Who couldn't use more light, more clarity in a time of questioning? And if we are in the middle of our own search for light, it sometimes helps to hear the experiences of others who are finding "there ariseth light in the darkness," as the Psalmist describes it. This column records some experiences that may be useful to those who are looking for new answers. The accounts are anonymous in order to give authors the opportunity to talk freely about earlier lifestyles and attitudes that may have been considerably different from what they now value. Of necessity, the recounting of experiences is telescoped in its time frame, and these narratives do not attempt to tell a complete story. But they do show something of the wide range of seekers and the way in which the light of Christ, Truth, restores, redirects, and regenerates lives.

Ever since I was a young child I have wanted to help people. When I was about twelve years old I began visiting children's hospitals on Saturdays. I would go there and just spend time with the children and read books to them. The school that I attended encouraged us to help others.

One of my classes was on the Bible. I think this introduction to the Bible helped prepare my thought for Christian Science when it was introduced to me later by another Bible teacher, who was not a Christian Scientist but thought highly of its textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science.

As the years went by, I decided to devote myself to a Christian profession and as a result went to Buenos Aires, where I took up theological studies at a Protestant school and became a deaconess. When I completed my studies, I became a social worker under the church's auspices and returned to Uruguay, where I worked with families and children in the poor neighborhoods.

As much as I wanted to help people, however, I eventually felt empty in the sense of not knowing how I was going to be able to help others in the face of the large hardships and problems that people have. I did not know whether this feeling was an indication of needing to understand God better or whether I should simply find another kind of work.

I requested a leave of absence in order to consider what I should do. I returned to the teacher who had mentioned Christian Science several years earlier.

This man did not tell me what to do, but knowing how much I liked the Bible, he simply talked to me about the Bible. He was a great help. Over the next several years I continued my education and then taught English for ten years. It was during this period that I really began to study Christian Science. As a result I was healed of a number of things, including a very painful back condition that I had had for many years. As I read from Science and Health one day, I remember feeling a freedom to rely on God as my only physician instead of on the physical therapy I was receiving.

The most important thing that happened, however, was the profound change that took place in me. I really was a new person. You see, I had suffered a great deal as a child because of family problems and abuse.

It took time for me to understand what it means to be the child of God. I had thought that all of the hard things I had experienced hadn't allowed me to feel close to God, no matter how much I longed for this knowledge. It was a wrong theological sense of God, as if I could be separated from Him.

I didn't immediately begin attending a Christian Science church. But I continued studying the Bible and Science and Health to understand God better. I learned how God, divine Mind, can guide us and enable us to leave hurt behind. After a while, I began to attend church.

I had been struggling with feelings of rejection—not that people were rejecting me, but this was a result, I believed, of the abuse I suffered as a child. Christian Science brought me out of this darkness. I learned in Science that as we begin to understand our true spiritual nature as God's child, we find love and acceptance from God, who is divine Love. I learned, too, not to judge things from a material point of view, which often includes strong belief in evil.

There had been violence in our home, and when you live with violence as I did, you are often afraid to examine your own thoughts. There are fears and feelings that you don't want to face. But the more I understood God's love and saw that divine Love's purpose for us is good and makes us truly happy, the more I was able to face things that I hadn't wanted to think about previously. I understood that God's qualities of goodness, love, and joy are ours to reflect.

I quit condemning myself and others—including my family. I was able to stop judging them as I had in the past. I was learning how to love, and this included a new love for my family. This was a great change; there was much unhappiness that was uprooted.

My parents felt a change, too. This spiritual light that was coming into my life was coming into my family's life as well. My sister had earlier become a student of Christian Science and had been helped a great deal. I even discovered that there was an innate Christian nature in my father and that now he was responding to this in his life. My mother also studies Christian Science. There has been wonderful reconciliation in our home. We work together now and help one another.

I've gained through Christian Science a larger sense of humanity, greater love for others that leaves no one out. This is what genuine spirituality has brought to my life. And I find the good—the spiritual nature of man as God's child—in others.

My concept of what real help is, or better, of what kind of help humanity really needs, has evolved too. By this I do not mean that what I did before was not useful. Of course it was; whatever is done out of love and with sincerity is blessed by our Father, whether it is expressed by reading a book to a child or by visiting someone in need. The same applies to all the national and international welfare and charity organizations around the world. But after more than fifteen years of study and demonstration of Christian Science and its laws, I have seen that prayer— Christianly scientific prayer that leads to practical healing—does more for individuals than any other kind of service.

My conviction of what is the most useful way of being of service to others came about in a gradual manner, once I started understanding that what was true about myself was true about every other person here and everywhere. This truth opened my eyes to the fact that I can help people who ask for my help through prayer. When you serve others by means of prayer in Christian Science, you are providing the individual with the tools to help himself and others; to depend on God.

The help given by Christian Science is permanent, perfect, and never fails when understood and applied properly, because it is based on understanding; understanding that God is the creator and supporter of all. Prayer is not mere asking for things or fulfillment of desire. It is actual communion with our infinite Mind, divine Love. It is knowing what God's will for us is; it is feeling His presence all around; it is realizing that we move and live in Him and nowhere else. Prayer in Christian Science is understanding His omnipresence and perfect kingdom, already existing and complete, lacking nothing good, beautiful, or useful; blessing all, at all times and everywhere.

I have learned through Christian Science that our most basic needs are spiritual and are always met by divine Love. Life is not a matter of getting things. It is a matter of getting to know our real identity as a child of Spirit, with Soul as the fountain of man's real substance. Understanding more and more our true status as children of God, we cannot fail to have all we need. Thus we gain a new and broader sense of who we really are.

Sometimes we may worry when problems are not resolved quickly. But I have learned not to fear. We should do all that we can—pray, study, and follow Jesus' example. It is God, divine Truth itself, that works the change in us and brings healing. I have come to be grateful for all the years of my life and for what I have learned. These last years have been the best for me. I have really come to see God's work in all of my life. And I have found that I can help others through what I am learning of the Science of Christ. No situation or person is hopeless.