While I was growing up, I dearly loved the spiritual truths taught in the Christian Science Sunday School and told me by my mother. When I was still quite small, my hand was severely burned on an electric stove. My mother quietly took me to my room and read to me from Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy. I fell asleep, and after a short nap awakened completely healed. At thirteen I was healed of a severe case of warts.

After I completed school, I was on my own after the passing of my father. Gradually I drifted away from attending church, not then realizing the deep significance and power of God's laws.

Later in the course of raising a family, life's problems seemed to loom larger and larger, until we found ourselves in desperate financial straits. My health was gone, my sanity was in jeopardy, and the youngest of my five children was suffering from the aftereffects of chicken pox with fever and convulsions. The doctors did not seem able to help. In desperation I turned to God with my whole heart. I went to a Christian Science Reading Room in our little town, and there in The Christian Science Journal I found the name of a Christian Science practitioner in a nearby city. I telephoned and asked if she would pray for the little fellow. Within half an hour the child was sleeping peacefully. The fever left, and the other symptoms left shortly thereafter, never to return.

That was seventeen years ago, and this son is now a robust, active young man in college. He was healed at that same time, we later realized, of a chronic bronchial infection he had suffered from since birth.

My happiness and gratitude were so great I asked the practitioner if she would pray for me. Gradually I gained weight and returned to school. For a number of years I have held a position, both interesting and demanding, in an accounting office. This work testifies to my healthful mental capacity. Also, the children were enrolled in a Christian Science Sunday School, and later I joined The Mother Church, a branch church, and had class instruction.

One of the most outstanding healings during this period of readjustment in our lives occurred after my husband and I took a holiday. While traveling a country road, as we slowed for a stop, we were hit from behind by another car going very fast. I was taken to a hospital unconscious, and there was X-rayed. Though I could not at first speak, I was able to think clearly. I declared many times the prayer Christ Jesus gave us, the Lord's Prayer, with its spiritual interpretation found in Science and Health on pages 16 and 17. One line reads:

The next morning I found a telephone by my hospital bed and called the same practitioner. I felt no fear, but only gratitude that God was caring for me. The doctors told us the X-rays showed a portion of the spine was crushed. The hospital staff were concerned at my request to be sent home. However, releases were signed and home I went. The next day I was able to be up and around. The following week I returned to work with no harmful aftereffects. It was difficult to explain to fellow workers my quick recovery, as they had expected I; would be away for some time.

Other healings we have had in our family over the. years have been of burns, pneumonia, constipation, and kidney infection. It is my humble wish to live the truths of Christian-Science to show -my thanksgiving.

RUTH S. WHITLING
Castro Valley, California