Growing up on a ranch, I was plagued with severe allergies and asthma. I loved my cow horse (a type of workhorse), my dog, my cats, and all the activities associated with ranching. However, I couldn’t run much, and would react badly to animal hair and dander, as well as to some of my favorite foods—especially peanuts.

Even though my mother was a minister’s daughter, our family didn’t talk often about the Bible or religion. After several years, my parents decided to take me to an allergy specialist in a distant city. He took many tests, then told us just what foods I should not eat. He said I could take shots twice a week to help relieve the symptoms, and agreed to send the medicine to a doctor in our hometown. I started taking the shots, but saw little improvement.

The doctor had told us in detail of the effects of allergies in his own family. My innocent childlike thought reasoned that if he couldn’t relieve his own family of the effects of allergies, then why should I believe in his treatment? It just made no sense to me.

My uncle had been reading Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy, which a colleague who was a Christian Scientist had given him, and he saw the potential for my relief. He offered the book to my mother and she began reading it and telling me about this teaching. I became interested and read portions of it, and the truth I found was very convincing to me.

When I was still in my teens, I started dating a young man who was in the ranching business, and I began to reason that God would not bring us together if one of us was to be miserable and restricted from the full enjoyment of ranch life.

My study of Christian Science was giving me a confidence in God and His direction that I had never had before. Now, it had dawned on me that what I was reading was the truth—and that God was all good.

I so completely turned the situation over to God, to see His will be done. I knew I would be at peace with whatever path He would have me take. My love for and trust in God had become even greater than my devotion to the man I was dating and my personal desire to stay in ranching.

As a result I was completely healed of all symptoms of my previous affliction and went on to marry this rancher. And I lived many years on a ranch in complete freedom. My fear of the so-called power of the peanut and other foods to harm me vanished also, and I have been completely free ever since.

For all of this I am very grateful to Christ Jesus the Way-shower and for Christian Science and its Founder, Mary Baker Eddy.