I have enjoyed the benefits of a Christian Science home and family since birth, but I have learned that even one so blessed must be born again and make the truth his own. I am grateful for a remarkable freedom from disease and from limitation in many areas of experience all through my life, and I feel this is in itself a demonstration of the divine harmony. Whenever tension, doubt, confusion, or fatigue have been presented to me, I have come to see that at the root of the problem has invariably been the acceptance of a self-centered existence, a selfhood apart from God, rather than God-centered thinking.
I was student teaching in a third grade class several years ago during the last college quarter of an education course. I had returned to college after many years out of school, but all along the way I had had no trouble with the academic work. On the contrary, my grades were good, and I found the work stimulating and satisfying. In practice teaching, however, I became more and more tense, fatigued, and irritated. There was the general belief that the children were young and lively and that I, some years older than most college students, was inflexible, as well as inexperienced with children.
The teacher in the class and my supervisor both thought I was doing a fine job, but I felt less and less joy and satisfaction in my duties until I was starting each day sick with apprehension and ending it in exhaustion. I counted the days to the end of the quarter, when I would never have to enter a classroom again. I felt I had made a great mistake in thinking I was adapted to teaching.
