EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO I was diagnosed with vaginal cancer. The gynecologist who had examined me told me I would need to have surgery. I went to my usual homeopathic doctor, who prescribed medication, which I took. My mother-in-law had passed away from this disease, and I was very fearful. I had the same symptoms she'd had, and I was experiencing pain in different parts of my body.
When I talked to my sister to tell her what had happened, she told me, "Hang on to life." She was a Christian Scientist. She gave me the address of a Church of Christ, Scientist, and suggested I speak to a Christian Science practitioner there and ask her to help me through prayer. I went to church and was introduced to a very lovely woman who was a practitioner. After hearing what was happening with me, she spoke very kindly to me and took me to the Christian Science Reading Room, where she gave me the Bible and Science and Health. She told me that I would be healed by reading these two books. But I didn't believe it and wondered, "How can I be healed just by reading these books?"
I asked the practitioner to pray for me, and she did. I had decided to stop taking the medication and rely completely on the spiritual treatment given by the practitioner—and on my own prayers. Sometimes I felt ill and had no desire to read, so I would ask my husband and my daughter to read to me the pages the practitioner had recommended that I study. Little by little, I began to learn that matter is not intelligent and does not become ill, and that because I was a child of God, illness was not part of me. My faith grew stronger and stronger.
