Christian Science entered my life during a time of great distress. Science and Health, a book that explains the laws of Christian healing, was given to me when my son was born in 1943, under the German occupation. My husband had been deported a short time before the birth. While in the maternity ward, the baby and I contracted a fever that, at the time, the doctors could not treat. Although the Churches of Christ, Scientist, had been closed during the war, the light contained in the ideas from Science and Health—ideas I used in prayer—saved both of us, to the great astonishment of the doctors.

When I left Paris, I lost contact with the Christian Science movement, but I kept the book and turned to it from time to time.

Five years later, my son contracted a pulmonary disease. My husband had returned at the end of his deportation, but our marriage was a failure. When I went back to Paris to start divorce proceedings, I, too, become ill and was ordered to have surgery. That's when I seized on those ideas from Science and Health again, recognizing their healing power. I was healed in three days. I was specifically told that under no circumstance should my son take baths or be exposed to the sun. He, too, was healed in a few days, and now lives in the south of France, where he is an avid scuba diver, tennis player, and skier.

But I was now alone with my son, and we had no resources. I was unemplyed and was surviving by doing little jobs here and there. This was a time for me to become conscious of the fact that "... Life and intelligence are purely spiritual," and that "entirely separate from the belief and dream of material living, is the Life divine ..." (Science and Health, p. 14).

A practitioner from whom I requested prayer helped me understand that I could lean on God to take charge of my life, and find work in the profession for which I had studied. "Christ will fight for you," she told me. I found a classified ad, applied, and was accepted. This was especially significant because years of experience and financial responsibility had been required, which I did not have. It was the first of many solutions that came about for me during all the time I had to rely on God to provide for the needs of my family.

During that period, I had the joy of seeing many remarkable healings in the lives of those close around me, which came about through prayer, including one of a brain tumor that had been diagnosed by two professors in Bordeaux. In that case, as in others, medical doctors verified the healing. In my own personal life, I also saw a relationship problem, which would have been difficult to handle legally, be resolved without a trace of hatred or self-justification, by holding on to the standard of loving one's neighbor.

In addition to solving employment problems and financial difficulties, our family has experienced numerous healings. I myself am in excellent physical and mental health. I am very active and lively, and have perfect vision. I attribute all this to the fact that I have acquired a little bit of the consciousness of the divine All-presence, thanks to the study of the Bible, enlightened by Science and Health.

I don't mean to imply by all this that Christian Science places us on a bed of roses. But I have found that the diligent study of this Science gives us the strength to go on. My heart is encouraged when I think of all the difficulties that have been transformed into blessings, and I endorse these words of Mary Baker Eddy in Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896: "... whatever we meet that is hard in the Christian warfare we must count as nothing, and must think instead, of our poverty and helplessness without this understanding, and count ourselves always as debtors to Christ, Truth" (p. 281).

I give glory to God. I also thank the Christian Science practitioners to whom I have turned in moments of difficulty and who have helped me climb the steps from "sense to Soul" (Christian Science Hymnal, No. 64).

MARCELLE GENSE
SAINT-CLOUD, FRANCE