On Monday evening, June 7, following the 1993 Annual Meeting, a special fruitage meeting was held in the Extension of The Mother Church. Twenty church members from around the world told of their own experiences in reading Science and Health and of how they had felt its transforming power.
Over the following months, the Journal will share with readers excerpts from these experiences and the central message that was brought out in this important meeting: that the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, is indeed healing and transforming lives all over the world, through the power of God and His Christ.
In this issue, we have accounts from Prague, Czech Republic and Oslo, Norway.
Prague, Czech Republic
My first encounter with Science and Health came more than forty years ago, at the time of my son's birth. According to a medical diagnosis, the child had suffered a brain hemorrhage, and was unable to take milk. He appeared to be dying.
My mother, who studied Christian Science, asked a practitioner ... to take the case. (This could be done, as the child was receiving no medication.) My mother also gave me a copy of the textbook in English and said, "Just read it and don't be afraid."
Though I did not understand much of the book, I was not afraid. On the contrary, I was very confident; somehow I knew nothing could take the life God had given to this child.
Then the "unbelievable" happened. The next day the baby took some milk. The following day he drank more, and in a week he was dismissed from the hospital in perfect health.
I still did not understand Christian Science then, but eight years later I began to read the Bible Lessons translated into Czech on sheets of paper. (That was the way we received them in those days.) Like a light growing stronger and stronger, my thought opened steadily to the truth. As I studied, I felt I understood better why we exist, who I was, and what my purpose was in life.
I remember myself reading the Bible with new eyes and saying, That's it, that's it! How come everybody isn't seeing this?
Then my first demonstration came. It was in the 1960s, and the oppression in Czechoslovakia was great. One morning, people from the State Security Service came to our apartment. They searched thoroughly every piece of paper in the place, and then took my husband with them when they left. The next day, two higher officials visited me and asked questions concerning our stay in Turkey ten years ago, when my husband was in the diplomatic service. They hinted that he was charged with espionage and that I wouldn't see him soon.
The next two days I calmed myself by the ideas found in Science and Health. I made notes of the sentences that spoke to me. The last sentence in my notes was "The miracle of grace is no miracle to Love" (p. 494). The next day, my husband appeared at our door. His first words were, "I've come home by a miracle." The circumstances he later described were miraculous, but I really knew better. There's no miracle to Love, to God, who supplies all good.
My study of Christian Science brought many blessings to me, but I felt a little lonely in the study. I knew no other students of Christian Science. I did not doubt that God would take care of things, though. One day a friend of a relative from California appeared in Prague. She was traveling through Europe, and I said with just a touch of envy, "Oh, I would like so much to travel." She said, "Why not? 'Desire is prayer.'" I immediately recognized this as a phrase from Science and Health (p. 1) and asked her if she was a Christian Scientist. She said, "Of course I am," and we embraced each other.
This friend gave my name to The Mother Church, and through visitors from the States I obtained the addresses of fellow Christian Scientists in Prague. I spent many blessed hours with them and worked with some of them on the translation of Science and Health into Czech.
As time passed, we began to meet in someone's apartment and read the Bible Lessons, using the Czech translation of Science and Health published in 1983. After the 1989 revolution, we began having regular and open Sunday services. In October 1992 we were approved as a society of The Mother Church, something we're very grateful for.
Oslo, Norway
However conscientiously we may look after our children, there will be times when we cannot be there to guide and guard them. How wonderful it is then to know that they are always and ever in the tender embrace of God, our loving Father.
When our son, who is now a young man, announced some time ago that he and a friend had made plans to explore a certain river in their canoes, I shared his enthusiasm without hesitation and helped with preparations for the trip. That's part of the fun of it all.
I was quite busy during the weekend they were gone, and it was not until the afternoon of the second day that I found myself suddenly thinking about our son. Although I was not worried, it occurred to me that there might be a reason for this intuition, so I began declaring what I knew: that our son represented buoyant, joyous Life, and that he was enjoying the beauty of nature, expressing all of his God-given qualities. These were ideas I had gained from my study of Science and Health, and they came to me not so much as words from the book but as spiritual truths, which flow from the book's central message of God's allness and man's perfect unity with Him.
I went on praying until I felt everything was firmly established in God's harmony. Then I returned to what I was doing in the kitchen.
The next day our son came home looking his usual self, content and a bit tired. I asked him about the trip. He seemed quite happy at first, but with some hesitation, he told me that at one point it had nearly turned into a fatal disaster. Apparently the river was not as calm as anticipated, and suddenly they had found themselves battling rapids more severe than any they had handled before. Our son's canoe had capsized. For a long time he struggled against the strong current and was held under water until he felt he had no breath left. Then he got his head out of the water for a second, only to be pulled down again. This time he thought he was drowning.
Then, the next moment, things had suddenly changed. He found himself in calmer waters, caught his breath, found his friend, and retrieved the lost gear.
When I asked him the approximate time when this had happened, he said it was the very afternoon when I had had the sudden urge to declare the fact of God's harmony—in which no accidents can occur. I humbly acknowledged that angel message from our Father, who knows our need before we ask Him.
In praying for my family, I have learned not to push anyone humanly, but just to know in my prayers that my husband and our children have always been embraced in Love and Truth, and that material conditions can never really affect them. We are always in God's care.
I am infinitely grateful for the understanding of God, our Father, that I have gained through the study of the Bible and Science and Health.
Fruitage reports published in a previous Journal: •Bombay, India; •St. Petersburg, Russia; •Cambridge, MA, U.S.A.
