Primary Class Instruction February 23, 2015 Issue

My true lifeline

Nancy Cummings Sebring

During my teen years, I struggled with some serious challenges that sometimes had me contemplating suicide. I remember distinctly a time during college feeling so emotionally exhausted from it all that I yearned for a sense of peace and joy—something I had begun to see in the Christian Scientists around me in college. 

Also around this time, the relationship with my fiancé ended. We’d been together for six years, and I had considered him my lifeline, as he was a big support to me during those troubled years. The breakup was devastating to me and compelled me to think deeply about what was important to me, to get serious about Christian Science and to begin to study it and learn about it for myself, and to make a greater commitment to living it the best I could. I had realized that the most important relationship to me was my relationship to God. So I began working earnestly to strengthen my understanding of that relationship by regular study of the Bible and the textbook of Christian Science, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.

Soon, I also applied to take class instruction with a Christian Science teacher and was accepted for his class that summer. I was still in college and had a summer job that was essential to my earning enough to continue my schooling the next year. Giving up two weeks’ pay (the duration of the class) appeared as if it would be a hardship. Also, it appeared I didn’t have enough money for the cost of housing (hotel, meals, etc.) during the class time. 

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