When I was a young girl, I was diagnosed with rheumatic fever. Although I survived the illness, there were debilitating aftereffects that included long periods of pain and immobility in which I couldn’t walk.
My family were not Christian Scientists at that time, but an English friend of Mother’s was a Christian Scientist. She shared Christian Science with my mother, who soon enrolled me in a Christian Science Sunday School, where my teacher was a Christian Science practitioner. While I had attended some services in a Protestant church before, this was the first time that I was really exposed to studying the Bible. My teacher pointed out the difference between the perfection of man in Genesis 1 (a perfection that Christian Science teaches is our birthright as God’s children) and the belief of a mortal man whose ancestor was the Adam depicted in Genesis 2.
I would visit a Christian Science Reading Room during my lunch breaks and study and turn to God, praying for direction.
