I feel that this is a very good time to share my deep gratitude for Christian Science. 

Let me begin by saying that I have always seen the connection between how I was led to Christian Science and the prayers in Churches of Christ, Scientist. While our Church Manual states that these prayers “shall be offered for the congregations collectively and exclusively” (Mary Baker Eddy, p. 42), they have a ripple effect, resulting in blessings for humanity.

For many years I was looking for a deeper understanding of God and man, of happiness, of health, and of what constitutes true brotherhood. God had always been a friend to me, but I just didn’t understand Him. I yearned to feel His presence and guidance. I felt I could find all my answers from God, and I was sure that it was possible to find Him and to walk with God, as the early prophets did and as Christ Jesus did. 

Jesus healed and had this dear connection to his Father, but I didn’t know how to find my own connection to God. The answers I’d found in other churches had not been satisfying to me, and I had stopped going to their services. Still, somehow, I loved church.

During this time I was working in a hospital as a medical technical assistant, and I had some experiences that showed me that genuine healing has nothing to do with medicine but everything to do with God. I didn’t understand how, and I asked God to show me the answer. 

Then I heard about Christian Science from a lady in my hometown. She showed me the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. She also told my mom and grandmother about Christian Science. They started to read the Bible Lessons together and to have Christian Science church services at her home. But I could not grasp its teaching at that time.

Later, I had an interesting experience at the hospital. I had a colleague, a doctor, who was so devoted to and caring of other people. He had such a good heart, and he was a very good friend. One day I heard that my colleague had become very sick with a disease that our hospital was famous for treating. This disease is not contagious. But my colleague fell sick with the disease anyway. 

When I visited him, instantly I saw that he had taken this disease into thought. I saw that all disease is mental, not material, and that the body simply reflects what is in thought. And I saw that divine Truth alone could destroy the false images of mortal thought and bring healing. Indeed, it was useless to look elsewhere for healing.

I realized that Christian Science is the truth and that I needed it. And, yes, I belonged in church, and there I would find my answers. But still, my job, my training—my entire life—were based on medicine. I earned my money from the medical profession, and I didn’t know how to leave it.

Then I fell very ill and needed an operation. I was in the hospital, prepped for the operation, when some accident victims were admitted, and there was a delay. The surgeons couldn’t attend to me as planned. 

While I was lying in my hospital bed, all of a sudden I heard the words of the ninety-first Psalm: “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty” (verse 1). The psalm finishes: “Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation” (verses 14–16).

This was, for me, a promise from God. It was as if God were reaching out His hand to me, getting me up. I got out of bed, and I signed a release paper saying that I chose not to have any operation and that I would go home. 

At that time, I didn’t know about Churches of Christ, Scientist, Reading Rooms, or anything about the church organization. I just knew of the Christian Science textbook from the lady who had also introduced it to my mom. So I drove 600 kilometers (400 miles) to this lady to get the book. That was the end of my taking medicine. All my life I had suffered from very aggressive attacks of pain in my ears, which no drugs could lessen, nor could any of the previous operations I’d had cure. But I never again struggled with these severe attacks. 

I stayed at my mom’s home for nine months just studying Science and Health, and I knew what I had found: Truth, spiritual reality, a real Science—something that has a reliable Principle; that demonstrates God to be not only Principle, but Truth and Love—unchanging, trustworthy Love, embracing all. I loved the synonym Principle for God. I saw that Christian Science was a reliable Science because it rested on a fixed Principle, rather than on human opinion or the testimony of the material senses. This is exactly what I felt I had been missing in medicine.

I began to understand that I am at one with God, inseparable from Him, that I can hear Him, and that I am worthy, and meant to be, because He created me. God had always been a friend, but now He became Father and Mother to me, and I learned about myself as His, Her, child. My favorite hymn was, and still is, No. 144 (especially the German translation). It says, “He holds us perfect in His love, / And we His image bear” (Christian Science Hymnal, adapt. © CSBD). The words of this hymn are what healed me of the pain, of feeling separated, alone, unworthy. 

During this time at my mom’s studying Science and Health, I was also finally healed of anorexia. Today, I would say, I felt then the Christ, Truth, that Jesus demonstrated. Indeed, I was so hungry for the truth, I could accept it.

When I later visited a church nearby—First Church of Christ, Scientist, Hamburg—and I saw all these devoted friends praying during the Silent Prayer and Lord’s Prayer, I felt that it was God who had led me into Christian Science through their prayers. I understood then why these prayers in church are so powerful and necessary. They bless not only those in our church congregations, but the world.