When I was a teenager and went to the beach with my friends, everybody enjoyed the ocean. I couldn't stay in the water for too long, however, because white blotches would appear all over my body and I would feel dizzy. Once I even fainted. My mother took me to many specialists, but all the doctors could say was that I suffered from an allergy, a reaction to cold water.
When I was eighteen I began to read a copy of The Herald of Christian Science that we had at home. The magazine mentioned the book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, and I became interested in reading it. We found out that some people in Lisbon were studying Christian Science. So we went there and bought the book. As I read it, I thought the ideas were presented with clarity and precision, like mathematics.
I had always yearned to know myself better, to find out how things worked in the universe and why people exist. These questions were, in a way, present during my reading of Science and Health. I read it in a few days and the ideas in the book shone like a very bright light in my consciousness.
