When Christian Science came into my life it found me in...

Irmgard von Petersdorff

When Christian Science came into my life it found me in a miserable and desperate condition. I was sick, had suffered loss, and was practically blind. I had sought relief in human philosophies, and had found a little, but not enough to heal my erroneous and unloving thoughts. After I had been healed of malarial fever in two Christian Science treatments, I began earnestly to study our wonderful textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, and I grasped at once something of the grandeur and precious import of the thoughts expressed therein. While studying I felt that my glasses hindered me, and I took them off never to put them on again. The shortsightedness and partial blindness of one eye had disappeared; and it left me happy, most humbly grateful, and drawn to divine Love, which I was beginning to understand.

On page 265 of Science and Health our revered Leader says, "Man understands spiritual existence in proportion as his treasures of Truth and Love are enlarged." With a heart filled with gratitude to God, the all-loving, ever active divine Principle, I testify to the truth of these inspired words by relating an experience which was of great value to me. For several weeks during the afternoon I had been overcome with a sense of tiredness and inertia while sitting in my warm, cozy office. I rebuked myself, and endeavored firmly to realize ever present Life and activity, but this relieved me only temporarily. So in my distress I turned to God, who is always my best friend, and asked for help, for enlightenment on what was lacking in my work, and for better understanding and more love.

A few days later a man for whom I had some work to do came to see me. He seemed very unhappy; he was out of work and was obliged to support a family. The thought came to me to help him in a material way, too, and I asked him if he could look at my stove and repair it if necessary. After he had been inspecting it a short time, he said that he was very much surprised that I had not felt anything, for at the very top there was a defective place where carbon dioxide gas had been escaping for some time. Naturally I asked him to remedy the defect; but inwardly I was filled with joyous gratitude that God had answered my petition so quickly and in such a wonderful manner, and that it was the result of a loving thought for my fellow man. Truly, "Love is the liberator," as our Leader says so beautifully on page 225 of the textbook.—(Miss) Irmgard von Petersdorff, Dresden, Germany.

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