I started studying Christian Science in 2014. For about four years prior to this, I felt God actively leading me.

It was the early 1990s, and I was living in Paris. I had been praying for many years to find a religion that would help me learn about God.

In the early 1990s, as part of my graduate school program, I took a class on environmental policy. The professor assigned The Christian Science Monitor , telling the class it was the best newspaper for coverage of environmental issues and that we could skip the religious article in the back.

I remember as a young girl having the book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy in our home. I don’t recall reading it or having anyone read it to me; I think a friend had given it to my mother.

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” ( Psalms 46:1 ). I love this Bible citation.

“What is gratitude but a powerful camera obscura, ” wrote Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, in her book The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany . The full quotation reads, “What is gratitude but a powerful camera obscura, a thing focusing light where love, memory, and all within the human heart is present to manifest light” ( p.

I was not looking for a new religion. But I was looking for Truth.

The incredible had happened! My GI husband had survived the war, and after six years of living through World War II in England, I was finally with him in America. We had two lovely little girls and were living in a home we shared with my husband’s parents and grandparents in a safe and peaceful community, when suddenly the peace and security were snatched away at a family gathering when I was told we were on the verge of war again (the Korean War).

When I was a child, the thought came to me that “God is a God of love only” and not a God of both love and hate, which was taught by my father’s religion—something I could not accept. This new view of God came during a time when my mother was beginning to study Christian Science.

While taking time during the day for prayer and spiritual study, I have found myself reflecting on the many ways in which my thought was prepared for Christian Science.   One of the many memories that comes back to me is of being in graduate school several decades ago.