Around the time of my university graduation, I went to visit a Christian Science practitioner about what seemed an overwhelming problem. I was suffering from an eating disorder. I felt trapped in a pattern of sin, self-condemnation, resolve to do and be better, followed by a crashing fall. After trying unsuccessfully for quite a long period to overcome this disorientation on my own, I sought the help of this practitioner, who was dedicating his life to healing others through prayer.
During our meeting, I poured out the description of this error to him, and then waited with some dread for his reaction. His response, however, was not at all what I had expected. Rather than express any dismay, he did something that I found to be extraordinary, something I continue to learn from to this day. He didn't appear to address the problem at all, but instead he lovingly asked me how I studied the Bible Lesson in the Christian Science Quarterly. He then proceeded to show me several different ways that he did so. He told me that he often read the Lesson straight through to get a general view of what was being taught about the subject. He said he kept a special notebook for his notes on each section. Each time he read the Lesson he added to the notes. By the end of the week he went over his notes and organized them into sentences that, for him, summarized the points each section was teaching. He also told me that he often would consider a particular need, and study the Lesson for answers to that specific need.
Although I found this very interesting, and even enlightening, I left his office feeling as though, perhaps, he hadn't really understood why I had come. Nevertheless, in the weeks after our meeting I started to explore some of the approaches he had offered me about how to study the Bible Lesson. As I did so, I began to gain a deeper sense of being fed by these Lessons, and began to feel that they were actually God's Word, that God was speaking to me in my present experience. This was a great comfort. I no longer felt that I was alone struggling with a dark reality, but was increasingly occupied with uncovering more of perfect, spiritual reality—the only reality.
