I recall that our first meeting began with him asking how familiar I was with the Bible. I told him I had studied the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lessons most of my adult life but hadn’t read the Bible from cover to cover. He said he would take my case if I agreed to do this, starting with Job through Revelation and then from Genesis to Job.

That may sound daunting, but it was less so than the hopelessness that confronted me. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy states that the Bible contains “the recipe for all healing” (p. 406). And so my work began.

Everything started to look brighter as week after week, month after month, I committed to reading the Bible. The book of Joel helped steer my thought out of self-pity with encouraging admonitions such as “Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for the Lord will do great things” (2:21). At the time, that assurance seemed dubious at best—but I was determined to keep reading.

Soon I found myself discovering and cherishing new friends such as Job, the Psalmists, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Paul, and of course Christ Jesus. It wasn’t long before I discovered that these biblical giants had to pray themselves out of far deeper troubles than mine. More important, I learned that they were spot on in their promises of God’s gracious goodness and love. What seemed an insurmountable debt to be overcome was paid off quickly with the help of a friend.

There were tough moments, though, as when my ex-wife’s new husband, whom I had never met, telephoned and said some painful things to me. But later on, I discovered these words from Nehemiah, and they became my rejoinder even as they defused my indignation and hurt: “There are no such things done as thou sayest, but thou feignest them out of thine own heart” (Nehemiah 6:8). Being separated from my sons by a continent, I fretted that the boys were not being well cared for. The practitioner assured me that God was taking the best care of the children.

As I continued to read the Bible and grow in my understanding of Christian Science, my ex-wife and her new husband decided to give me de facto custody of both children for half their elementary school years. They also gave me my elder son for all of his high school years. Half a century later, we three could not be closer. I still find myself rejoicing, for God “hath dealt wondrously” with me (Joel 2:26).

I increasingly enjoyed my spiritual growth, and in retrospect am totally gobsmacked by the countless prophetic biblical truths that I did not immediately appreciate. At the time that I embarked on my Bible read-through, it had seemed that I would never realize financial solvency or restore the relationship with my sons. But my friend, the Bible prophet Malachi, set me straight: “Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it” (Malachi 3:10).

Mrs. Eddy, who founded Christian Science, experienced far greater trials in her growth Spiritward than I did. One of her students recalls Mrs. Eddy giving members of her household this instruction emphasizing the import of the Bible: “My revelations for 40 years have come through the Scriptures; study them yourselves” (We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, Expanded Edition, Vol. II, p. 136).

We can all grow to see that the Bible is a book of God’s promises that meets our day-to-day needs, however insurmountable they may seem.