For many years, I felt like Job in the Bible. It looked as if I had lost everything—my fortune, contact with my children, all that I most loved—just as he had. But when Job finally stood for his perfection and his love for God, and saw that his suffering never came from God, all that he had lost was returned even greater than before. I, too, learned a purer sense of identity and freedom as a spiritual idea of God, without mortal birth, having no mortal history. 

I suffered the pains of child abuse and eventually sexual abuse at a very young age. The shame and guilt from these experiences affected my life, both as a child and as an adult. I always had a sense of unworthiness. I felt I didn’t deserve to have a happy, loving relationship, and I made mistakes in three marriages. I felt I could make up for my guilt by changing my marriage partners’ behavior. 

But even though I thought of myself as a strong person, I always felt very submissive toward each of my husbands and unsure of myself. I never really trusted them, and through the years I have come to realize that I was actually afraid of them. Yet I stayed in those unhappy marriages in order to protect my four children and to make sure they had a home.

After the passing of my second husband, and, a few years later, of my son, I felt such grief and anger. I began to feel as though I was losing the ability to think. Around this same time, it started to become difficult for me to speak, and over a period of several months I began losing the use of my hands and finally my arms. I would stumble when walking, and my vision was impaired. One morning I woke up very ill, and my daughter, who by then was grown, rushed me to the emergency room. She was told I’d had a series of mini-strokes, that one kidney had stopped functioning, and that I was headed on a downhill slide.

I really didn’t care what the doctors said. I felt I had deserted God and Christian Science, and that I had lost my other children, who’d left Christian Science after my son’s passing. I didn’t care if I lived or died; I had quit.

As ill and confused as I was, I could hear my daughter crying, “Don’t leave! I need you.” I thought, “I can’t leave her like this. I have work to do. She needs me.”

From that low point, full healing came, although it took several years. However, there were many smaller healings along the way. There in the hospital, I began by holding on to this one thought: “God is Life. He is my Life.” It was at that point that I knew I wanted to rely on Christian Science for healing. I whispered to my daughter, “No more doctors.” 

I was released from the hospital after a week (the doctors wanted to keep an eye on my condition), and I began to pray in earnest. I continued to hold on to the thought that God is Life—my Life—and that Love is All. These thoughts were constant companions to me. As I turned wholeheartedly to prayer, both on my own and with the support of a Christian Science practitioner, my kidney regained normal function within about a month. This was the first step toward complete healing, and it encouraged me to buckle down and really understand my spiritual perfection.

I dedicated myself to God and the study of the Bible and Science and Health. Since my vision was impaired, I listened to recordings on CDs of the Christian Science Bible Lessons day and night. I played Bible CDs, Christian Science music CDs—anything having to do with Christian Science. Little by little I was able to think more clearly, and to read. I could not see clearly at first, but I persisted. I read the Bible and Science and Health out loud, sounding funny at first, but step by step my speech became clearer and clearer, until it was totally healed.

I began studying the definition of man on page 475 in Science and Health, and daily prayed with “the scientific statement of being” on page 468, along with references on divine Mind. I held constantly to this citation on page 199: “Muscles are not self-acting.” I reasoned, “Well, Mind alone moves them.” As I prayed along these lines, the freedom of movement of my arms and hands slowly returned, and without pain.

After a few years, however, there still remained in my thought a sense of “fog.” I would forget things I had said or how to perform certain tasks. But I continued praying, knowing that God was Mind and that there was no way I could be separated from His infinite intelligence. And the sense of confusion began to recede. 

One important marker came when I began to crochet a little at a time. I had crocheted for my children when they were young, but at first I could not remember how to make the stitches. I must have torn them out a hundred times, but each time I reminded myself that God was Mind, all intelligence, and I was His expression. I was learning patience! Of course, as I persisted in my prayers, the mental fog lifted, and I was able to crochet again, completing an afghan for my daughter.

Step by step my speech became clearer and clearer, until it was totally healed.

After several years, in spite of all the healing I had seen, pain still persisted in my hips and legs when I would sit, walk, or lie down.

My daughter and I had moved to the East Coast during this healing. Being new to the area and feeling that I needed church in my life, I joined a Christian Science branch church. As it turned out, this was a final step in my complete healing. But even though I attended services, I had the sense that I was mentally arguing with God. I was resisting going to church and feeling resentful about following divine direction. 

As I was coming home from church one Sunday, I was in great pain. At one point my daughter, who had attended the service with me and knew that I loved God and needed church, looked at me and said, “It’s over.” She meant that I could stop arguing with God, let go of the anger, and put an end to the hurt and sorrow in my life.

This declaration startled me, and it broke the sense of mental argument. At that moment I thought, “God, I give up. I’m done resisting Your direction. I’ll do whatever You want me to do.” And just as suddenly, I had a sense of being exactly where I belonged. At that moment the pain left. It was total, instant freedom. From then on, I walked and moved painlessly, and that healing has been permanent. I continued attending church services, became a member a few months later, and eventually served on the church’s Board of Directors and as First Reader.

In spite of this precious evidence of Love’s caring for me, I still struggled to love myself. I found that thoughts about the abuse I had suffered earlier in life were surfacing in my thinking, and I knew the feelings of guilt and shame needed to be healed.

As I prayed, these words from page 340 of Science and Health kept coming to me: equalizes the sexes. This phrase is part of a longer passage, which reads: “One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfils the Scripture, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself;’ annihilates pagan and Christian idolatry,—whatever is wrong in social, civil, criminal, political, and religious codes; equalizes the sexes; annuls the curse on man, and leaves nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed.”

One day when I was praying, the thought came to me, “No evil!” That was a “clouds parting moment” for me. At last I knew my answer: My innocence had never been touched. I saw so clearly that I had no mortal history, because I was God’s image and likeness, and that I didn’t need to carry the weight of grief that for so long had felt like a part of who I was. This was my freedom. I cried for hours at the joy of knowing that we have one divine Parent, our Father-Mother God, and that evil actions are never a part of God’s kingdom.

I spent hours that day praying to see there was no universal acceptance of abuse of any kind. We, the children of God, can never leave our perfect selfhood—we are untouched. We are hid “in the secret place of the most High” (Ps. 91:1), never fearful or hateful. I sat there, quietly forgiving all men in the world. I saw them as they truly are: the humble, intelligent expressions of Love, purity, and honesty. I saw that womanhood is cherished, adored, and respected. It is the womanhood of God, which mankind sees as tenderness, love, and kindness, embracing all Her children and the universe.

I felt such a freedom and joy, knowing that Father-Mother God, the one divine Parent, is the true and only parent. I had never been separated from the parenthood of God. There was never a moment when I didn’t have home, since it is the consciousness of Love. Home is not a material place, but a state of conscious, glorious love, kindness, security, and fulfillment. I cherished all mankind as my sisters and brothers with one divine Parent. Divine Love loves all of Her creation and is always caring for, providing for, and cherishing Her most beloved ideas. 

I realized that the way I had been thinking about myself—that I had to carry shame and guilt, and didn’t deserve to be happy—was wrong and hurtful. Christian Science taught me the truth that I am, we all are, the loved of God, His image and likeness. 

Since this experience, my children have returned to Christian Science, and I feel stronger in my love for God, Christ Jesus, Mary Baker Eddy, and Christian Science, than I ever have before. This is the most happiness and freedom I have ever felt.

Guilty? Since God didn’t say so, we need not carry that extra baggage.