As a child it seemed there was always something wrong with me— stomachaches, earaches, sore throats. I missed a lot of school, and when I was there, I could not participate in gym classes because, among other things, it was said I had rheumatic fever.
When we visited an aunt in a nearby city, she took me to visit the Christian Science Sunday School. I felt so much love in that Sunday School and in her home. Although I was very little, I began to understand God as Love and to see that I could turn to Him in sickness. It was not sacrilegious or presumptuous to think of healing as Jesus did. When we moved nearer my aunt, I continued to go to her church's Sunday School. My dad drove me there and dropped me off regularly and faithfully every Sunday.
I loved music and singing, but my family considered me too frail to embark on such a strenuous career. When I began to learn more of my true relationship to God and of how He made me, in His image and likeness, however, I realized that my strength depended on my God-given heritage as His beloved child and that I didn't have to fulfill the predictions that I was "too frail." I did study voice and joined my college choir. With prayer, love, and trust on both sides, I was able to leave home and continue my studies at a conservatory in a larger city. With God's help I studied and practiced not only music and singing, but also dancing; served on church committees; did church solo work; and sometimes held down two or three part-time jobs in department stores and cafeterias to help support myself. As more opportunities to sing opened up, I had the stamina to travel professionally. Every day of my life has been freer and happier because of what I have learned in Christian Science.
