Christian Science has been a beacon all my life and the only religion I have known. In retrospect I can see its protective influence. Through the encouragement of my aunt, my maternal grandmother became a Christian Scientist and enrolled me in the Christian Science Sunday School, where I learned to love the Bible and its teachings and gained an appreciation of Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy.
Smoking and social drinking lured me away from Christian Science, but I kept my books (the Bible and Science and Health) and attended church from time to time, although I was relying on material medicine. When my children came along I enrolled them in the Christian Science Sunday School. The social drinking fell away, and I learned the limitations of medical treatment. I longed for membership in a Church of Christ, Scientist, but resented the requirement that a member be free from the tobacco habit. One day in a conversation with my younger son's Sunday School teacher I mentioned the subject, and she pointed out that I was breaking the first commandment (Ex. 20:3), "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Compassionately she told me that God did not make "those things" to tempt me and that I did not need them. She said, "You are a child of God," and I felt His tender embrace. In three days I was completely free from the craving for tobacco and have remained free for over twenty years now.
When I was a young church member, a great testing time came when my little daughter was ill with a high fever. She said she could not move her legs and the lower part of her body. Both of us became panic-stricken. I was in close touch with a Christian Science practitioner, and relief was swift. The fear and turbulence subsided, and by the time my husband came home, our daughter was resting comfortably. In a few days she was back in school.
