Like most kids who think about what to do when they grow up, Josephine Pickup had a ready answer when one of her Sunday School teachers years ago asked her that question: "A Christian Science practitioner!" But unlike a lot of kids who dream about their future careers, eight-year-old Jo really did grow up to become just what she'd said that day so many years ago.
As Jo tells it, "When I was five years old, the top of my spine started to protrude at the back of my neck. My mother had been involved in a car accident when she was eight months pregnant and there was apparently a great deal of concern about me—the unborn child—at that time. So when this abnormality appeared on my neck, it was thought that it might have been something to do with my spine growing out of alignment, as a result of that incident. My mother said she was going to phone a Christian Science practitioner about it. I remember how bewildered I felt by this, because I didn't understand what a practitioner would do, but whether I understood it or not, she obviously prayed very effectively. The healing came quickly. I remember thinking this was wonderful!"
Although Jo attended a teachers' college and went into the teaching profession (before marriage and having children), eventually the public healing practice of Christian Science called—and she responded, never doubting that motherhood and the healing ministry would make a wonderful combined career. After she began advertising in the Journal in 1984, Jo took on a new role as a Christian Science lecturer and for 12 years she traveled in the United Kingdom, Europe, the United States, and different parts of Africa giving talks on Christian Science. Then in 2003, she became a teacher of Christian Science. She lives in a village just outside the city of Winchester, England, with her husband, John, and keeps track of her busy and far-flung family—her four children and four grandchildren live in such diverse places as Singapore, the far north of England, middle England, and her youngest is at university in Wales. Read Jo's account of how being in the healing practice means always being at home—in Spirit.
