I first heard of Christian Science when, as a girl of sixteen, I dated a boy who attended the Christian Science Sunday School. Although I had attended an orthodox Sunday School for years, many questions about God, life, and death remained unanswered. Upon learning that he attended a Sunday School I had never heard of, I asked him questions. He was able to answer every question with logic and understanding. It seemed too good to be true; and I turned away from asking any more, for I felt this religion was above me. I simply couldn't accept it. In fact, when I married this young man about three years later, I still continued to condemn and scorn this precious truth I was later to love.
After we had been married only a short while, I had a healing of quinsy. My husband asked if he could pray for me in Christian Science. I said he could, for I was in a great deal of pain and felt anything was better than suffering. Later when he took me to the doctor to keep a previous appointment to have my throat lanced, it was discovered I did not need this, and all pain had vanished. In spite of the healing, which has been permanent, I still did not care to read the Bible and Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy or study the Lesson-Sermon. I attended a few church services, and this was the extent of my gratitude.
This type of thinking and acting on my part continued for five years, when our home situation became quite impoverished. By now we had two little girls to raise, and we were living in a tiny house trailer on my in-laws' farm. I was in a mental state bordering on suicide. All the joy of living was gone, and it seemed that all I faced each day were worries, debts, babies, and poverty. While I was filled with self-pity and hatred, my husband's Sunday School training and deep belief in God kept his outlook happy and expectant of good.
