Testimony of Healing May 12, 1923 Issue

For ten years previous to the time I took up the study of...

Zona M. Carruthers

For ten years previous to the time I took up the study of Christian Science, I was restlessly seeking for the happiness I could not find. I searched for it through every material channel the world has to offer, only to find that I was becoming more and more cynical and worldly-minded, blaming others for the unhappiness which seemed to come to me.

When I seemed almost distracted by the constant failures that confronted me in my efforts at right living, I met a friend who had taken up the study of Christian Science. She told me of it, advising that I see a practitioner. When I said that I'd like to be good, but there were so many things I did not want to give up, my friend replied, "What if something else should take their place?" This seemed to me so logical, and brought such a ray of hope, that I said I would see a Christian Science practitioner. While gleaning the first bit of understanding, I found that what I had been so restlessly seeking was the understanding of divine Love, and that I had met with constant failures because I was seeking it in the wrong direction. Only through the understanding of what God is, could I find out what Love is.

Four days later I visited a Christian Science Reading Room. There I read in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy the words on page 1, "Desire is prayer." They came to me with great fullness of meaning. I saw that all my mental sufferings were an unsatisfied desire for good; and that all those years when I seemed to feel so far away from all that was good, I was really praying for, longing for, desiring good. I left that Reading Room comforted and uplifted. I found upon reading the Bible that it also seemed illuminated with a beautiful new meaning. At last I had found what would fill every aching void, and bring the true sense of love into my life. I also understood, in reading that day from Science and Health, that a right understanding of God does heal the sick; and it was not until I returned home that I remembered that I was a graduate nurse, having graduated four months before. It came to me suddenly, Why, I believe in Christian Science; what is to become of my profession? I saw already that in order to study this new-old religion as I should, I must drop my profession as I then practiced it, and take up work along other lines, not antagonistic to the teachings of Christian Science.

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