I was raised in a very medically oriented family. At age sixteen, I had a condition in which my throat would suddenly fill with phlegm, and I could barely breathe. Doctors had tried all the available remedies, even some experimental ones, but none helped. At one appointment, I overheard the doctor tell my mother, “Unless one of these drugs works, your son may not make it to his seventeenth birthday.” The condition was terrifying.

I remembered having heard a radio or TV show where several Christian Scientists were talking about the healing power of Christian Science. In desperation, prior to going to our summer cabin in the Colorado Rockies, I went to a Christian Science Reading Room, where I purchased a copy of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy. The librarian was very helpful and assured me that healing was possible through studying this book. This was extremely encouraging!

After about a week in the mountains, one early morning I once again began to have trouble breathing. I grabbed my copy of Science and Health and went outside to our porch to read, hoping this book would help free me from this awful problem. The sun was just dawning over the mountain. I opened the book and read the very first sentence in the Preface: “To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings” (p. vii). That sentence was all that I needed. I absolutely knew that this was what I was looking for. I felt a love that I had never felt before, and I’m sure I was feeling the presence of God.