DESPERATE, I walked out to the middle of a bridge, leaned over the rail, and stared at the water beneath. I considered jumping. A doctor had told me I was having a nervous breakdown, but he didn't know what he could do for me. I had two small children, and although I earnestly wanted to be there for them and wanted to be well, I did not want them to grow up in an atmosphere where their mother was mentally ill, as I had done as a child.
If a doctor couldn't help me, what would I do? In unbearable mental pain, I reached out in a wordless prayer, crying out for help. As I did, I realized that I needed to know more about God.
Then I remembered two books that a boyfriend had given me several years before, the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. Although I didn't understand anything about Christian Science and hadn't taken an interest in it at that time, I had always felt a sense of peace on the few occasions I attended a Christian Science Sunday School.
