Even though I attended a Christian Science Sunday School through my high-school years, I began to drift away from what I had learned there and began to follow many intellectual trends of the time.
I became mixed up, confused, and rebellious toward family and society I also began drinking, smoking, and stealing things from local stores; my morals went downhill. I delved into many different religious teachings and esoteric political philosophies. I could no longer reconcile my thinking, or my hateful and antisocial behavior, with the purity and the healing truth explained in Christian Science.
The confusion lasted for several years. After a marriage ended in divorce, I went away to college, and things got even worse; I became very reliant on medicine to salve an oftentimes pain-wracked body, and began to experiment with drugs. As money became more important to me, my job became full-time and schooling part-time. One day my boss called me in, asking me to explain another mistake. He told me, "You had better get your life together or I'm going to have to fire you." He also said confidentially that he could see I was suffering from lack of spiritual guidance, and suggested I turn to the religion in which I had been raised. This man had great love for God, and I had respect for him.
I began to attend the services at a local Christian Science church. "The design of Love is to reform the sinner," Mary Baker Eddy wrote on page 35 of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (of my life, it seemed!). I was brought to repentant tears when, on my first visit back, the congregation sang for the opening hymn "Mother's Evening Prayer," with words written by Mrs. Eddy (Christian Science Hymnal, No. 207). I again took up the study of Christian Science, and some of my early Sunday School lessons began to make more sense as I remembered them anew Christ Jesus tells us in the parable of the prodigal son that this son "came to himself" (Luke 15:17); it was as though I myself had been unconscious for a long time and had now begun to "come to [myself]."
As I realized my love for God and His love for me, I began to be free. I began to examine my life and challenge my thoughts, which I found were not only self-righteous but often just plain selfish. Changes were not always swift, but as I continued to read the weekly Christian Science Lesson-Sermons, I began to act and think in line with Christian moral standards.
The Bible had been a closed book to me, but it was becoming the very center for my studies. I had always loved the Bible stories and was now able to apply more of their spiritual lessons to my daily life. I became more compassionate. I was healed of feeling the need to experiment with drugs. Also I was healed first of the smoking, and then of the drinking. I met and married a kind, supportive man and found productive employment.
"In trying to undo the errors of sense one must pay fully and fairly the utmost farthing, until all error is finally brought into subjection to Truth. The divine method of paying sin's wages involves unwinding one's snarls, and learning from experience how to divide between sense and Soul" (Science and Health, p. 240). Through prayer I unwound many mental "snarls" and faced things requiring a courage I know came from God. It wasn't long before I realized I needed even more spiritual understanding, and a better sense of my worthiness. I'd previously had many years of frequent medical care for strep throat. Yet, after reading a particular article in the Christian Science Sentinel, and realizing that as God's child my innocence remains forever intact, I was healed of both the chronic strep throat and longtime feelings of worthlessness.
These experiences happened over fifteen years ago, and the healings cited here have been permanent. It would take a book for me to tell you of all the other healings I have experienced and grown from, involving crippling knee trouble, a violent temper, colds, flu, and oversensitivity.
My two children are being raised according to the standards of Christian Science. I have been and will always remain grateful for the foundations laid for me, and now our family, in Sunday School.
Franconia, New Hampshire
