TODAY WHEN I THINK about my everyday life—my sleeping, eating, going to work, and my attitude toward others—I am reminded of Hymn 139 in the Christian Science Hymnal:

If this hymn could be made a national anthem in my country of Liberia, to be played daily on national radio stations for all to hear, I believe we would awake from the slumber of hatred that has been created by the devastating civil unrest in the country.

I am filled with unlimited joy because of the renewal I have experienced. The teachings of Christian Science changed my life and healed the many pains I experienced during the civil unrest. With thanksgiving, I place my life before God as a testimony.

I grew up in a Christian home. My father was a pastor of the United Liberia Inland Church and my mother a deaconess and treasurer for the church. Before the conflicts, I enjoyed an aristocratic life in a luxurious home. My parents had properties and business holdings. I had an abundance of clothing and assisted my friends who couldn't buy things they wanted. I had a lot of friends, and our compound was always crowded with girls with whom I enjoyed playing.

I was seven when the first Liberian Civil War broke out in Butuo, 20 miles away from my home. An anti-government group of rebels began attacking local people, particularly the Mandingo tribe and the Dan tribe, my people. The news of the conflict reached us at 3:00 in the morning, and at daylight we saw a man covered in blood, his limbs maimed. At that moment, just before we took to the bush for survival, the world seemed without forgiveness or kindness. I couldn't believe someone could intentionally brutalize his brother man like that. Then another two Mandingo men were slaughtered right before us on our way to the bush; the killing of innocents seemed to be intensifying.

For the next few months my family, accustomed to a luxurious lifestyle, had to adjust to living in the forest among wild animals, under God's tender love and watchful care.

Three months later, the fighting between the anti-government rebels and the Liberian Army had intensified. The rebels sent messengers to all the villages announcing that anyone finding a Mandingo man should bring him to the town guard for execution—no exceptions. Even in our forest home, we received this directive from friends who knew where we were living.

Then one hot afternoon, I discovered a Mandingo man hiding under a log in the woods. He seemed to have no strength left, and was looking at me with a wary face and red eyes. I recognized him. His name was Numu, and he had done business with my dad before the war. Now he lay helplessly, as he was too weak to run. I called for Dad, and together we took him to our old village. He had been eating only raw cassava for six months, and was skeleton-like by this point.

Mom provided him with some cooked yams and eddoes, but he wouldn't eat because he was afraid that we would report him to the authorities to be killed. He began begging Dad to spare his life. Dad clearly had a conception of God as Love, and refused to kill His perfect image and likeness. He cried with deep passion, "I could not kill you, Numu!"

Not too long afterward, a villager named Wilson, a relative of my dad, arrived carrying a sharp cutlass, in search of Mandingo people. When he saw Numu, he cried, "We'll just have to slaughter him right here. No need to walk a long distance to carry this man to the authorities."

"No, Wilson, I can't even allow such to happen to this man in my presence," Dad responded. "I will personally let him go." Wilson pretended to agree, so Dad took the man away and showed him the route to the Ivory Coast, where he could seek asylum. But after they left, Wilson apparently went to town and reported Dad to the fighters. Now he was known as a betrayer.

Dad and Mom were arrested later that day because Wilson knew where we lived in the forest. They were taken to town by one of the generals, a man notorious for brutalizing victims before killing them. My brothers and I began crying and agonizing over our parents' fate and how we could go on without them. We had no hope at all that we would ever see them alive.

But suddenly, I had such a strong belief that my parents would return to us alive. A feeling of happiness just took me, while my brothers were so sad. I had been taught in Sunday School with the Psalmist's message of guidance in times of trouble: "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?. . . . Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident" (Ps. 27:1, 3). Though I had not yet been introduced to Christian Science, I felt at that time a powerful sense of God's love, which I would later come to understand more fully.

In spite of my sadness and feeling that there was no kindness in the world, these verses came to my mind and encouraged me to lean and hope on God. I knew He was so loving and so much more powerful than gunfire, and that He does not limit His protecting care over His servants. God's image and likeness cannot be brutalized. I just felt so strongly that our parents would not be killed, and that God was in control.

That evening, Dad and Mom arrived hand in hand with a special escort of the same fighters who had taken them away. They explained they had been released by the commander of the town guard. "We were placed on the field to be killed," Mom explained, "but the commander, knowing us as Christians, dissolved the order and said that we had been right not to kill the Mandingo man."

Soon afterward, the civil war was eased somewhat where we lived, and we joyfully came back home after a long period of displaced life. But then we were confronted again with the unrest, when one of the members of the rebel Border Patrol wanted to take my sister as his wife. She refused because he was a killer of innocent people, and as a result he had contempt for our family.

One night, he came and forcefully took my brother on the highway and robbed and killed him.

The pain of this loss really affected the family, especially my mother, who would cry whenever she saw close friends of my brother. I felt total malice toward the Border Patrol. Again, I felt that kindness would inevitably give way to brutality, and that there was no place in the heart for love or forgiveness. The civil unrest was so grievous to countless numbers of people that many Liberians had an attitude of "We will surely revenge." I was no different: I planned to retaliate against those who made us suffer so that even my children would live in malice against their children.

But in the Bible, Jesus counsels us, "Abide in me, and I in you. . . . As the Father hath loved me, so have you: continue ye in my love. . . . This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you" (John 15:4, 9, 12). Can we follow this commandment by loving and forgiving others no matter what the situation?

I was 26 when I became a Christian Scientist, after being introduced to Christian Science by a childhood friend. I learned that so-called violence is an error—an attribute of disobedience, of rebellion against our Father-Mother, God. Only love can keep us close to God's mercy and grace. In Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy wrote, "The vital part, the heart and soul of Christian Science, is Love" (p. 113). I have learned that God is Love. And because we were made in His image and likeness, we must resemble Him and love each other. As I have prayed, all the pains and sense of revenge have gone, replaced with love. I have, it seems, found the truth that enables me to forgive.

It is also important to mention Science and Health as a special healing tool that has guided me to live with love and deepened my spiritual understanding. It has shaped my attitude toward others because as a Christian Scientist I know that all is Love. In a section on the Christian Science healing practice, Mrs. Eddy wrote, "If the Scientist reaches his patient through divine Love, the healing work will be accomplished at one visit, and the disease will vanish into its native nothingness like dew before the morning sunshine" (p. 365). In practice, I began to see hatred as a kind of emotional sickness that could contaminate the atmosphere, but which can be healed.

I am very thankful to God, for He has changed my life inside out toward others. I have forgiven the man who killed my brother, and Wilson, who betrayed my parents. I do not condone or pardon their actions, but I can see even them as God sees them. The Bible says, "When ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses" (Mark 11:25). With forgiveness I always feel the warmest regard and love for all people. The Christ-love brings us closer together. In fact, Wilson even lived with my family for a time, and today his daughter stays with me while she goes to school. And the border patrolman's sister is my closest friend.

Mrs. Eddy wrote: "It should be thoroughly understood that all men have one Mind, one God and Father, one Life, Truth, and Love. Mankind will become perfect in proportion as this fact becomes apparent, war will cease and the true brotherhood of man will be established" (Science and Health, p. 467). My concern for those I once called enemies is a kind of thanksgiving. Our togetherness is meaningful, as we are now united in harmony and peace. I give thanks for the soul-filled teaching and practice of Christian Science. Today, Liberia remains my foremost thought in prayer. I know that through God, Love, other people who have suffered during the war will be changed, comforted, and renewed from the inside out. I am grateful to end my testimony with another hymn:

Love one another,—word of revelation; / Love frees from error's thrall,—Love is liberation. (Margaret Morrison, No. 179). CSS