When I was eighteen years old I first came in contact with Christian Science

INGEBORG von BESTENBOSTEL

When I was eighteen years old I first came in contact with Christian Science. I was very unhappy at that time. Life seemed meaningless to me. Immediately after learning about Science I bought a copy of the textbook, Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, from my then scanty means. In reading the first chapter, "Prayer," I was indescribably impressed, because for the first time I learned that I am—each one is—God's beloved child. No one had ever told me anything like that before. Hope and faith rose anew in my consciousness, and as a result of continued study of Christian Science, I returned to my homeland literally transformed after a one-year stay abroad.

After that, I always carried the textbook with me. The Lord's Prayer (see Matt. 6:9-13) and its spiritual interpretation from Science and Health (see pp. 16-17), along with "the scientific statement of being" (see Science and Health, p. 468) helped me in countless challenges. Here is an example.

At one point during the Second World War, I was in an air raid shelter. I was sitting on a stool with a pillow pressed over my head, praying with "the scientific statement of being" and the Lord's Prayer. Suddenly a bomb landed in the part of the basement next to ours. In our section we felt a swaying sensation, as if we were at sea. That was all. We were easily able to get out into the open through a window. But above us lay a giant pile of rubble. It covered the very spot where I had been standing just a few minutes before. At the last minute I had gone down into the cellar. Right then I experienced an inner freedom and peace that cannot be expressed in words.

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