For years I suffered off and on from deep depression and suicidal feelings. While I never actually tried to take my life, the morbid attraction to doing this was so strong at times that I can hardly imagine physical pain could be worse. For anyone who suffers like this, it's pure joy to report healing of such a condition through Christian Science.
Once, prior to my healing, when feeling really low, I called my Christian Science teacher and asked him to help me through prayer. Though I gained some peace, the thing I remember most about our conversation was his saying that the depression would never be really conquered until I learned more of God and my spiritual relation to Him. At the time this answer seemed a little heartless. I guess underneath I was thinking, "Rescue me from this cycle of depression and anguish and then I'll learn more about God." But my teacher knew what I needed, and when I finally saw his point and recognized the genuine Christian concern that had moved him to answer as he did, I was ready to progress.
For the mental torment simply to have been ended would have been "heavenly," a longed-for release. But it would not have given me a real sense of heaven—the bliss that is anchored in a rock-firm grasp of the truth of spiritual being. Such solidly grounded knowing is spiritual sense. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes (p. 209), "Spiritual sense is a conscious, constant capacity to understand God."
