Testimony of Healing March 30, 1935 Issue

I wish to express my gratitude for what Christian Science...

Alexandera Bobrikova Crichton

I wish to express my gratitude for what Christian Science has done and is doing for me, for mine, and for all. Like many others, the way to Christian Science was for me the way of suffering. Since early childhood I had been longing for a God of love and truth, but had to accept the teaching of an orthodox religion, wherein suffering, curse, and everlasting punishment were firmly believed to be the means employed by the Father to govern His sinful children. In such conditions, to pray, "Thy will be done," meant passive nonresistance to evil, and fear that His will would be done. In fact, clear reasoning was in constant conflict with theology; and I never could submit my deep sense of divine goodness to the blind admission of the incomprehensible cruelty of the religious beliefs of my church. The terrible conditions into which, like so many others, I was brought, led me to a point in my thinking at which I saw with certainty that there must be a misunderstanding somewhere, and that there is a good God, although I did not know how and where to find Him; and I earnestly prayed to God to reveal Himself to me. To human sense I had lost all that makes life worth living, and in addition to my mourning and misery I suffered from tuberculosis of the lungs. But the physical condition was small in comparison with my mental need.

I had never heard of Christian Science and so had no opinion concerning it, when at this darkest hour the book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, was lent me by a person also quite indifferent to its teaching. But, having read a few pages, I saw that here was the answer to all my needs. I read the book constantly day and night. The illumination which flooded my consciousness was so mighty that I could hardly stand the light. A new world was revealed. A few days later I noticed a change in my physical condition and realized that my illness had vanished. It sounds strange, but at that time I was not even surprised. Not knowing that Christian Science could heal, I simply accepted my healing as a natural result of God's revealing Himself to me. In the book there were some passages which seemed difficult to grasp, and I called on a practitioner for explanation. She told me that God never sent me any suffering, since God is Love, and Love just loves. She helped me with great kindness and wisdom to gain a new outlook. Since then my life has been transformed. I perceived somewhat the new heaven and the new earth of God's creation, and the following years unfolded inevitable progress—the wilderness became a fruitful field. My children also accepted Christian Science and became earnest workers in the Field. This Science replaced despair with joy, illness with health and vigor, poverty and hardships with an abiding sense of bounty and lighteartedness. It gave me the priceless treasure of understanding in a measure "the glorious liberty of the children of God."

To say that I am grateful is not adequate. Christian Science is everything to me, and words alone cannot express my gratitude to God, to Christ Jesus, and to our blessed Leader. I am grateful for having had the privilege of class instruction; for the opportunity of serving actively our great Cause; for the translations of our textbook, which made it possible for me to read it at a time when I did not know the English language; for all our Leader's works and all the activities which she was divinely inspired to establish, especially for the lectures; for the work of practitioners throughout the world, and for all the blessings to every man and nation coming from divine Love through Christian Science.

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