How I Found Christian Science June 29, 2015 Issue

My church homecoming

Kim Wiklund

Although my parents weren’t particularly religious, our family attended a Protestant church, and I remember literally being dragged to Sunday School as a young child. When I was about ten years old, my parents stopped attending church, as did many of their peers. That we no longer had to go to Sunday School was great news to both my brother and me, since now we’d get to sleep in on Sundays.

However, when I was in my late teens, I found that I had a desire for something more in life—something that would help me define who and why I was. With a few friends, I spent several weekends attending different places of worship. They all had something wonderful to say, but in each case, I felt a certain lack. In many of the services, one of the messages was that you would be judged harshly by a vengeful God and not be offered the keys to the kingdom at the end of your life. That, in particular, did not sit well with me. I simply knew it was not true.

One day I just gave up. I began to define myself as “spiritual, but not religious.” I read a pile of books on spirituality and metaphysics by many well-respected authors. All of them came closer to the mark for me, and I felt a modest fulfillment when reading their books. Even so, I always had a strong sense that there was more I was missing.

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