When I was the tender age of three months, a wonderful family took me into their home and their hearts. My birth mother had arranged to board me there. I was most lovingly cared for. I later learned that my new mom was quite a new Christian Scientist at the time and asked my birth mother if she could call a Christian Science practitioner for me; I had signs of serious physical problems. My birth mother's answer was a very loving one: "Treat her as you would your own." A practitioner began to pray for me, and eventually this family adopted me. God's plan for man cannot be stopped, as this statement from Science and Health indicates: "Man is the family name for all ideas,—the sons and daughters of God. All that God imparts moves in accord with Him, reflecting goodness and power" (p. 515).
My new family's grandmother lived with us at the time I came. One day a window accidentally dropped down on her wrist, causing her both pain and concern. She was not a Christian Scientist and asked a doctor to come and look at it. When he arrived he seemed more concerned with me lying there in my crib than he was with her injured wrist, which he attended to in the course of his visit. He told my mother that from his observation she had taken on a great burden, and asked why she had gotten involved with a child who had such problems. Her answer was very plain: "Because she needs me." The doctor then went on to explain that I had what was known in layman's terms as water on the brain. I also had crossed eyes. He said that I would never be normal, and would probably end up in an institution if indeed I survived to adulthood.
I'm sure Mom felt that her work was cut out for her in praying for me. However, she was learning that material laws do not apply to the truth of being. We find that on page 468 of Science and Health: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all." Mother was learning that my physical condition could never affect my spiritual identity.
