AS A CHILD, I ATTENDED a Christian Science Sunday School. However, I was frequently ill growing up and my parents called on medical doctors for help when I wasn't well. I loved what I learned in Sunday School, but it certainly didn't seem that it applied to me. By the time I had reached my teens, I felt that Christian Science had no practical value for me. I stopped attending Sunday School and left Christian Science altogether.
I married at a young age, and my life was very unhappy, as my husband was abusive. After 15 years, we divorced. A year later, I met a wonderful man. We married and I felt that my life was now complete. Yet, within a few short years, I found myself experiencing another troubled marriage. I then lost all hope that I could ever find happiness or feel truly loved. I became reckless with my life and began to suffer alarming symptoms of what developed rapidly into a debilitating illness, forcing me to leave my job. And so began my struggle to find healing. For the next two and a half years, I sought medical help, endured endless medical tests, and took countless prescription drugs. But my health continued to deteriorate. Finally, during one visit, the doctor told me that I had stomach cancer, and that this particular type could not be treated medically. I was terrified, to say the least.
For seven months following this devastating news, I continued to struggle. The physical symptoms continued to worsen. Not only was I filled with debilitating fear, I was unable to eat most foods, or sleep more than one hour each night. In my hopelessness and despair, I attempted to end my life by ingesting a full bottle of prescription sleeping pills. I was found by my husband in a coma and taken to a hospital where I was on life support for five days. The physicians attending me in the hospital felt almost certain that I wouldn't survive. My family was told that even if I did live, major organs in my body would most likely be severely damaged.
