Testimony of Healing September 4, 1995 Issue

At age fifteen I became very religious

Mattie Jo Detherage

At age fifteen I became very religious. I asked the question "What is God?" many times, and usually the answer was "God is Love." Then followed my usual question, "If God is Love, why do little children have to suffer? They know no mental ugliness."

I decided that if I should ever find a religion that provided a satisfying answer, that would be my religion, and that would be the only religion I would ever want. By the age of thirty-two I had ceased searching and questioning.

At that time my new position in a large Chicago hotel made it possible for me to have my hair done in the beauty parlor there. In one of our conversations, the hairdresser asked if I had ever heard anything about Christian Science. When I remarked bitterly that I had not, but that no religion had answers, she said that Christian Science does provide answers and gives a definition of God as follows: "Question.—What is God? Answer.—God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 465). I could see by this explanation of God's nature that He does not send suffering to His children.