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Growing up in a loving Christian Science home in California, I witnessed and experienced many healings through prayer. Later, after unfruitful years of exploring different modes of thinking and behavior, I found myself drawn back to the truths, the universal spiritual laws I had learned as a child--the pure and deeply practical teachings of Christian Science.  I knew this was the Truth -- the unwavering nature of God's love, the supreme power and grace of God's goodness -- that I had found nowhere else.  I experienced healing and a deep yearning to understand more of God, which led me to take Primary class in 1983.

What do counseling at-risk youth, running an emergency shelter, working as a wilderness ranger, teaching, and coordinating community outreach programs all have in common? These were jobs that led to my being in the full-time practice of Christian Science! Even as a child, lessons from the Bible and Mary Baker Eddy's writings had encouraged and shown me ways to help others.  Christian Science gave me a love for Christ Jesus; it also enabled me to follow him by showing how prayer transforms experience by transforming thought.  Whether confronting hostile situations, battling a forest fire, or facing physical challenges, prayer enabled me to get beyond the appearance of things to the spiritual truth that brought healing solutions. As God’s love became more real to me and the mental nature of experience became more apparent, so did opportunities to heal.

Attending Christian Science Sunday School as a child, I loved what I learned there of God—He’s everywhere, always Love, and All. But going out into the “cold, cruel world,” I couldn’t reconcile what I was seeing with a God who is Love. Putting my Bible and Science and Health on the shelf, I forged ahead, just trying to live a moral, meaningful life. I married, had children, was happy, but missing was a depth to life.  Science and Health beckoned to me. Opening it, I saw my grandmother’s note inside: “Judith Ann—Read this.  You owe it to yourself.” I did, for the first time. When I came to “The calm, strong currents of true spirituality.

As a small girl I attended Christian Science Sunday School in Provo, Utah. I remember distinctly learning that God is Love, and accepting it as true.

Growing up with the stories of the healings that had brought my family into Christian Science – a great uncle healed of polio, my mother and aunt healed of leukemia – it seemed entirely natural to me, as a second-grader, to agree to pray for a sobbing playmate who asked me to do so after she tumbled off a swing-set.  The fact that she quickly returned to play seemed equally natural.

As a child, I loved listening to Bible stories, especially healings performed by Jesus. These gifts of God’s grace seemed so natural, yet I couldn’t understand why God would not allow for such healings today.

Christian Science has taken care of my family’s needs for five generations. I used to listen to my German grandmother tell me how God had protected family members during both world wars. These accounts of protection from bombs and Nazi interrogations had the same feeling of authenticity as the Bible accounts of deliverance from lions’ dens and fiery furnaces. Because of that, the Bible always felt approachable to me. Growing up in Colorado, loving hiking and skiing and the mountains, it always felt completely natural to be talking to God and listening for His presence.

As a teen I began to feel a deep intuition about the presence and power of a profoundly loving God, which became increasingly important to me. "How does God know himself and all of his creation?" I wondered.

Christian Science is a way of life to me. As a third-generation Christian Scientist I experienced many healings when I was growing up, but it was only when I was a University student in South Africa and a member of the Christian Science College Organisation that I discovered its practicality and effectiveness.

I grew up in a family in which Christian Science was at the heart. I deeply value the security I have always felt from knowing that God is our Father-Mother Love, an ever-present help, and that in any situation we can find the inspiration and spiritual understanding that we need in the Bible and  Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.