Testimony of Healing January 3, 1983 Issue

I would like to express my deep and humble...

MARGARET ANNE WORTHING with contributions from STUART R. WORTHING

I would like to express my deep and humble gratitude for the lessons learned during the experience related in this testimony. It is written in the hope that it will aid and inspire others to persist in working out similar difficulties.

A few years after I was married, I began to feel that I had made a terrible mistake in marrying my husband. Our dispositions seemed completely incompatible; our goals in life appeared to be very different; our homelife was miserable; and it seemed the love we had once shared had disappeared. I had only one thought: "I want out," and it haunted me for months.

Since my husband and I are Christian Scientists, we were both praying, trying to work out our problems. But we weren't working together; there was very little communication. I read and reread the chapter "Marriage" in our textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, and many passages stood out. On pages 59 and 60 we read, "Separation never should take place, and it never would, if both husband and wife were genuine Christian Scientists." This statement alerted me to the fact that my first obligation was to be a genuine Christian Scientist. This involved doing my highest sense of right and praying to see my husband in his true light, as a child of God. Well, I tried. But the stress and strain of living under the same roof seemed unbearable. Finally, I suggested to my husband that he take a trip to see his parents who lived across the country. (He was unemployed at the time.)