As a child I had an instantaneous healing of a crushed thumb by understanding and singing Mrs. Eddy's hymn, "Shepherd, show me how to go" (Christian Science Hymnal, No. 304). Later, at age thirteen, I had my first opportunity to realize the full significance of God as Father-Mother. My brother cut an artery in his wrist. We were vacationing in the country, away from telephones, and both parents were away for the afternoon. Our early training had taught us to rely on God as our Father-Mother, the most powerful and ever-present help. Holding to this fact, we turned to the Bible Lesson for that week in the Christian Science Quarterly, which comforted us with its statements of truth. We also remembered a helpful healing related by our parents in which the victim of an accident was saved when it was shown that God is man's Life and that the person's bloodstream did not condition his life. By the time our mother arrived home, my brother was playing, and by that evening he was completely healed.
One outstanding proof to me that material evidence is no criterion for life occurred when a case of ivy poisoning on my legs became very aggravated. I was due to drive a day's journey of six hundred and fifty miles with two small children. It was clear to me that I could fearlessly call the bluff of this false picture. I refused the suggestion to either feel sorry for myself or to exalt myself as some sort of personal heroine. Instead, I stayed with the truth that God is always present, all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-acting. It was His supreme and perfect control I was relying on during the trip. The false laws of matter regarding this disease had been challenged, and I was soon free of the symptoms.
About a year later ivy poisoning appeared on my face. That evening, while attending the Wednesday testimony meeting in a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, I rejoiced to know that my identity as God's idea was all that I had taken with me to the meeting. In addition, I was abiding in the realization that the former healing had already proved the unreality of this problem. By the next day I was healed.
