My last testimony appeared in the Christian Science Sentinel of August 11, 1956. The years following have been filled with many blessings and healings.
I would like to share what has been to me an important demonstration of both supply and home. About ten years ago my husband and I were suddenly faced with a situation involving a family business, a part of which I had inherited, whereby I was personally liable for an amount so much in excess of anything we owned that it did not seem possible to repay it in any way. The problem arose partly because I had been an absentee owner, and the business was in serious financial jeopardy due to mismanagement.
The situation was so complicated and involved that, although we were pressed to pay salaries and were three months' behind on other payments to be made, it was next to impossible just to close the doors. We were also concerned about the personnel, many of whom had been faithful employees for years.
For almost three years on a daily basis we looked at what was a very real possibility of personal bankruptcy. My husband took an early retirement from his professional career in order to take over the presidency of this business, in which he had never participated. I learned to study and pray in Christian Science as perhaps I had never done before. A favorite Bible quotation since childhood was with me constantly (Prov. 3:5, 6): "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."
It often seemed as though I were praying for a patient who had been declared ill with a terminal disease, and day by day it was proved that life is in God, Mind, that substance is spiritual, and that every spiritual idea has to express activity and usefulness. It was the most marvelous thing to see how step by step through God's help our thought was freed of fear and personal concern, and the complications were resolved.
On at least two occasions, just when it seemed we were absolutely at an impasse financially, a large enough sum of money became available to enable us to continue. From the very beginning I made a great effort to keep as big a sense of gratitude in my thought as I could. A favorite hymn says (Christian Science Hymnal, No. 249):
Our gratitude is riches,
Complaint is poverty.
We had sold our former house in the East and had put the money directly into the business. We were living in a rented apartment, and while I was grateful for this haven and for the way our daily needs were taken care of without any outward sense of limitations, I yearned for a home, so I began to look around. But what a sense of frustration this entailed at first! Finally one day, when we had to drop even looking for a place because no way seemed open to us, I found myself alone in the apartment deluged with arguments of failure, disappointment, and self-pity. Mortal mind argued: "All these years and what do you have to show for it? You don't even have a home of your own. You haven't made any progress."
Then I knew it was time to get on the offensive. Mrs. Eddy tells us (Science and Health, p. 406), "Resist evil—error of every sort—and it will flee from you." I jumped up and began to walk the floor, strongly affirming my gratitude to God for all the good and all the healings that had come to me through Christian Science during the years, for all the protection I'd experienced —yes, and all the progress I'd made. One revelation stands out to me. It was when I saw and declared aloud, "Why, I really found my home when I accepted Christian Science as the truth, the promised Comforter. That's where I dwell—in 'the land of Christian Science!'" Mrs. Eddy uses these words in speaking of her work (ibid., pp. 226–227): "I saw before me the awful conflict, the Red Sea and the wilderness; but I pressed on through faith in God, trusting Truth, the strong deliverer, to guide me into the land of Christian Science, where fetters fall and the rights of man are fully known and acknowledged." I thanked God for this beautiful home, this consciousness in which I live; and I knew that nothing can ever take that home from me or make me believe that I am not already dwelling there.
I had a joyous sense of peace and contentment with my divine home, and within a week, in a humanly wonderful but divinely natural way, we had purchased the house that has been ideal for us in every way.
As one by one the problems with the business were ironed out, my husband was finally able to bring in a most competent partner/manager to run it, leaving him free to take on another position which was offered him at that time. Eventually—and about the time the business was sold—he was promoted to a more demanding job which he would not have had time for previously. By keeping the business viable, everyone concerned was blessed.
Through these years I was most grateful for the timely and valuable help of a consecrated Christian Science practitioner, and also for the fact that the situation necessitated my turning to God more deeply, trustingly, and fully than ever before.
The Bible is the Book of Life. Christ Jesus showed us the way of Life, and Mrs. Eddy, through the revelation of scientific Christianity, has enabled us to be better followers of Christ Jesus. I have learned from these past nine years that through difficult human experiences we turn thought away from reliance on matter and personality as substance, to complete dependence on our heavenly Father-Mother God, who is indeed All.
Pasadena, California
