When I read Science and Health, I knew my search was over
I was raised in a Christian household. My dad was a practicing Christian Scientist, and Mom was active in another Christian denomination. Both loved God and lived their faith.
My sisters and I attended church with our mom until our high school years. However, my dad would sometimes share an issue of the Sentinel with me, saying, “There’s an article in here you may find helpful.” The ideas in the Sentinel really resonated with me. It made sense that a loving, good God would be loving and good to His creation.
Fast-forward to the first semester of my sophomore year in college. It was a challenging time. I was searching for answers to life’s big questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose?
I was searching for answers to life’s big questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose?
Though at times I felt lonely and adrift, I knew the answers I needed were there. For a short time, I revisited the church I’d been raised in, but its teaching that God, whom I knew to be Love, created man with “original sin” didn’t make sense to me.
I also looked for answers in social drinking, parties, and trying on some “bad girl” behaviors, even though I knew, deep in my heart, that they were not me. But through it all, I held firmly to the Bible promise “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Matthew 7:7).
During semester break, while I was alone in my parents’ home, my search for answers and direction continued to occupy my thoughts. One day, overwhelmed with despair, I reached out to God with all my heart, saying, “Help me, Father.” Instantly, I heard the command, “Go get your father’s books.”
I went into my parents’ bedroom, where I took my dad’s copies of the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy from the nightstand before going back to my room. I sat down, opened Science and Health for the first time, and began reading.
I don’t recall specifically what I read, but my tears stopped; the despair completely disappeared; and I knew immediately that my search was over. The answers I’d been seeking were in Science and Health. That week, I went to the local Christian Science Reading Room, bought my own copy of the book, and took it back to college with me.
The answers I’d been seeking were in Science and Health.
Every day after that began with reading something from Science and Health—maybe just one paragraph, or sometimes many pages. I read as I was led and found myself learning about God as my Father-Mother, and about myself as His child. I also began reading the Bible. I was striving to live the truths I was learning and reading by putting them into practice in my life. After college graduation, I joined The Mother Church (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston) and my local branch Church of Christ, Scientist, and never looked back. That was over fifty years ago.
Obedience to the divine message to “go get your father’s books” introduced me to God, to the Christian Science pastor (the Bible and Science and Health), and to the Comforter promised by Christ Jesus—Christian Science. Since that day, God has poured out many blessings on my family and me. God’s ever-present care and love have been proven to me in marriage and in raising three children, finding satisfying employment, meeting financial and academic challenges, and healing physical and relationship issues. Branch church membership and service have been a tremendous blessing to me in fostering my spiritual growth and my practice of Christian Science. I continue to grow in my understanding, both of God and of man made in God’s image and likeness.
I am forever grateful to Mrs. Eddy for the love that propelled her selfless efforts to share her discovery, Christian Science, with the world through Science and Health, her other writings, the Christian Science magazines, and her establishment of The Church of Christ, Scientist.
