But as I set my books up at the dining room table to read and practice, I froze; I had been challenged from childhood with symptoms of dyslexia. I had kept this a secret all these years.

I’d had a successful business career and had given speeches and talks, which I had been able to take extra time to prepare for. But this new opportunity serving as First Reader would be twice a week, and each service would be a new one. I knew that what appeared to be dyslexia could not really be true about me as a child of God, and over the years I had often worked to see that it was not true about any of God’s children. No false labels could be attached to anyone. I knew I was made in God’s image, as the first chapter of Genesis tells us about man (verse 27), and I knew that I was therefore “pure and upright, whole and free” (Violet Hay, Christian Science Hymnal, No. 12).

I practiced with the thought that my reading aloud in church would not be a “performance” to please an audience, because it was not so much an audience, but a congregation coming to a healing service that I would be reading to. And I was coming to be blessed by the
service too.

The first Wednesday evening service was a bit tricky, but the following Sunday service was perfect, and for the remainder of my three-year term, I had no difficulties reading. With humility I must add that I was told I read very beautifully—some even said my reading was the best they had ever heard. I knew this wasn’t “me” they were hearing but the inspiration of divine Love, God. With every compliment I received, I quietly thought, “If you only knew the lovely healing going on!”

The insights I gained from this experience also enabled me to help my young son with a similar problem (see below). When he first began reading a few years ago, I saw he was struggling, but I thought it was just the ordinary challenges that come with learning something new. Last year, though, he described having some of the same challenges that I had previously experienced with reading, and I knew the situation needed to be healed. We talked together about what was really true about him, and we prayed, and he was healed within the month.

Just as it says in Hymn No. 175, “Truth divine, that overcometh / All the ills that seem to be” (Violet Hay, Hymnal), I’ve learned it is perfectly true that God meets our every need.

Heather Bauer
Suwanee, Georgia, US

When I first started learning to read, it was really hard for me. I reversed my letters and couldn’t spell. I finally told my mom after two years. She said, “Where the world would say everything is turned upside down and confusing, we can see that is not true, about you or anyone.” She also told me, “You are a perfect child of God, right now, upright and free.”

We were studying freedom in my history class. My mom kept telling me that it is one of the most important things to know about yourself, that you are free. Jesus said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). I had memorized that sentence a long time ago, but now I finally understood what it meant. I knew I was free.

In a few weeks I was reading and spelling without any problems at all. I like how God is always telling me how to do everything.

Robert Allen Bauer
Fourth grade