I did not become seriously interested in Christian Science until I was in my late teens. Prior to that time my parents were loosely affiliated with two different denominations, but I did not attend the church service or Sunday School of either. During my adolescent years I went through a period of ill health and, like the woman in the Bible, I "had suffered many things of many physicians . . . and was nothing bettered" (Mark 5:26). I finally developed a painful condition which was diagnosed by physicians as neuritis, and for which I was told there was no cure.
At this time an aunt who lived with our family and had been healed in Christian Science of a nervous breakdown, requested permission from my parents to call a Christian Science practitioner for me. (Through the aid of this aunt my family had turned to Christian Science for healing on a number of occasions. But we had not kept up the study of it, although healings had been experienced.) My aunt's request was granted, and a practitioner was called. In that moment I was healed of the neuritis. Afterward I took up the study of Christian Science and since then have known many years of health and happiness. This Science has aided me in healing physical, social, family, and career troubles.
More recently severe pain in one breast developed, followed by loss of strength in my arm. Though I had had years of health through relying on God in Christian Science, at first I became very fearful. No physical diagnosis was sought, but in my early years I had witnessed several cases of cancer, which had developed in the immediate families of both my parents. Great fear had been expressed at that time because of the belief of heredity, and because of the suggestions of debility and fatality associated with this disease.
