Everything changed

Emilienne Hastings—Weston, Massachusetts, US

When my husband and I were first married, we lived in a small town outside of Boston, in a neighborhood which included my in-laws, a former minister, and two doctors’ families.

My husband and I were trying to start a family, and, after several miscarriages, doctors told me that it would be impossible for me to have children. The medical diagnosis just didn’t seem right to me. In moments of great despair I asked my mother: “I don’t understand. Why am I in this nightmare?” Then I was introduced to Christian Science, and everything changed.

My mother had a friend from high school who was a Christian Scientist, and Mother remembered healings she had witnessed growing up. She felt certain that if the medical world could not help me, Christian Science could. My mother and her Christian Science friend came to visit me for a few days, and throughout the whole visit there was no mention of sickness or drugs, which was a completely freeing experience. We laughed and had a joyous time. I was no longer ruminating over the doctors’ news and feeling sad and incomplete. I had witnessed the Christ light so beautifully expressed by this wonderful woman who simply lived Christian Science. After she left, I became very interested in Christian Science. I visited a local Christian Science Reading Room and bought Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy.

The Christian Science textbook shed greater light on how to truly find oneness with God.

Throughout my life I’d had chronic earaches, especially during the winter. When I finished the first chapter in Science and Health called “Prayer,” I finally understood how to pray. I had grown up turning to God in times of need, but the Christian Science textbook shed greater light on how to truly find oneness with our Father-Mother God. I prayed diligently until one day, shortly after, I recall being outside in the cold air and realizing that there was no trace of an earache at all. In fact, after that complete healing through Christian Science, no one else in my family suffered from earaches, either.

I would also frequently visit the local Christian Science Reading Room and talk with the librarian who I later found out was a student of Emma C. Shipman, C.S.B. (a pupil of Mrs. Eddy’s in her last class of 1898). The librarian led me to articles in the Christian Science periodicals by early workers, many of whom were Mrs. Eddy’s pupils. Another member of the local church gave me copies of Christian Science lectures to read. As I began to read more about Christian Science and understand the healing power of the Christ, I started to regularly attend Christian Science church services.

Shortly thereafter, I gave birth to a beautiful healthy girl, followed by another girl four years later. Four years after that, I again became pregnant and the doctor told me that, given my medical history, it would be impossible for me to have the baby. A baby boy was born with no difficulty. At the time of his birth there was great opposition in the neighborhood to my being a Christian Scientist. As I was nursing my son, I started to develop a large growth under my breast. I had read an article about a woman who’d had a growth and was healed simply by studying “the scientific statement of being” in Science and Health (see p. 468). After nursing my son I would walk around, constantly saying this passage aloud and studying its meaning. After three days of prayer and working with a Christian Science practitioner, the growth completely disappeared. I solely relied on Christian Science for healing from that point on.

That year my mother and I both joined the local Christian Science church. I became a devoted Christian Scientist and raised my three children in Christian Science. There was also perfect harmony in the neighborhood. In fact, the minister’s wife would call me for metaphysical support, and I was often asked to pray about certain neighborhood issues. Science and Health states, “Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts” (p. 261). How lovely to know and prove that truth!

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