Mary Baker Eddy writes in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (p. 99): "The calm, strong currents of true spirituality, the manifestations of which are health, purity, and self-immolation, must deepen human experience, until the beliefs of material existence are seen to be a bald imposition, and sin, disease, and death give everlasting place to the scientific demonstration of divine Spirit and to God's spiritual, perfect man."
In childlike love I sought to understand the Word of God when I was still in school. When I was fifteen, the words of Christ Jesus from the Bible (John 15:26) "When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me" would not loose their hold on me.
After ten years my brother brought home Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, and I rejoiced to hear such a glorious interpretation of the Word of God. Previously, without my knowing it, what I was hearing had been at work in me, for the Master's promise in John's Gospel had not fallen on stony ground.
While I was reading the chapter "Atonement and Eucharist" in the textbook, I scarcely believed my eyes to find that Christian Science was the promised Comforter. I was overjoyed that I had found what I had sought as a girl.
I said to my husband, "You can drop the health insurance now. I have Christian Science." Since that time we have not had a doctor in the house. Whatever has happened to us has been corrected through reflecting God, through selflessness, uprightness, and loving our neighbor.
I was very much scoffed at for the truth's sake. Yes, error seemed to be turned loose. I learned a great deal from the healing of rheumatism, in my own case as well as that of my son. My son was in a very severe state when he said, "Mother, take me to the hospital. It's no use anymore." But I was ashamed before God to resort to a material remedy. In this extremity I reached out to infinite, omnipotent Love to help me. Scarcely a few minutes had gone by when a strong conviction came over me that God alone does the healing. Instantaneously my son was able to move his entire body, which had been stiff as a board a few minutes previously. In fact, he got up immediately and walked about the room. With this healing, four deep wounds on the shins, received while playing soccer, were healed to the extent that a covering of skin formed. This healing, too, was complete.
Another son had a skin eruption called an occupational disease. He was a confectioner. I said to him, "Call on God's love. This will show you a power you cannot imagine." In a few days the skin condition had cleared up.
However, someone challenged him, so that he had to show his true colors. Apparently he was not completely honest about it. Could it be that he was ashamed of the truth that healed him? The next day the malady was there again, but in what aggravated form! I said to him, "Now you're going to go to God, again, and you're going to ask Him for mercy and forgiveness; you don't want to deny this infinite Love ever again." He went to the Father that day in prayer, and God, who sees in secret, rewarded him openly. The condition has never returned.
Then I was confronted with a further harsh experience in our home. Through prayer I learned that family inharmony, whether it appeared through me or others, and however long it had continued, never existed in true consciousness. It was only through lack of understanding that I had accepted it.
The Bible teaches that we are healed through rejecting evil. Through radical rejection the distorted picture in our home regained its clarity, and the relationship was restored to harmony. It was a great joy to see how the error lost ground and all falsity underwent correction. I learned that man as an image in Mind was never more and never less than man. Christian Science was a school of life for me, which showed me that we have nothing to do with substance-matter but that sin, sickness, and death must be corrected through Truth, Life, and Love, the law of Spirit. For these experiences, which led me to an understanding of spiritual being, I am very grateful. In our textbook we read (p. 66):
"Thou art right, immortal Shakespeare, great poet of humanity:
Sweet are the uses of adversity;
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head."
Opladen, West Germany
