Testimony of Healing June 8, 1912 ISSUE

Christian Science has helped me so often and in so many...

Marguerite Marie Deutschendorff with contributions from Mary C. Deutschendorff

Christian Science has helped me so often and in so many ways that I could not, without taking up too much space, relate all it has done for me. I did not come to Christian Science for physical healing, although at the time it was presented to me I was suffering day and night from a severe liver complaint for which the doctors could give me no further help. I had seemed to be relieved for a time, but as I was unable to retain food it seemed as if I could not live very long. This did not trouble me, however, as I always felt so miserable that I did not care to live. The misery and suffering which I saw everywhere around me and the apparent impossibility of ever knowing the truth about anything seemed an unbearable obsession, and I had no religious faith to comfort me.

As a small child, when the concept of a God who sends trials and punishment was presented to me, I promised to myself that I would never obey or serve that God; and soon after, hearing that there were people who did not believe in God, I thought I would be one of them, as it was easy to admit the hypothesis that the Bible was a work of fiction. This did not prevent me from having a great longing for the beautiful, the good, and the true, which later on made me turn again to religion and try desperately to reconcile reason and revelation; but my attempts were vain. How could the omnipotent God of love for which my soul was longing, tolerate evil and suffering? Why did He create us imperfect? There seemed to be but one answer to these questions: that there was no omnipotent God, only an imperfect universe, evolved by chance and hastening toward annihilation; and yet, whence came the human longing for something higher and better? I did not wish for health or even deliverance from suffering, but my whole thought was, If there is truth anywhere, may I have it, however painful its revelations may be; even if it confirms the dread fear that death and annihilation end all? Let me know that which is!

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