I found Christian Science through a lecture. 

I was a busy graduate student at Penn State. One evening I was attending an academic writing workshop when I suddenly had a persistent nudge in my heart that I should not be there but should be somewhere else instead.

I reached into the pocket of my backpack, and right there was an invitation that a new friend had sent me. She had written on it, “It’s a lecture worth making time for. We prayerfully chose a good speaker.” On the bottom it said, “Christian Science Board of Lectureship.” 

I was drawn to the lecture’s title, “Life without Limits.” It made me think that Christian Science might be different. When I attended a Protestant university in Japan, I loved the Bible but couldn’t relate to the “original sin” story about Adam and Eve in the second and third chapters of Genesis. But the word Science on the invitation intrigued me. I thought maybe it would offer something practical and understandable for people like me.

I got up, left the workshop, and ran to the on-campus facility where the lecture was being held. I sat in the front row with my friend. As I listened, I felt something profound, yet simple and universal. 

The lecturer was motherly, gentle, and clear. Her explanation of man as the reflection of God, man’s creator, was an idea I felt and understood.

That day, I remember saying to myself, “The search is over. Hooray!” No more looking into various belief systems or schools of thought. What a relief!

I started attending Wednesday testimony meetings and Sunday services at a local branch Church of Christ, Scientist. Very soon, every morning (even while there was much reading I had to do for graduate school) I opened the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, to read the weekly Bible Lesson outlined in the Christian Science Quarterly. I studied every single citation with so much joy! It was welcome spiritual refreshment every morning. I tangibly felt the gentle power of the healing ideas, which carried me through each day. I could finally feel that the Bible was mine—not just for other people or Western people. I could understand the Bible, thanks to Science and Health.

That was March 1997. Christian Science sustained me while I lived in the United States for almost a quarter of a century, and it continues to since my permanent return to Japan a few years ago.