How I Found Christian Science February 4, 2019 Issue

My Redeemer lives!

Terese Reiter Messman

When I was in college, I injured my back at work. After lengthy medical treatment ending in a month-long hospital stay, I was told by doctors that they could offer no cure for the chronic pain that had caused me to drop out of college. I had been raised in a loving Protestant church, where I learned about the Bible, but my faith in God was now faltering because of this prognosis. I couldn’t understand how God could “allow” this to happen to me when I had tried hard to live a good, Christian life. I questioned whether I could worship that kind of God.

In the hospital, as I reached out to God in tearful desperation, my prayer went something like this: “God, if You are there, help me out of this mess. I’ll do whatever You ask!” I felt like the Psalmist who sang, “In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears” (Psalms 18:6).

Suddenly I felt a transcendent peace that I’ll never forget. I saw mental images of myself in a beautiful place, helping people. I dried my tears, and when I got home to my parents’ house, I wrote to friends who were people of faith. I asked them, “Can God heal my illness?”

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My Redeemer lives!

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