Testimony of Healing October 3, 1925 Issue

From the age of five years until I was eighteen, I tried...

Stella McKibben

From the age of five years until I was eighteen, I tried to learn to read; but, due to a set of unruly nerves, at the age of eighteen I could read only the first half of the third reader. I was, therefore, literally starving for something to do and to think about. I was tired of all the doctors and of all the quacks who had taken interest in my case, and insisted upon being left alone to enjoy life as best I could. Hence, when a new neighbor came to tell me of Christian Science, I wished she would go home, for I did not want to hear anything about Christian Science; and so I told her. But she would not let me alone. So one beautiful Sunday morning, when she kindly invited me to go with her to a Christian Science church service, I decided to do so, for I thought that when she found how much trouble it was to take me anywhere, she would be ready to let me alone; and this I was determined she should do.

We were late in entering church that morning, and the Bible reading was in process when we took our seats. The words which greeted me were, "I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat." I too was hungry for something to think about, and I wondered if I too would be fed.

Upon returning home, I tried to recall what the Lesson-Sermon had been about, for it had sounded very good to me; but I could only remember that it had been read from the Bible and from the Christian Science textbook. This made me want this textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, although I could not read it; and so I borrowed a copy of it. Then through its pages I looked and looked for a sentence which I could read, until I found these three: "God is All-in-all. God is good. Good is Mind" (p. 113). Then I remembered that some one had told me the Bible taught that man was made in the image and likeness of God. Then without the least idea as to the importance of what I was doing, I thought over and over: If God is Mind, He knows all things; and if man was made in God's image and likeness, man knows how to read—I know how to read. It was about four-thirty of that same Sunday when I again picked up the Bible and Science and Health and found that I could readily read them. I felt as if I had just been told what each word was, and what it meant.

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