From early girlhood I yearned to know God, and Job's prayer (23:3), "Oh that I knew where I might find him!" echoes my thought. This prayer was answered when a friend lent me a Christian Science Sentinel. I read this magazine from cover to cover. When I read the testimonies of healing, I felt I was walking with the Master. I asked my friend if I could meet someone who could explain this religion to me, and that night her relatives explained to me something of the nature of God as revealed in Christian Science. I asked if I could buy the textbook, Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, mentioned in the Sentinel, and in a few days they procured one for me.
I read this book every available moment, even sitting up throughout the night, although I was supposed to need much rest. Up to this time I had carried about a sick and painful body, the sickness and pain being the aftereffects of an operation. I was suffering from bowel, heart, and stomach trouble. At the end of two weeks a relative remarked that I had eaten food I ought not to have eaten and had disobeyed the doctor's orders to rest. I stood still and thanked God that I was healed.
I had so rejoiced at finding God—God whom I could love and understand—that I had entirely forgotten the body. I found that my organs were functioning normally. It was my first experience of being "absent from the body, and... present with the Lord" (II Cor. 5:8). That took place well over forty years ago.
