After an early childhood experience with organized religion I dropped all connection with it. It held no interest or appeal for me. Then followed years of searching for a truth that could satisfy my inner yearnings and unanswered questions. Marriage and a dear little daughter failed to resolve a deep unhappiness. Occasionally I had visited churches of various Protestant denominations but had never returned. Finally I considered myself an agnostic.
One morning I reached out in prayer to what was for me an unknown God. I humbly appealed to this power to lift me out of the misery of constant disappointments and unfulfilled hopes. That evening I was introduced to a student of Christian Science, who invited me to her home. There I picked up a copy of Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy from the living room table.
As I read the first page of the Preface, I knew it was the truth for which I had sought all those years. The statement "The time for thinkers has come" filled me with joy. How wonderful! I didn't have to accept anything through blind faith. All prejudice against the Bible vanished at that moment. That night I realized that I was a child of God and that God loved me. I felt as though a block of ice had melted from around my heart. A long-standing resentment against certain individuals in my past was healed. I felt nothing but love and goodwill toward them and everyone.
At that time we were literally down to our last dime, but now I had an absolute conviction that everything was under God's control. I knew we were at the beginning of a new life. In a few days we had signed a contract for work overseas.
As I continued to read Science and Health, the desire to smoke, nervousness, lack of weight, depression, and discordant relationships disappeared. Instead of believing I was cut off from good, I began to learn that I was of significant value to God and always correlated with all good.
During the following years of travel, mostly in sections where there were no Christian Science churches or practitioners, our impersonal pastor, the Bible and Science and Health, was my constant companion, healer, friend, and guide. The continued study of the Bible and Science and Health turned me from a purely personal sense of existence and awakened me to a more universal love and a higher sense of life and its opportunities for good. This resulted in my joining The Mother Church while overseas and was a turning point in my experience. I now felt the need for class instruction, which came soon after, when we returned to the United States.
Through Christian Science I read and studied the Bible in a new light, which made teaching in the Christian Science Sunday School a spiritual adventure. Our two children were raised completely without material medicine.
I was healed of influenza overnight through applying the directives found on pages 390–394 in Science and Health. A deep gash on my instep made when an ax slipped from my hand healed quickly through my realization that I was completely at one with whatever spiritual truths I needed to know and that I didn't need any outside material assistance. The effects of a severe fall were overcome by a total reliance on spiritual means alone, despite the persistent offer of a neighbor to strap up the leg. When a close relative passed on suddenly, grief and shock were replaced with the knowledge that his opportunities to love and be loved were still present with him and the same was true for me.
Christian Science has taught me that divine Principle, Love, alone is the source and continuity of every facet of home, supply, relationships, and activity. It revived a talent for writing which had lain dormant for over twenty years. It led me into a richly rewarding field of service to others. My experience is pointed up in Mrs. Eddy's statement (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 81), "Every individual character, like the individual John the Baptist, at some date must cry in the desert of earthly joy; and his voice be heard divinely and humanly." And from the Psalmist (Ps. 107:6, 7):"Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses. And he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation."
I am sincerely grateful for the devotion and humility that enabled Mrs. Eddy to follow Christ Jesus in healing works that continue to bless me and all mankind.
Coral Gables, Florida
