ANYONE CAN BE A HEALER August 28, 2006 Issue

Next in our biweekly series on how people have nurtured their public practice of Christian Science.

I TOOK MY STAND

JOSEPH M. BALEKA——Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo

SINCE CHILDHOOD I'd been oriented toward the priesthood. Then my parents decided to make a great doctor of me instead. I took so well to this idea that I had no more interest in religion.

Prayer to me seemed more and more like a mental palliative, and I was headed toward atheism. What I thought would be my last prayer, formulated as an ultimatum before throwing God entirely out of my life, led me however to a substantial feeling of His living presence. Soon after, friends gave me copies of Le Héraut de la Christian Science, and within a month I'd found a Christian Science Reading Room and Science and Health.

My anthropomophic way of viewing God was being transformed into a rational knowledge of Him as divine Principle. Prayer became a spiritual activity of thought with tangible results. My acquaintance with the teachings of Christian Science, contained in Science and Health, brought a great revival to my heart's hidden desire to consecrate myself to spiritual things. I began to feel that aspiration with such fervor that I soon spent most of my time pondering God's nature rather than giving attention to my medical studies. But all my friends and family were against what I felt wholeheartedly was so right for me. Their opinion kept me from taking any step new direction.

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