"Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee" (Jeremiah). I am grateful to God with all my heart for His having "drawn" me, led me, to find the teachings of Christian Science.

As a young wife I learned that my husband had great reverence for a particular book. This book had its place on his night table. It was very dogeared, with many lines underscored, paragraphs marked, and notes made throughout. My husband encouraged me to read it. I tried, but I didn't understand it at the time.

The special story about this book is as follows: My husband has known Christian Science since his childhood. During the Second World War he was protected and guided throughout eight years of war and imprisonment. Not one single time was he put in a position where he had to shoot at people. When he was in a POW camp on the island of Rhodes, he wrote to The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, requesting a Bible and a copy of the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy. The package containing these two books was, at the time, the first mail to get through the camp's censorship and reach its recipient. The book on my husband's night table was this very copy of Science and Health. No wonder he loved it so dearly!

When our daughter was born, I came down with a severe fever. I felt great fear. Doctors and nurses tried their hardest to help me, but my fear and the fever kept increasing more and more. At this point the young woman who was sharing the room with me suddenly began to talk about Christian Science. She herself had had some very hard challenges to endure, and she told me, "If my grandmother, who loves the teachings of Christian Science very much, hadn't written to me daily and sent me Christian Science literature, I wouldn't be alive today." In months of distress this woman had learned a lot about God and the real nature of man through reading this literature, and now she wanted to share her spiritual treasures with me.

She told me many wonderful truths. I tried to grasp them, but because of the fever was unable to comprehend longer sentences. The young woman then said, "Just keep on thinking, 'God is Love'; that is enough." At that moment I felt as if a life preserver had been flung out to me in the sea of fear I seemed to be swimming in. I clutched at it and really did think, every waking moment, this one thing: "God is Love." There literally was no room left in my consciousness for fear. The fever disappeared.

I was able to go home, but the doctor told me I'd have to remain under treatment for at least a year because of a complication. During the next few weeks my husband and I talked a lot about the truths of Christian Science, and my husband prayed for me. (I took no medication.) I gained a better understanding of the sentence "God is Love." I realized that there is no such thing as a God who punishes, and that man is made in God's image and likeness, always perfect, always cared for.

When I went back to the doctor four weeks later, as arranged, he told me with astonishment after the examination, "In my entire twenty years of practice I have never seen such a thing before. You are perfectly well. You don't need to come back." I can't put into words how grateful I was to return home with this message. This was my first healing in Christian Science.

I have now been a member of The Mother Church and of a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, for many years. I have had the privilege of serving my church in many capacities; I have had class instruction in Christian Science, and a number of valuable healing experience. Many healings came about quickly, some instantaneously. Others required a lot of patience and persistence. Character flaws, fear, and doubt have been overcome. I am sincerely grateful to the Christian Science practitioners who patiently have helped me understand better that man's true identity is not material, but spiritual. Great gratitude to God remains.

Gerda Gottspenn
Hamburg, Germany