Cynthia - Adapted from The Christian Science Journal, February 2007
I grew up with my parents’ religion, but it wasn’t for me. So when I was 13, I began going on my own to some other churches. But they didn’t satisfy me either, and I continued searching. I wanted to find a place where God is only good, not good and evil. In the churches I attended, they said that if you didn’t obey certain rules, you would go to hell. That didn’t seem right or loving.
Then my mother began having relationship problems, and a friend of hers told her about Christian Science and invited her to attend Christian Science church services in Mexico City. My mom started going to the services, and she said to me, “Why don’t you come? If you don’t like them, then adelante-you can move on.” So I went with her and attended a Sunday School class. I liked the way they explained who God is. During that first class, the teacher showed me the definition of God from the Glossary of Science and Health (p. 587) and then she asked the other students to tell me in their own words what God meant to them. I learned that God isn’t bad, that God doesn’t punish us. Many religions teach that He does, and so people live in fear. But I didn’t want to live with fear in my life. I needed to know that I had God’s support without His criticism or punishment.
My two sisters and I started going to Sunday School pretty regularly for several months, but it was a long bus ride into Mexico City. Then my mom found out about a group of Christian Scientists holding church services in Toluca, and that was a little closer to where we lived. We’ve been attending the services there for almost two years now. And my mom has solved her problems with the help of Christian Science, and even helps other people by praying for them.
I’ve started to put into practice what I’m learning in Christian Science. Now I live without fear. When we moved to Toluca in August, I started going to a new school, and it was still dark in the mornings when I took the bus. It went along a lonely back road where there were nothing but milpas-cornfields. Sometimes I was the only person besides the driver during that part of the ride. At first I was scared. But in Sunday School I learned that God is always with me, so I’m never really alone. And I felt safe. Soon after that, I found a bus that takes a different route that’s not so solitary.
A couple of months ago at school, a teacher did something that angered my classmates. He behaved like a tyrant and didn’t teach us anything worthwhile. He had a textbook that he would ask us to make photocopies from, and then we were supposed to write summaries about what we read. One day, he told each of us to give a talk in front of the rest of the class, but he didn’t tell us what he expected from us. And when we each gave our talks, he started criticizing us in a really demeaning way.
I decided not to accept that this meanness was true about my teacher. I’d learned from Christian Science that all of us (and that meant my teacher) are the perfect and loved children of God, and that his nature was actually caring and helpful, not mean. So I decided not to react to his behavior. But my classmates started to get angry and talk back to him.
A couple of weeks passed, and one day during class the teacher called me over to talk to him. He asked me why I hadn’t gotten angry at him like the other students. I told him that it was simply because I knew that he was the child of God, and that I wasn’t afraid of him because God was with me. He told me that he appreciated how I’d handled myself in this situation. Then he said that if we didn’t want him to be our teacher, we should talk to him about it-but in a peaceful way. So I asked my friends, and they agreed. We all went to talk to him, and this time he paid attention to us. The school principal assigned him to teach another subject. However, right now it turns out that he’s substituting for our new teacher, and he’s doing a better job of explaining-and listening. I have a good relationship with the teacher to this day.