Article March 12, 2007 Issue

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

ANYONE CAN BE A HEALER

AN EARLY CHOICE

ABBY K. HILLMAN—Clifton, Virginia

AS A CHILD, I innately felt God's presence with me as a loving Being. I knew I wouldn't exist if He wasn't there. I also loved thinking, and asked my Christian Science Sunday School teachers lots of questions.

Once in my early teens, I came upon the Biblically inspired description of what day signifies, in the Glossary of Science and Health. It includes this sentence: "The objects of time and sense disappear in the illumination of spiritual understanding, and Mind [God] measures time according to the good that is unfolded" (p. 584). Thinking about this, I reasoned that whenever I was engaged in good activity—honest thoughts, kind motives, loving actions—I was living in God's day, and that my spiritual understanding therefore had to progress. On the other hand, if my thoughts, motives, or actions were not good, I wasn't accomplishing anything—it was a total waste of time. After realizing that, I made the effort (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) to do and be good.

Some of the adults in my family were Christian Scientists and others were not, and I had exposure to many points of view about God. The more I learned and thought about Christian Science, though, the more certain I was that its teachings clearly and completely laid out what is actually real and true. Gradually it became my goal to know more about God to understand and practice Christian Science. I also wanted to help other people answer their questions about God. This was the beginning of my public practice.

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