Marjorie

When I was a young girl I was raised in a Christian Science home. Every week my parents sent my younger sister and me to the Christian Science Sunday school. The church was within a short walk from the apartment building where we resided. My parents never attended church services, but they would send us by ourselves each week. 

I consistently asked both of my parents to start accompanying us to church, instead of sending us to Sunday school by ourselves. They finally consented then the four of us starting attending regularly each week. My parents sat upstairs for the Sunday services, while us girls attended Sunday school downstairs. 

We eventually moved from our apartment building and relocated to another city and in so doing I had to transfer to another public school. We started attending another Christian Science Church and eventually my father was elected as the first reader. Attending church regularly was so ingrained in me that it became a regular part of my daily spiritual life. A major teaching of Christian Science is that we were instructed to read our daily lessons each week. My father always asked me if I read the lesson for that day, and I always told him that I did. I lied every time he asked me because I couldn't understand the doctrines contained in the Science and Health. I would always seem to get into a verbal disagreement with many of my Sunday school teachers when it concerned Mary Baker Eddy's interpretation of the bible and the Science and Health in general. 

After graduation from high school, I started on my two-year associates degree program through a local community college. After classes I worked part time behind the service desk at the YWCA, and this is where I met my future husband. Before we were married he attended the Christian Science Church with me. He was raised in the Methodist Church whereas the teachings of Christian Science were so very foreign to him. My father wanted me to graduate from college, but I dropped out after completing one year, and ended of getting married instead. 

During the period of our engagement I asked a girlfriend who her minister was. We wanted to be married in some church, but didn't have any idea who would perform the marriage ceremony. Christian Science Churches don't have ordained clergy; they only have laity who are elected as first and second readers. 

We contacted this minister by telephone and he asked both of us if we would consent to some marriage counseling sessions with him. Both of us agreed and we met with him each week in his office that he had in his home. He asked both of us if we had a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, and we told him that we didn't. 

The minister would not marry a believer to an unbeliever. In the counseling session, he started telling us about Jesus. But the both of us were not interested in any type of religion and we nicely told him so. He didn't bring up the subject of Jesus again, but he and his wife started praying for the both of us. 

After we were married we still attended the Christian Science Church, but not on a regular basis. I wasn't any longer under the jurisdiction of my parents, so my husband and I sporadically attended the Christian Science Sunday services. Four years into our marriage, our son was born. When he was a tiny infant he became very ill and we knew that something was very wrong with him. He was lying in his crib, and he constantly cried and drew his little legs up to his chest in pain.

Since we were both young and inexperienced parents, we decided to call my father on the telephone and perhaps he could give us some wise counsel. My father responded and said that he would call a Christian Science Practitioner for us. Well, my husband nearly hit the roof in anger and he slammed down the telephone. He knew that our baby needed immediate medical attention. 

We knew of a family just a few houses away from us that lost a daughter through death because they both trusted a Christian Science Practitioner to heal her. We weren't about to follow in those same footsteps of that family whose daughter that died.

My husband called the State Police and gave them the description of our car and the license plate number and he told them that he had to quickly rush our baby to the hospital. He didn't want the police to detain us when we had a medical emergency. We arrived at the hospital and the doctor in charge admitted him, and wanted to keep him overnight for observation. We both stayed at the hospital with our son for quite a long time until we were told to go home for the night because there wasn't anything else we could do. Both of us were so very heart broken to have to leave our little son in the hospital over night. 

The following morning we arrived at the hospital and the doctor told us that he would release him so we could take him home with us. He had gastritis which is an inflammation of the stomach lining and if left untreated, could be fatal to an infant. I'm so very grateful that we used good common sense and took our son to the hospital, than to leave him in the hands of a Christian Science Practitioner. 

My husband and I had to come to some decision about rearing our child in some religious faith. We decided to call the minister who performed our marriage ceremony. We talked to him over the telephone and he told us where the church was located and the times of the services. So we attended the Sunday morning service at the Community Church. The pastor and his wife asked us if they could stop by and visit us. We noticed that both of them were very friendly and open to us and they shared with us a lot of information about the church. 

Again we attended Sunday morning services the very next week and the both of us listened attentively to the pastor's sermon. His message was about the love of Christ and he explained the gospel in such simple terms that a small child could even understand. He explained the sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what I had to do was acknowledge that I was a sinner and that Jesus Christ had shed his precious blood on the cross for my sins. All I had to do was to make a rational decision and accept what Jesus Christ had already done for me on the cross. 

The pastor gave an invitation to those who wanted to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord, and asked those people to make a public profession of their faith and to walk forward in the church. The last hymn of the morning service was, "Just as I am without one Plea." I stood there singing the hymn and I felt two hands on my back giving me a little nudge. I turned around to see who was pushing me and no one was behind me, I then turned around and continued to sing the hymn. Again I felt two hands nudging me to go forward and now I know that it was God's Holy Spirit beginning to work in my life. 

I walked forward and made a public profession of my faith, and the pastor's wife accompanied me to a room and she led me in the sinner's prayer. I came to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ in December 1971, when our son was three months old. And my husband saw such a miraculous change in my life when I started to read the bible and apply its truths in my life. that he too came to faith in January 1972. Since coming to faith my life has never been the same. 

Christian Science could never fill the void in my heart the way the Lord Jesus Christ has filled it. Some of the teachings of Christian Science are that we can heal ourselves by denying the reality of sickness. They also teach that sin and death are also unreal. If we don't receive a healing in Christian Science, it's because we haven't applied its teachings correctly and we are to try harder in understanding the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy. 

Christian Science does not heal, because I've never been healed all of the years when I was a practicing Christian Scientist. I have medical problems today that I am learning to deal with, but I'd rather have a spiritual healing in my life than a physical healing. I have the assuredness that when I pass from life unto death I will be in the presence of the Lord. 

We are grateful that the Lord Jesus Christ allowed us to raise our son from infancy in a bible believing church. Today our son is a Soldier in the U. S. Army and serves on active duty. He's also an ordained minister, and his future goal is to become an Army Chaplain one day. 

I John 1:5-10 ~ This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. NIV 

In Christ, 
Marjorie C. Woodworth 

Email Marjorie or visit her Internet prayer group of Ex-Christian Scientists who have come into a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.  The URL is:  http://www.christianway.org/