When I was just out of Sunday School and a fledgling worker in my branch Church of Christ, Scientist, a former Sunday School teacher told me something that had happened in our church years earlier. Her mother, who from all accounts was wonderfully compassionate and wise, was working in the Christian Science Reading Room one day when a poor woman came in. She had brought a gift for the Reading Room as a token of her appreciation for the great good Christian Science was bringing her. The gift was homemade paper flowers, which were not pretty or really appropriate for the Reading Room. But the attendant accepted them with love and in the spirit in which they were given and placed them in a vase.
Shortly after the donor left, a zealous church member came in. When she saw those tacky paper flowers, her wrath was unleashed. She denounced the flowers, the giver, and the recipient, who, she felt, had failed to preserve the beauty of the Reading Room. The attendant tenderly said to her, "Dear, did God tell you to say that?" Whereupon the member turned in indignation and stormed out of the Reading Room only to return a short time later in contrition. "No," she said, "God didn't tell me to say that. I did!"
I don't know how long the paper flowers stayed in the Reading Room. And I guess it doesn't matter. I do know that afterward, and for many years, that "zealous" church member was a Journal-listed practitioner whose ministrations brought healing to my family and to many others. And the one who was serving in the Reading Room that day continued to be a tower of strength to her family and to our branch church.
