Almost 50 years ago, as a small-town Texas girl, I thought I knew God. But, after marrying a Christian Scientist, I discovered there was much more to learn about how God knew me.

The windows of my mind were blown open when I read about how Jesus healed. This passage in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy was particularly inspiring: "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy" (pp. 476–477).

Statements like that shook my view of my fellow men and women, and myself! I had thought there were two worlds, two realities—one divine, and the other a flawed mortal experience. But I was learning that Jesus' healings resulted from humble yielding to the one true view, God's perspective of His perfect, spiritual creation. And Christian Science was showing me that there was one Creator and one creation. One Cause—God—and one effect, man.

My mother-in-law, a life-long Christian Scientist, took me under her tender, loving care. She taught me much about love and nurturing, and even tried to teach me to cook. She also warmly welcomed all of my many questions about Christian Science as a way of life. After observing me sizing up all the Christian Scientists I met, she encouraged me not to study Christian Scientists to learn about God, but to study the Bible and Science and Health, to unite my thought with the Christ-message of God's love. So I undertook the grand adventure in earnest.

Shortly after marriage, I was compelled to rethink two statements I'd made to my dear husband. First, "I will never become a Christian Scientist, because I think it's weird." Second, "I can never have children, because of a diagnosed internal kidney deformity."

The deformed kidney diagnosis had been made when I was a young child, but my family didn't tell me about this until just months before I was married. However, out of concern for my life (should I become pregnant after marriage), they took me to a specialist for a series of exams. The doctor reconfirmed this condition as a threat to my life if I tried to carry a child for nine months. My future husband's calm way of handling this news impressed my whole family. The doctor recommended a surgical procedure to ensure I'd never become pregnant. But we decided to postpone this until after the wedding.

Then, as the wedding came and went, and time went on, great spiritual changes took place in my thought. There never seemed to be a right time to return to the doctor. The first two years of marriage were filled with more mind-blowing discoveries in the Bible and Science and Health, freeing me of the idea that I was bound by medical opinions or material limitations. I remember being so clear that God didn't create all His children in "his image and likeness" and then say, "Be fruitful and multiply—but, Kaye, you can't" (see Gen. 1:26, 28).

During this second year of marriage, I became pregnant. Soon, I found a gynecologist, a wonderful man, and discussed delivering our child with him. I didn't mention the kidney diagnosis. After an examination, he told me I was "built" for having babies. Our healthy first son was born two weeks after my college graduation. As further evidence of this healing, I found out later that during my last trimester, a relative had taken my earlier X-rays and medical files to my gynecologist. He looked at the records and told my relative I had none of the deformities previously indicated.

Our first 18 years of marriage in a small East Texas town brought the addition of two more sons. These were natural, harmonious childbirths. Prayer continued to be foundational to our family as all of our boys were active in sports and school activities. Nail punctures, symptoms of measles, and the results of falls and stumbles were quickly healed by turning to God in prayer.

More recently, I had another healing. There was what appeared to be a tumor or abnormal swelling on my wrist. I saw that healing this through prayer was an opportunity to grow in grace and spiritual understanding. Citations from the Bible and Science and Health on growth—spiritual growth, to be exact—became the basis of my prayers and meditation for several months. During this time, I had regular manicures with a lady who has since become a dear friend. She knew that I was a student of Christian Science, and for months she never acknowledged this unsightly protrusion on my wrist—nor did I, as I continued praying.

Then one day I showed up, and realized it was gone. Neither one of us made a comment. The growth literally was there one day and gone the next.

I'm not saying that my life is never messy. I am saying that God, Love, is bigger than any mess! My practice of Christian Science as a way of life has grown. Instead of somehow bringing God into my life to fix things up, I am learning that my very existence is established in God.

KAYE PATTERSON
HOUSTON, TEXAS, US