All my life I have been accustomed to performing, without fear, in various athletic and artistic events before an audience. But when it came to public speaking, a paralyzing fear of criticism would come over me. It was so overwhelming that even in my junior year of college I would skip any class requiring oral work.

How I wished I could contribute some small word of gratitude at the Wednesday evening testimony meetings in my branch Church of Christ, Scientist! A couple of times I even wrote out a testimony, determined to stand and share it. But fear always got the better of me.

When I graduated from college, I thought that at last I would be free from speechmaking. I wanted to write, not orate. As for testimonies, I felt that they would come in their own time.

After many futile weeks of searching for a position that involved writing, I stopped and tried to listen to what God would have me do. The thought of teachers' college came to me. Teaching was the last thing I wanted to do. But I felt so strongly that this was God's will that I enrolled.

Upon looking back at this step I consider it ridiculous that I even considered teaching, because it requires one to speak before an audience every day. I would have been terrified! But this fearful thought never occurred to me. I was listening to what God was telling me, and God knows nothing of fear.

Just days before my first practice-teaching session, I began to feel concern. However, I knew that if this was my God-directed place, then God would give me the ability to fulfill it successfully and completely.

Then, two days before my first class, I attended a Wednesday evening testimony meeting. After the meeting the thought came to thank one of the testifiers for her testimony. I did. We then began talking as though we had known each other for years, although I had never seen her before. As though someone else were controlling what I was saying, my problem began spilling out. When I finished, she said, "Why, my dear, you aren't just talking to a class of human beings. You are the reflection of God, and the children are God's ideas!"

Immediately I saw that God's ideas express the one Mind, and that therefore any fear was ridiculous. The inspiration that flowed into me was something I'd never experienced before. All the way home I felt the most wonderful sense of peace. I knew that I had been healed.

Practice teaching was pure joy. Whenever the suggestion of fear tried to break into my thought, I quickly reversed it with the understanding that we were all God's ideas, and that God's ideas are governed by divine intelligence. When the time came to be observed by the inspector, I continued in this thought that God imparts intelligence to man. That class was my best.

The confidence that such a simple healing thought brought me was bounteous. Giving testimonies became fun. Later I was offered a very desirable position that enabled me to write full time.

I can say I am grateful, but this does not begin to express my feeling of love toward Mrs. Eddy and Christian Science for giving me an ever-unfolding sense of right place, right activity, and right companionship.

(Mrs.) Mary Walls Kuhl
Riverside, Connecticut

Mary Kuhl is my daughter, and I can vouch for her testimony.

May I at this time express my own gratitude for Christian Science. It has played an important role in my life. Class instruction for me was an answer to prayer for help in raising my children in the love for Christian Science.

(Mrs.) Leah Lathrop Walls
Willowdale, Ontario, Canada