For a year and a half, I struggled with a chronic issue of blood and other symptoms. Since I wasn’t in any pain, I reasoned that I could live with it, and I almost came to accept this condition as part of my being. But while I was taking Christian Science Primary class instruction late in the summer of 2010, the symptoms abated, and I was grateful.
During class, I began to rethink my concept of what it means to be a woman. Instead of a matter-based definition of womanhood as physical and subject to problems with menstruation and menopause—and even with “men” in general—I considered what Mary Baker Eddy says about our real, spiritual selfhood.
For instance, she writes in Unity of Good: “Sooner or later the whole human race will learn that, in proportion as the spotless selfhood of God is understood, human nature will be renovated, and man will receive a higher selfhood, derived from God, and the redemption of mortals from sin, sickness, and death be established on everlasting foundations” (p. 6).
