It was during my second or third consecutive reading of the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, that I noticed the bottle of pills I had depended on to control nightmares had gone unused. I couldn’t remember the last time I had taken a pill, yet the nightmares had ended. Realizing that I no longer needed the pills, I threw them out.
Before reading Science and Health, I had been troubled by many fears and injustices in the world, such as the belief that God had favored and unfavored children—those who were blessed with success and financial resources and those who were downtrodden. But statements I came across in Science and Health about the nature of God and our relationship to Him made me rethink many of my perceptions and assumptions.
These passages were particularly encouraging and enlightening: “In divine Science, where prayers are mental, all may avail themselves of God as ‘a very present help in trouble.’ Love is impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals” (pp. 12–13), and, “The enslavement of man is not legitimate” (p. 228).
