When I first read Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, I was drawn to its logic but not convinced of its truth. This changed when I was in graduate school. Earlier, I had been medically diagnosed with colitis and told that it could be managed but not cured. After several years of living with the recurring pain of this illness, one day I decided to apply what I was reading in Science and Health and focus on God instead of the problem, to see if I might get relief.

I read that God is divine Love and that spiritual man—each of us—is one with God and reflects God, so I reasoned that I must be one with Love. Reading that God is not the author of sickness and cannot be sick, I concluded that as God’s reflection I could not be sick. 

Pondering these spiritual truths felt unsettling, and suddenly I realized why: I liked being ill! My parents cared deeply for my siblings and me, and I felt their love, but it seemed that I received more attention from them when I was ill. So, I had come to welcome sickness as a way to gain more of my parents’ attention.