When our oldest daughter, Tara, was fifteen months old and not developing normally, my husband and I were told by a neurologist that she had cerebral palsy and traits of autism. An orthopedic surgeon told me he did not think she would ever walk. He recommended that we put her in an institution and “go on with our lives.”
I was raised in a Christian Science Sunday School and had had many proofs of healing prior to having a family. I immediately sought support from a Christian Science practitioner, knowing I could challenge these medical predictions with the truths in the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy.
Although I knew that our loving Father-Mother God, the only creative, governing power of existence, could never create anything defective or capable of causing sorrow and grief, I initially felt great fear and responsibility for Tara’s condition. The first healing that took place was the dissolving of guilt and self-pity; I could not stop thinking that if I had prayed better during my pregnancy, I could have prevented this. I was also overwhelmed taking care of her special needs.
One challenging day, I collapsed on the floor and asked God to show me how to let go of the physical and mental burden. A question came: Who are you to usurp the creative power of God? I thought of a statement in Science and Health: “There is but one primal cause. Therefore there can be no effect from any other cause, and there can be no reality in aught which does not proceed from this great and only cause” (p. 207). I opened Science and Health to that page and also found another comforting truth: “Evil is not supreme; good is not helpless; nor are the so-called laws of matter primary, and the law of Spirit secondary.” I realized I could never do anything to outweigh God’s supreme, creative, causative power. The burden of guilt and false responsibility was lifted.
The second major healing came through the acceptance of many truths in the chapter “Physiology” in Science and Health, one of which was “The human thought must free itself from self-imposed materiality and bondage. It should no longer ask of the head, heart, or lungs: What are man’s prospects for life? Mind is not helpless” (p. 191). Affirming that Tara, as God’s child, must reflect the capability of Mind, I felt led to throw away her leg braces and begin teaching her to walk. Each day I took Tara outside, and while a friend and I supported her, we “walked” her up and down the driveway. Eventually she needed less support, and then she got to the point where she could take two steps between us.
The Christian Science Bible Lesson was my support during those days, as was Mrs. Eddy’s statement, “The devotion of thought to an honest achievement makes the achievement possible” (Science and Health, p. 199). We eventually got to the point where Tara could walk up and down the driveway holding our hands. Twenty years later, she and I were able to take brisk two-hour walks around the neighborhood, and then later she could walk with a normal gait, without any traces of cerebral palsy. What a lesson about the fruits of persistence!
Last summer a neighbor came over when we were returning from a walk. “If only they could see her now,” she said. I asked her whom she was referring to. “I worked as an intern at an early-intervention school district program where Tara was enrolled,” she said. “The teachers all thought she would be a ‘vegetable’ and would never walk.” We hugged each other with tears in our eyes. I told her this would never have been accomplished without God’s help and much prayer.
Over time, Tara was able to eat a normal diet and feed herself, defying the prediction of a lifetime liquid diet. Mrs. Eddy wrote a passage in Science and Health that I really took to heart: “Whoever would demonstrate the healing of Christian Science must abide strictly by its rules, heed every statement, and advance from the rudiments laid down. There is nothing difficult nor toilsome in this task, when the way is pointed out; but self-denial, sincerity, Christianity, and persistence alone win the prize, as they usually do in every department of life” (p. 462).
One day it came to me how blessed I was to have Tara in my home. This mental shift from burden to blessing enabled me to face the challenges that arose with greater strength. I saw that because we were God’s children, we both had purposeful lives, brimming with infinite possibilities from our Father-Mother God. Tara taught me the importance of unselfed love, patience, and persistence.
I am grateful for two women at my church who volunteered to be Tara’s Sunday School teachers. One of the women came to our home each Friday for twenty years and spent an hour reading passages from the Bible Lesson and singing hymns with her. Tara looked forward to the times they spent together and was truly blessed by this church member’s unselfish outreach.
After Tara graduated from high school, I discovered a feature on special needs in the bound volumes of the Journal (“Special needs: progress where progress seemed impossible,” March 1991). There was a testimony about a young woman who eventually lived independently and happily in a different city from her parents. This gave me great encouragement and helped me open my thought to a group home as being the next step for Tara’s independence and development as a young adult. It also helped me release the great personal attachment and false sense of personal responsibility I had felt for her care.
Working with a practitioner, I prayed to let go and put the right working out for Tara in God’s hands. The numerous group homes and day programs I visited and contacted in the Chicago area were overcrowded, and nothing seemed to be the right fit. In addition, there were about 22,000 people on the waiting list for a group home in the state of Illinois. But I knew that progress was God’s law for Tara, and she could not be denied whatever was the right next step for her.
It came to my husband and me to open our search to a more expansive radius within the state and send out information packets outside the Chicago area. To make a long story short, the head of a wonderful organization who told us she received hundreds of applications a week “happened” to select Tara’s packet from her desk and came to visit our home when the Sunday School teacher was singing hymns with Tara. Without even requesting a trial visit and overnight stay, the organization accepted her.
Tara has lived in a beautiful four-bedroom home with this organization for one year now. She has her own bedroom, only one other roommate, and two lovely caregivers. She attends a day program and goes out shopping and to restaurants with others, as she did at home. She is continuing to make greater strides as an independent young woman and is learning new skills on an iPad. One of the caregivers has become a close friend and takes Tara to church on Sundays.
I can’t express how grateful I am for the help I received from the Bible and Mary Baker Eddy’s writings, the love expressed by the members of my church, and the Christian Science practitioners who supported us along the way. As we read in Matthew 19:26, “With God all things are possible”!
Anne Stafford Petkus
Burr Ridge, Illinois, US
