In the long term, and even the short term, individuals who have been healed of using drugs have had a deeper insight into who they are. These people were able to give up drugs through the realization at some level that they were not separate and alone, that God was with them and loved them. I’m not sure they would put it in those terms, although some do. But I think a sense of being loved really does make the difference.

The first drug czar speaks

with contributions from Egil “Bud” Krogh

From the October 2002 issue of The Christian Science Journal

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CLIP DESCRIPTION: The woman who hid Anne Frank during the holocaust, Miep Gies (Pat Carroll), comes to speak to Ms. Gruwell’s (Hilary Swank) class.

The gift of Christian Science

By Steve McCrocklin

From the January 28, 2019 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel

I am most grateful for Mary Baker Eddy giving the world Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, along with all her other writings. Even though she wrote in the later 19th and early 20th centuries, her works still meet the needs of all people today, and they will for centuries to come.

As a young child, I was brought up in another religion. Each week I sat restless in church as our pastor quoted something from the Bible and then gave the congregation his own inspiration on the subject. In Sunday School, we spent time on activities, but I didn’t feel I learned much about God or the Bible.

Over the next several years, my mom and dad, who have both passed on, fought a lot. Sometimes things got so severe that my mom and I would move to other cities, going to whatever church happened to be the closest to where we were at the time, and then after several months we’d move back home again. We moved back and forth more than five times before I was fifteen.

In my early adulthood I did not go to church, because I didn’t think there was any religion out there that had the same views about God’s love that I did. Previous pastors, almost every Sunday, would preach that if we didn’t live a certain way, we would never make it to heaven. This did not resonate well with me. I could not figure out why the Bible stated that God was loving and that Jesus bore our sins, but no matter how hard I tried I would not end up in heaven.

I began to go down the wrong path. Alcohol and marijuana took over. I went from job to job, never truly happy. I could think only about getting drunk or high. Amid this turmoil, I tried another little church that was close to where I lived, but some of their views did not sync up with how I felt inside.

Fast-forward several more years to when I met my soon-to-be husband. He had discovered Christian Science previously and attended a Church of Christ, Scientist, when he could. I went with him to a couple of testimony meetings, where people shared how the study and practice of Christian Science had led to healing, and I was thrilled that the readings were directly from the impersonal Christian Science pastor—the Bible and a book I knew little about, Science and Health.

As I listened to the readings from Science and Health, I was quick to realize that this was what I’d been looking for. I began coming to the services every week, and then joined a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, ultimately joining The Mother Church and taking Primary class instruction in Christian Science. I now want to be available to pray for others.

I had many healings within my first year of studying Christian Science, which was about four and a half years ago. I no longer have chronic stomach and back pain. An addiction to marijuana was healed; I realized I just didn’t want it anymore. I stopped drinking, too. I also learned that God is truly our source of supply. In various financial situations when an unexpected expense has come up, I have learned quickly that as we strive to express divine Principle and do what is right, our needs will be met. God will always take care of us and guide us to make better decisions.

I do not know where I would be today if it weren’t for Christian Science and the love that it emanates. I am very happy that I am a member of a church that welcomes everyone, no matter where they are on their own spiritual journey.

I have been blessed beyond measure, and I thank God for the gift of Christian Science.

Prisoners wearing pink triangles on their uniforms are marched outdoors by Nazi guards at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany on Dec. 19, 1938.

CORBIS/Corbis—Getty Images

* Just as the Nazis forced Jewish people to wear a yellow Star of David, they forced people they labeled as gay to wear inverted pink triangles (or ‘die Rosa-Winkel’). Those thus branded were treated as “the lowest of the low in the camp hierarchy,” as one scholar put it.