Although I occasionally attended Christian Science Sunday School as a youngster, I did not truly become a student of Christian Science until 1969, in my senior year of college. That summer, I was severely burned in a propane gas explosion at work. Because of the severity of the burns, my employer had me taken to a hospital. I had second-degree burns on 25 percent of my body and third-degree burns on about ten percent of my body.
When my dad arrived at the hospital, I asked him to call a Christian Science practitioner to pray for me. He did, and the practitioner agreed to pray to support me. Sunday morning, three days after entering the hospital, I told the doctor I didn't want any more pain or antibiotic drugs. The doctor warned me that I would be in a great deal of pain and that the burns were likely to become badly infected. I felt certain that I wanted to rely on Christian Science treatment alone, so I persisted in my request and the doctor finally acquiesced.
No more medicine was given to me. From that Sunday on, I began to improve rapidly, and I had no more pain. The following weekend, the doctor released me from the hospital. A week later nearly all the evidence that anything had happened to me had disappeared. My hair and nine finger nails that I had lost grew back at a normal rate. I do still have a few minor scars, but on my face and ears where I was burned the worst, I have no scars at all.
