When I was a college freshman , I had an amazing experience that proved to me the constant availability of the infinite intelligence that is God. It was a demonstration of the presence and power of divine Mind that largely contributed to why I am a Christian Scientist today.

I had attended high school in a blue-collar shipyard town where everybody thought I was the smartest kid in the school. The year I was supposed to take trigonometry, I was elected to the student body government, which met daily at the same time that the only trigonometry class was offered. My counselor said I really needed to fulfill my obligation as an elected class officer, and that besides, I was the smartest kid in the school, so I wouldn’t need trig. I followed her advice—big mistake!

When I entered the University of California at Berkeley after graduating high school, I enrolled in an engineering curriculum, which of course included calculus. I soon realized that there were lots of kids just as smart as I was who had taken the appropriate preparatory classes—such as trigonometry. Soon I was failing calculus.