During the summer between my junior and senior years at college, doctors diagnosed that I had a tumor on the pituitary gland. A few days later a friend gave me a copy of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. The first paragraph I read was this one: "When man is governed by God, the ever-present Mind who understands all things, man knows that with God all things are possible. The only way to this living Truth, which heals the sick, is found in the Science of divine Mind as taught and demonstrated by Christ Jesus."

These words gave me hope! As I continued to read Science and Health, I glimpsed the truth that God, Love, doesn't cause or endorse suffering. I was healed of constant back pain due to a car accident, which had troubled me for five years.

When I realized I didn't have any more pain, it occurred to me that I could apply what I had just learned about God to other problems. In the next few moments the fear of recurring tonsillitis and the desire for alcohol were destroyed. These healings have been permanent.

I was so grateful for the release from these physical difficulties, and I was thrilled and in awe of what I was learning of God. To be able to turn to God for comfort and healing was a new concept for me. The churches I had attended during high school and college, in the course of my search for answers to questions about God, held God to be distant and aloof, knowing and sometimes ordaining evil, and powerless on most occasions to save mankind from sickness and suffering.

My first healings in Christian Science gave me the courage to rely on Science to heal the tumor. I released the doctors and wrote to a Christian Science practitioner who lived near my college to request help through prayer. While at college, I visited her frequently; and her unflinching confidence in God's power to heal was a great comfort to me. I began to read the Bible Lessons outlined in the Christian Science Quarterly and to attend a branch Church of Christ, Scientist.

As I prayed, I felt a transformation taking place in my character. Depression, impatience, and resentment lessened and began to be replaced by hope and forgiveness. Fear was destroyed as I began to glimpse God's love for me.

I distinctly remember coming across this sentence in Science and Health: "Give up the belief that mind is, even temporarily, compressed within the skull, and you will quickly become more manly or womanly." I saw the fallacy in believing that intelligence originates in a brain and that the amount of intelligence I could express was determined by heredity and environmental influences. Armed with trust that God, Mind, was the source of all intelligence, I was able to complete successfully all of the assignments in my double major, and my grades improved dramatically.

Over the next several months, while in graduate school, I prayed daily for myself in order to understand the fact of my spiritual identity. I based my prayer on the fact that man is created in the image and likeness of God. I denied that evil could be attached to a spiritual idea and persistently affirmed man's spiritual perfection.

It took a lot of effort for me to hold thought to the truth of a perfect God and perfect man. As I continued, however, I began to realize that I was not simply trying to heal a discordant body. I was praying to understand man's present spiritual perfection and to eradicate a dark image from my thought. This statement from Science and Health was very helpful: "Tumors, ulcers, tubercles, inflammation, pain, deformed joints, are waking dream-shadows, dark images of mortal thought, which flee before the light of Truth." As I pondered these truths, the constant worry about the tumor began to fade.

Throughout subsequent months of study and spiritual growth, I read many testimonies and articles in the Christian Science periodicals. I often went to a Christian Science Reading Room. One day I came to an article in which a woman shared her healing of a tumor. She had prayed to gain a clearer understanding of man's true, spiritual substance. While pondering the ideas she shared, I glimpsed that man, made in God's image and likeness, is not material at all. His substance, the essence of his being, is spiritual. I was so grateful for this truth. I was filled with joy and gained more confidence that I could be healed.

There were times when I felt discouraged and sorry for myself. But when I turned to God I was always uplifted and comforted. And I knew progress was being made because other troubles— colds, burns, painful joints, and relationship difficulties—were quickly healed through prayer.

As I continued to pray, daily headaches, narrow vision, and fatigue disappeared. I was able to participate in athletics and other activities completely free from pain. I remember clearly the time about four years ago when I realized I was completely well.

I have found God in Christian Science, and this discovery has transformed my life.

Heather Pedersen
Boston, Massachusetts