I had a trauma-filled childhood; the message I consistently got was that I was stupid and not good enough. For forty years I believed those messages, even as I sought a different way of looking at life. I spent a great deal of money on therapists and personal development programs and even became a therapist myself in order to figure out what was wrong with me. Still, I just didn’t see the point of living such an excruciatingly painful existence. Ever seeking and never finding, I was spiraling down a hole of self-destruction. I knew intellectually of God, but if there was a God, why did all these bad things happen? In fact, every negative thing that happened reinforced for me the belief that if God existed, He had forsaken me and that I was unworthy of His love or anyone else’s. 

In desperation, I prayed to a God I did not believe in, asking to be either struck dead or guided to a better way. A few days later, my little puppy, Sweetie, led me across the street to First Church of Christ, Scientist, Reading, Pennsylvania. 

From the moment I crossed the threshold of the church, I felt I was home. In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, Church is defined, in part, as “the structure of Truth and Love” (p. 583). And I sought that structure, attending the Wednesday testimony meetings and the Sunday services from then on. I knew I was in the right place and that God was healing me through the church services. Every Tuesday I would look out my window and see that the Christian Science Reading Room was open. I had no place else to be, so I would go over. I was able to discuss revelations in my life that seemed miraculous to me with the librarian, who answered my questions and directed me to resources.