The book Science and Health changed my life
Before I found Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, happiness seemed hard to find. My father passed on when I was five years old. My two siblings were three years and one year old, and becoming a young widow and a single parent was difficult for my mother. At the time, she was renting our home and working with her brother at a restaurant. But just two years afterward, that brother died suddenly as well. My mother wasn’t able to pay the rent and became homeless.
My sisters and I were sent to live with different relatives, separated from our mother and each other. But, looking back, I see that we grew up without experiencing bad effects from the challenges facing our family. Learning later of Mrs. Eddy’s spiritual definition of children—“the spiritual thoughts and representatives of Life, Truth, and Love” (Science and Health, p. 582)—I came to treasure the way our natural innocence had protected us.
After a few years, one of my sisters and I were returned to our mother, while my other sister continued to be cared for elsewhere. Mum found a room for us with family, though she needed to sleep at a business location near her work, and we didn’t get to see her very often. It wasn’t until I came across a copy of Science and Health that I began to understand God’s goodness and His care for us, even in the darkest times. The book was in my cousin’s bedroom, where I was doing some cleaning. Opening it, I was much impressed with the chapter “Prayer,” which gave me hope that all things are possible to God, and with a quotation from the Gospel of John: “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (8:32).
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