Article May 9, 2011 Issue

It all began with finding the book

Lyn Smith —Fremantle, Western Australia

I would imagine the story of how I found Christian Science is probably like that of many others who have come to it in their middle years.

A very dear friend of mine had been given a terminal diagnosis—she was a single mum who had a close and loving relationship with her three children. Her mother and brother lived in another state in Australia, and so it fell to her friends, including myself, to become her caregivers.

On the day my friend passed on, we all sat around her bed, and I was aware of her fear, as well as my own. That mental picture stayed with me for many weeks until one weekend I was walking my dogs in Fremantle (the port city where I live), and I stopped to browse through a basket of books outside a secondhand bookshop. I picked up a book with a blue cover that had the word Health in the title. That was really all I saw. It cost $2.50. I bought it, not knowing anything about Christian Science or Mary Baker Eddy.

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