Studying the Christian Science Bible Lesson saved my life
It was my first time away from home on my own. I was almost sixteen and studying violin at a summer orchestra camp. It was on a small college campus a few hours from where I lived, and I was staying in one of the dormitories.
I had my Christian Science Sunday School textbooks with me—the Bible as well as Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy—and I felt very grown-up reading the weekly Bible Lesson from the Christian Science Quarterly by myself.
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In the Lesson one week, I kept noticing references to God as Life. Growing up attending Christian Science Sunday School, I’d learned that Life was one of the synonyms for God taught in Christian Science, but now that idea was coming alive for me. So the words “God is my life” were at the forefront of my thoughts.
One evening, I was playing solitaire alone in the basement of the dorm, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a figure coming up behind me. I thought it was my roommate trying to sneak up on me. But then there was a hand over my mouth and another hand holding a knife over me.
During the struggle as I tried to fight off this man, I found myself declaring loudly again and again, “God is my life!”
At one point, some other girls came downstairs. When they saw what was happening, they screamed and ran back upstairs. The man left, and I was alone for a few moments. I started praying as I had been taught in Sunday School.
I’d learned early on that just as a ray of light is sourced from the sun, my life is the expression of God and His goodness. In the Bible, God tells Moses, “I AM THAT I AM” (Exodus 3:14). I like to think of this as meaning that God is the “I” and each of us is the “am”—the individualized expression of God.
In Genesis we read “God created man in his own image” (Genesis 1:27). I learned in Sunday School that since God is Spirit, God’s image and likeness is spiritual, and therefore everyone, including me must be totally spiritual. So my life couldn’t be threatened any more than you could paint a sunbeam. Because God, Life, is always intact, so are we as the expression of Life. Eventually, some police officers took me upstairs. All the girls had gathered in the living room while the building was searched to be sure the man had left. There was a lot of emotion, but my prayers enabled me to be calm while my parents were contacted.
During the struggle, I had put my hand up to fend off the knife, and two of my fingers had been severely cut. One of the dorm moms helped me by calling a Christian Science practitioner who lived in the area. The practitioner, who happened to be a former nurse, came to the dorm and bandaged my hand, satisfying everyone that I was being well cared for. She then took me to her house and washed the blood out of my dress. (Yes, we wore dresses to class in those days!) My mom had starched that dress to within an inch of its life, and we discovered two parallel knife cuts on the underside of the collar. But the knife had never penetrated the collar.
That night, I slept peacefully in the practitioner’s home.
My parents arrived the next morning. My mom told me that she hadn’t slept at all the night before, but as soon as she’d stepped out of the car, she’d felt an enormous sense of peace, knowing that I was safe.
Though my mom was a Christian Scientist, my dad was not and wanted me to be seen by a doctor. The doctor stitched up my fingers and put a splint on my pinky. He said that the tendon had been almost completely severed and that he doubted that I would regain full use of that finger.
Meanwhile, I was still attending orchestra camp. For a day or two, I sat through rehearsals without playing, but found that to be a total drag. So I redid the fingering on my copy of the music and played with three fingers while my pinky was still in the splint. Eventually, the splint and the stitches were removed, and I gradually regained full range of motion with that finger. I attribute this to my own prayers and the practitioner’s, which left me feeling truly untouched by the whole incident.
By the end of the summer, I was in a pit orchestra playing for a musical theater production. I went on to have a career as an orchestra musician and violin teacher with no lingering physical or mental aftereffects from this experience.
In the years since, I have continued to develop my understanding of God as my life through my practice of Christian Science and continued study of the Bible Lessons. I know that I can count on God to protect and care for me in any situation.