Having grown up in a home where hospitality is considered a sacred attribute, I identify with the many truths in the Bible affirming such things as "In him we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:28) and with the idea that home is in consciousness. There are so many spiritual parables I have grown up with that are similar to the ones in the Bible pointing out the reward of offering rest and refuge to strangers. I can therefore fully understand the hymn that begins, "Pilgrim on earth, home and heaven are within thee" (Christian Science Hymnal, No. 278).
I arrived in the United States twenty-seven years ago, leaving behind all that a married woman in my country is taught to believe about her identity. I strove to express qualities associated with home in many different ways: providing shelter for another person in need, sharing meals with lonely individuals and friends, and spending weekends with other families. All these gave me a sense of belonging. Yet the nagging yearning for home, with a husband and children, never left me.
The joy of completing my doctoral degree, the beginning of a teaching career, and the resuming of a family life with my teen-aged children, who had joined me, was short-lived, however. A crippling back pain rendered me immobile. A yearlong course of heavy medication, leading up to surgery, brought no cure. Now bedridden, without a job, I prayed fervently for a solution to my problems. I had a firm conviction that God was all-powerful and ever present. In answer to my prayers, a sister—who had been introduced to Christian Science —flew in suddenly from New Delhi. She and I spent the entire time of her stay in daily study of the Bible Lessons outlined in the Christian Science Quarterly. Every moment she assured me of God's healing power. Before leaving, she urged me to visit a Christian Science practitioner.
