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Occasional visits to a Christian Science Sunday school when I was a child had shown me the practicality of its teachings. Attending a Christian Science lecture was a turning point, and some of the ideas shared brought my first demonstration of healing during exams a month later.

A friend invited me to a Christian Science testimony meeting. That started me on a spiritual journey that has taken me from merely believing in God to a growing understanding of God as Love itself, an all-powerful and ever-present Parent.

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 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.

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.

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.

I grew up on a horse farm in northeast Kansas. Many generations of my family have relied on Christian Science for literally everything. We’ve seen healings of broken bones, severe bleeding during pregnancy, concussion, diabetes, car accidents, job loss, severe skin conditions, blindness, financial difficulties, and, as you might expect, many, many animal healings. During our college years, my husband and I met working as swimming instructors at a camp for Christian Scientists. After graduation and marriage, we eventually moved to the Dallas, Texas, area where I started in the healing practice of Christian Science, becoming Journal -listed in 1989. While studying the Church Manual by Mary Baker Eddy, I was struck by the bylaw, “The prayers in Christian Science churches shall be offered for the congregations collectively and exclusively.”  (See Church Manual , p.

I have lived most of my life in and around Fremantle, Australia.  I trained as a hairdresser and operated a hairdressing business. Christian Science came into my life shortly after a personal challenge.  A dear friend passed on at a relatively young age.  Shortly after, I bought a second-hand copy of Science and Health - the word “Health” caught my attention.

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.

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.