Early in 1977 my wife was having severe problems with her blood pressure and was very frequently ill. A doctor, who was a friend of ours, examined her and concluded that she would die before long. Then he asked me to take her home, which I did. At that point I had lost faith in medicine and tribal witchcraft; and I had never really had any in God. Her death appeared imminent.
Later that afternoon, I found two copies of The Herald of Christian Science (French Edition) on my wife's night stand. These periodicals had been left by a woman who was the only Christian Scientist in Cameroun at that time. The title of these magazines attracted my attention. I took them into the next room to read—out of curiosity and also so that I could make fun of the religion. But after two hours of reading all the articles in one copy of the Herald, I discovered the true God. He was not like the God I had been told about—a God who kills; who makes mistakes; who requires mercy but who Himself always gets revenge; who created hell and heaven; and who is not impartial and certainly is not good. (I had believed that He wanted to kill my wife!) In a word, my God had been a god of paradoxes and contradictions.
But reading this Herald, I discovered the real God—the only creator, the only cause, the only possessor and provider of all good to man, who is His image; the one, totally spiritual originator, absolute in love, grace, and mercy; perfect, good, immortal.
