Life is understandable

Christian Science has been the great blessing in my life. My mother turned to Christian Science after 15 years of childless marriage. The healing was quick, and I was born. However, there was no Christian Science church in our town, and Christian Science was not a part of our life.

As a child I attended Sunday School in a mainstream Christian church. When I was 12, we had a series of lessons to prepare us to join the church. However, I came home and declared: “I am not going back to church! I don’t believe in God. Religion is just positive thinking and made-up stories to make people feel good about bad times.” I must have been emphatic, as I don’t remember my parents ever asking me to reconsider. 

When I was 14, my father died just before Christmas, and then a few months later my grandmother passed away, too. Both had had the best current medical care, which was unable to help. Then my mom and I moved to a new state and decided to attend a Christian Science church. Years later one of the pupils in my first Sunday School class told me that she would never forget that class. I evidently sat down and announced that I didn’t believe there was a God, and if there was one, I didn’t want to know anything about Him because He took my father! My outlook at that time was that life was not understandable, so what was the point? It was like being in a dark, deep pit. 

Despite my poor attitude, that class proved to be a turning point in my life. The students and teacher just seemed to know so much, and I wanted to know what they did. So I tried reading Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, but sentences describing the insubstantiality and unreality of matter proved to be a huge stumbling block. I would literally throw the book to the floor in frustration. But soon afterward I would pick it up and try again. Progress finally came when I decided to accept what I could understand and not allow myself to get upset with what I couldn’t understand. What appealed to me was the thought that there was a God who was Principle, Life, Soul, the source of all. Since existence was governed by the absolute laws of a real, all-powerful God, life must be understandable. Man wasn’t destined to stumble through life in the shadow and mist of the material view. This hymn by Violet Hay really describes my feeling at this time:

From sense to Soul my pathway lies 
   before me,
From mist and shadow into 
   Truth’s clear day;
The dawn of all things real is breaking 
   o’er me,
My heart is singing: I have found 
   the way.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 64 , © CSBD)

It was helpful that I knew two people who’d had very impressive healings in Christian Science. I was also able to witness a healing of my aunt’s boxer dog. The dog had been to the vet with either hip disease or a broken leg. I don’t now remember which, but the dog had a full leg cast and a fever, and it was predicted that he would not survive. In desperation my aunt took him back to the vet, had the cast removed, and called a Christian Science practitioner for prayerful treatment. By morning the dog was perfectly fine and spent the morning with another dog, chasing each other up and down the big ravine that ran through her yard. That Christian Science could heal animals certainly indicated to me that it was not just personal positive thinking. 

Then, just before I was to start my junior year of college, I became ill with symptoms of polio. This was in the 1950s, when polio was still a prevalent and much-feared disease. Here was my first big “test.” I remember feeling that if I was going to base my life on the teachings of Christian Science, it was important to welcome this opportunity to prove its truth. 

For a few days I had prayerful treatment from my Sunday School teacher, who was a Christian Science practitioner, but the condition worsened. There was a lot of fear. I remember late one particularly difficult night my mom and I called her, and she came over. She sat in the bedroom with me and quietly prayed, and then said, “Iris, do you know that God is your Life?” That really clicked with me. Yes! I saw that He was the source, substance, condition, and purpose of life, for sure!

Man wasn’t destined to stumble through life in the shadow and mist of the material view.

However, in the morning my mother decided I should go to the hospital. Besides her fear for me was the concern that my illness was contagious, and therefore going to the hospital was the legal thing to do. Two doctors examined me and did lots of tests. I was devastated, as I thought being in the hospital would end my Christian Science treatment. But my Sunday School teacher assured me that since it was not my choice to be there and I chose not to take the pills the hospital provided, she would continue to treat me.

I spent that night in the hospital, and when my mother came back in the morning, she met the two doctors in the hall right outside my room. I could hear them plainly. They declared that I had polio. They told her that Christian Science might be good for mental ailments, but this was physical and they must start treatments right away. I would have to miss the semester and probably the whole year of school. But somehow there had been a change in Mom’s thought, and she quickly managed to get me released from the hospital, which was what I wanted. By the end of the week I was well and ready to go off to college. 

Since I was changing universities, I needed to have a doctor fill out health forms. The only doctors we knew were the ones from the hospital, so I went to one of them. The forms were routine, and a nurse filled them out and took them in to the doctor to sign. He recognized my name and demanded to examine me himself, which he did. Because I was already a week late for classes, I asked if I could take the forms rather than having him mail them. When I got in the car, I read the forms. In the space provided for remarks, the doctor had written, “Patient is of Christian Science faith and has had recent attack of poliomyelitis with apparent favorable recovery.” Although it was a few months before I got my full strength back, I was otherwise fine. 

I was so happy! Every single day this hymn by Minny M. H. Ayers sang over and over in my thought:

I walk with Love along the way,
And O, it is a holy day;
No more I suffer cruel fear,
I feel God’s presence with me here;
The joy that none can take away
Is mine; I walk with Love today. 
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 139 , © CSBD)

When I arrived at school, I needed a job, but it was a small town and a big university. One had to arrive weeks before classes began to get the few available jobs. The practitioner assured me that I had been “about my Father’s business” (see Luke 2:49 ) and I couldn’t be penalized for that.

One day in late September a friend and I decided to go horseback riding at a stable nearby. Even though I had to be helped onto the horse, I was offered a job teaching riding. What fun! My perfect job! I worked for the stable through the rest of my college experience. That summer I ran the riding program at a summer camp in Maine for the same employer. That gave me the opportunity to pass through Boston in June and attend the annual meeting of The Mother Church, and then again in September to attend the very first Christian Science College Organization Biennial meeting. Without that particular job, there was no way I could have made the trip.

That healing was nearly 60 years ago, and I have been able to lead an active, athletic life ever since. What a joy to have the opportunity to come out of the pit of materialistic thinking and rely on the presence of the all-good, all-powerful, infinite Spirit. My family, children, grandchildren, and I have all been so blessed by the expanding views of God’s great love revealed by Christian Science.