I became interested in Christian Science after my marriage to a student of this Science. We attended church and I began reading Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy from time to time. But I must admit that my understanding of what I was reading was at most superficial, and I was believing what I read one moment and becoming totally skeptical the next. I wasn't looking for a healing or searching for a deeper spiritual understanding of life, nor was I pausing in my reading to consider the truths being expressed. But shortly an incident occurred that brought a deep desire to understand God better.

My husband was completing his university studies at the time, and I was happily employed on the same campus. One day, as I was returning to the office from lunch, I was waiting to cross the street at an intersection. Suddenly I was overwhelmed with a feeling of indescribable fear. I couldn't relate the feeling to any particular thing; it was just fear. I felt as though my entire personality had changed in just those few seconds.

When I arrived back at the office I tried to appear normal and did not mention the incident, thinking no one would understand such a story. As the afternoon wore on, the feeling of fear did not abate, and worse yet I began to become very apprehensive about the trip home by bus. As I stood waiting for the bus, I found myself unable to board it. Instead I walked home.

When my husband arrived, I told him what I had experienced and, after some discussion, I decided to call a practitioner for help. The practitioner assured me of God's unchanging love for me and gave me a few citations to study. We prayed for a number of weeks, during which time the fear increased rather than subsided. I soon found myself withdrawing from all normal activities, including such ordinary things as grocery shopping. Since it was necessary that I continue to work, I felt the urgent need for more help with the problem.

I dismissed the practitioner and sought out a psychiatrist. After many meetings and tests, he pronounced me very stable mentally and could uncover no reason for the fear. He suggested that I see a doctor for a physical examination, which he said might uncover some imbalance in my system.

I went to a physician, who found me to be perfectly healthy. The medical system I had turned to for physical healing all my life had failed to aid me, and there was what seemed to me a very real problem.

In desperation I called the practitioner back, and she kindly agreed to meet with me again. She knew from our previous conversations that I needed to understand what God is, and also to understand man's reflection of Him.

We began meeting on a regular basis, and I started studying Science and Health, particularly the chapter entitled "Science of Being." We discussed this statement describing God as divine Mind: "The only I, or Us; the only Spirit, Soul, divine Principle, substance, Life, Truth, Love; the one God; not that which is in man, but the divine Principle, or God, of whom man is the full and perfect expression; Deity, which outlines but is not outlined" (p. 591). Also we discussed this description found on the same page: "Man. The compound idea of infinite Spirit; the spiritual image and likeness of God; the full representation of Mind."

This brought a great awakening to my consciousness. I had never thought of myself as being anything but material, controlled by physical laws. But I began to understand that man cannot be material because he is the image of God, and identity, being spiritual, cannot include anything unlike the qualities of God. "The great spiritual fact must be brought out that man is, not shall be, perfect and immortal" (ibid., p. 428).

At this point I felt like anything but perfect man. Yet now it was becoming ever more clear that perfection being the spiritual fact, my need was to destroy, by understanding the truth of being, the belief that man could include fear. We read in the Bible: "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love" (I John 4:18). Slowly, it dawned in my consciousness that the unchanging, unalterable Love that is God casts out fear, and that God's love is not the illusive, human emotion of material sense. This love cannot change to fear at any time. Fear, stemming from misconceptions about God and man, never had power, and could not alter the law of God. I needed to understand and claim that I was perfect in Love, to know that Love was ever present, and to reject all opposing beliefs.

After nearly three years of concerted prayer, learning really to trust God to govern His creation, I realized one day that I WAS healed. I no longer had any trace of that fear.

Although I'm obviously grateful for the healing, my endless gratitude was and is to Mary Baker Eddy for sharing the truth with us, and to the practitioner, who was tireless, patient, and loving.

"The miracle of grace is no miracle to Love. Jesus demonstrated the inability of corporeality, as well as the infinite ability of Spirit, thus helping erring human sense to flee from its own convictions and seek safety in divine Science. Reason, rightly directed, serves to correct the errors of corporeal sense; but sin, sickness, and death will seem real (even as the experiences of the sleeping dream seem real) until the Science of man's eternal harmony breaks their illusion with the unbroken reality of scientific being" (Science and Health, p. 494).

Pat Oleston
Minneapolis,