I shall always be glad that a...

Alverna W. Bowken

I shall always be glad that a little neighborhood friend invited me to visit the Christian Science Sunday School with her. That first Sunday the teacher took each verse of the ninety-first Psalm and explained how it could be used in our daily life. Prior to this I had been out of grade school several weeks with a nervous breakdown, and these passages were a comfort to me.

With my parents' consent I continued attending the Sunday School. Through my own study I gained peace of mind. Many small physical problems disappeared, and soon I could run and play with the other children without any sense of tenseness.

During my junior year in high school my father passed on, and the next year it was necessary for me to go to work to help support my mother and younger brother. Although it was during the years of the depression, I was able to obtain employment with a fine firm which had not hired any woman in a certain department for six years. With the help of my Sunday School teacher and consecrated study, I gained self-confidence in taking on these responsibilities.

When I reached the age of eighteen, my Sunday School teacher started talking to us about the importance of church membership. I knew I wanted to join the Christian Science church, but there was a physical difficulty I had not overcome and for which I took medicine every day. I had been told by the family physician that this condition of chronic constipation was inherited and that there was nothing for me to do but take medicine the rest of my life.

I did not know a practitioner, nor did I know how to call on one; but I resolved to rely wholly on God for my well-being, and I decided to take no more medicine even if I were to pass on. Through my own prayerful metaphysical work, this function of the body gradually became normal and has remained so. When I reached the age of twenty, I felt free to join a branch Church of Christ, Scientist.

As a result of lessons learned through earnest study of Christian Science, I have enjoyed many years of health and happiness and truly have an interesting life. Although I am unspeakably grateful for this abundance of human benefits, I am the most grateful for the fact that my religion offers to me and to the world a practical, demonstrable Science, the Science of being, and that I know what it is to feel close to God by having experienced answered prayer.—(Mrs.) Alverna W. Bowken, Kansas City, Missouri.

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