I felt like I was always looking over my shoulder, afraid that some dreadful disease was going to sneak up on me or someone I loved. And no wonder. My family history was full of hereditary problems ranging from birth defects and high blood pressure to heart disease and cancer. So every little physical abnormality scared me. Did it portend something deadly? Before I started studying Christian Science, I'd even undergone surgery for a lump in my breast. It didn't turn out to be cancerous, but it fueled my fears all the same.
Although I first learned about Christian Science when I was a teenager, it wasn't until I became a parent that I really began looking into it. Not only did I fear for my own life, I was also worried about what might have been passed along to my children. And being consumed by all this fear didn't seem like any way to live. I wanted to feel safe, to have some assurance that my family and I weren't just at the mercy of our genes.
As I began to study the Bible, along with Science and Health, I found idea after idea that slowly changed the way I was thinking about things. I learned that God is Spirit, Principle, and is wholly good. Since this Spirit, Principle, is the Creator, the Father-Mother of the universe, then His creation must be spiritual and wholly good, too, and it must conform to His divine nature. As I began to see that this creation included me, I also began to realize that my life couldn't be defined by a material history. Instead, I had every right to say, as the Psalmist did, "Yea, I have a goodly heritage." Ps. 16:6.
