of a felon on my thumb, which opened and cleared up without any treatment but prayer, was impressive to me.
A sense of burden is disappearing through my acknowledgment of the affluence of our Father-Mother God and His provision for all His children. Limitations of all kinds are being erased from my experience. Joy is coming in. I am grateful for the continuing value of class instruction, and my gratitude for Christian Science is increasing daily. My desire is to give evidence of it.— Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.
