When first reading Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, I didn’t realize how much these words by Mary Baker Eddy would resonate with my own life. She wrote, “John the Baptist prophesied the coming of the immaculate Jesus, and John saw in those days the spiritual idea as the Messiah, who would baptize with the Holy Ghost—divine Science” (pp. 561–562).

In my own experience, it was a staunch Baptist, a nanny, who brought Christianity into our Jewish home. The purity and love Nanny expressed made a deep impression on me as a child. I remember her recounting Jesus’ healing works as I sat on her lap. My favorite was Jesus’ words to the tax collector Zacchaeus, who had climbed a sycamore tree to get a better view of Jesus as he passed by: “Zacchæus, make haste, and come down; for to-day I must abide at thy house” (Luke 19:5). I would ask Nanny to repeat the words “come down” over and over again! 

On Sundays, she would sit at the kitchen table singing loudly along with the BBC radio program Sunday Half-Hour, then put on her best hat and coat and go off to church. Nanny loved Christmas and introduced us to its traditions, but most significant of all, she introduced us to Christianity, to a loving, unchangeable God. She respectfully lived her faith—her rocklike strength steadying the family through years of choppy waters. Of course, little did I know then that her Christian living had planted seeds of love that would later sprout as Christian Science coming into my life to heal me and bless the whole family.