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I teach Sunday School , and I’ve been observing and appreciating the charm (one meaning of that word is the power or quality of giving delight) that our Sunday School students express. There was the cartwheel after Sunday School ended; the second grader singing the hymns at the top of his lungs (and in tune!); the high schooler’s recounting of the touchdown pass he caught.

Spiritual reasoning and heartfelt outreach to God are natural to us as spiritual thinkers. 

“Are you kidding me? You want me to do what?! How stupid!” Yep, that was teenage me, bristling internally every time my mom told me what to do. Thoughts like these would then lead to harsh conversations where I said things to my mom I later realized I didn’t mean.

Recently I had the opportunity to talk with a group of Christian Scientists who were about to graduate from college. During our conversation one of the questions asked was, “What helped you stay committed to Christian Science?” I found myself sharing that the one thing that had been a great support in keeping me connected to Science was my commitment to attending Wednesday evening testimony meetings.

I yearned for answers. I had been earnestly praying for weeks and months—much of the time with the loving, tender, and inspired help of a Christian Science practitioner.

A few years ago I was staying with friends in the hills above Pietermaritzburg in South Africa. A number of wildfires were alight in the area because of very dry weather conditions.

I have taught Christian Science Sunday School for many years and continue to learn from being there. Presently I teach first- and second-graders, and whenever a healing appears in the weekly Bible Lesson, I ask them, “What did Christ Jesus say to the person healed?”  Understanding man as God’s very image and likeness, Jesus was able to dismiss disease as an illusion.

I’m so grateful for a recent healing I had. I was visiting the city on a very hot day, and I had to walk about a mile to my destination.

One of the US Coast Guard’s most daring rescues took place in 1952 during a massive nor’easter off Massachusetts’s Cape Cod, as dramatized in the recent Disney film The Finest Hours, based on the book of the same name. Fifty-foot waves from the powerful winter storm broke an oil tanker in half.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, my husband and I were at our town’s small boat ramp. We had just launched our fishing boat and were ready to enjoy the lake in the closing days of summer.