During the time that the Vietnam War was beginning to get noisy, Uncle Sam came along and tapped me on the shoulder. And I went to Denver for a physical. And during the day the doctors asked me to step out of line and go have a second X-ray.

At the end of the day, they said there was something wrong. And that was all they said to me. I was to call back the next day. And at that point they said, “This is a very serious situation; you should get yourself to a chest specialist immediately.” I just thought it was one of those things where it was a cold that just wouldn’t quit. I was probably 50 pounds underweight, very thin. But actually, I had tuberculosis. And I did go to several doctors, and eventually ended up with a doctor that I was later to discover was probably the world authority on diseases of the lungs.

Well, the doctors started a battery of tests. And after a couple of weeks I went to this specialist who was sort of overseeing this whole thing. He broke down while telling me that I probably was not going to live much more than six months. That if I got myself into a sanitarium where I could have immediate care and bed rest, I probably would still not live much more than two years.

I was just out of college, in the first year of my business career. This is the last thing on earth you want to hear about then. As I left his office, I was standing on the front porch of the building. I had just seen this man with tears in his eyes. And I kept thinking, “What am I going to do?” And standing there, I remembered that I had a copy of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. I knew little about it. My mother’s best friend was a Christian Scientist. And there was also a woman who worked in our home who was a Christian Scientist. I really knew only that this religion brought healing. And I felt this was my solution. I dug the book Science and Health out of the box of books that I had, and started to read it.

Now, my parents didn’t care for this at all. I overheard my mother telling our housekeeper not to talk to me about Christian Science. She said, “You’ll only get Riley’s hopes up, and you’ll confuse him.” I was reading it, but I couldn’t do it in front of them. So, I would read at night, and then I would hide the book under the mattress.

Now, Josephine would change the sheets, so she knew the book was there. She must have figured out what was going on. But she never once mentioned anything to me. And one day my mother’s friend had come to visit me, and Mother had to leave the room to answer the phone. And when she left I said, “Mary Francis, tell me, how do you pray?”

Mary Francis said, “Well, the first thing is you think from the standpoint of your spiritual perfection. You pray from that standpoint. You are the perfect child of God.”

Mother walked back in room, and that’s all I had. I had been reading the textbook, but I have to tell you at this point I was frantic. And I kept thinking that just the mechanics of reading the book was all that was really going on. And, I realized this wasn’t doing it. I was going to have to understand.

Eventually, I hit page 259. It was one of those situations where mentally everything clicks with you. I read: “In divine Science, man is the true image of God. The divine nature was best expressed in Christ Jesus, who threw upon mortals the truer reflection of God and lifted their lives higher than their poor thought-models would allow,—thoughts which presented man as fallen, sick, sinning, and dying.” Now that I could identify with. I read that and thought, “There I am.” Very definitely feeling fallen. Very definitely sick. I’d had enough of the sinning. And facing dying. But the book went on to say, “The Christlike understanding of scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea,—perfect God and perfect man,—as the basis of thought and demonstration.”

Now, as I said earlier, I could identify with the fallen, sick, sinning, and dying. And I’d had enough of all of that. At this point, in my own thought I had to say to myself: “Can you really think from that standpoint?”

Well, at first it seemed rather arrogant of me to say that, because the sick and the sinning were so evident to me as a part of me. I really began, at that point, to see much more clearly that we are the sons and daughters of God. We are the spiritual ideas of His creating. And that creation is perfect and remains perfect throughout the ages.

Well, at the time, I did not understand what was happening. There was definitely a change in my thought. There was more of an energy. There was more light. That’s the best way I can explain it. The dimness or the darkness of the future began to go away. I found myself really getting antsy about being in bed all the time. I wanted to be up.

A few days later the family doctor, who lived next door to us and had been watching this whole situation, began to say that they were concerned that they were seeing some things happen in some of the X-rays. And they were again still continuing to administer tests. And he said, “We don’t quite understand what’s going on here, but we want to watch this very closely.” He said, “We probably could give some medicine at this point, and some antibiotics.” But, they weren’t really sure. And so, at this point, the decision was made not to give me any medicine at all, but just to watch what was happening.

I think it was probably about two weeks after that, they sent me to a third doctor who again gave me tests and a physical. And when he finished up he said: “I don’t quite understand what’s going on here. A hundred, I think it was 120 days or so ago when they really started all of the X-rays. You were at death’s door. I know because of this chink in your collarbone that these X-rays are all yours, but that today you’re the most healthy specimen I’ve seen in here in a long time.”

I have to tell you I wasn’t surprised. I mean, I was definitely relieved to hear it.

I said, “Really?”

And he said, “Yeah. But, I don’t understand this. This is miraculous. Because, one other thing that has happened is there’s no scar tissue. That makes me stop and think maybe this wasn’t tuberculosis. But, I would have diagnosed it as tuberculosis. I still would.” So I was healed.

Well, we were all elated. It was evident to my parents that there was definitely improvement going on. I think probably in many cases they felt, well, this would have happened this way anyway. But there was a tremendous amount of opposition to Christian Science. And I’m saying that because if you think you have got to have things just so to bring healing, forget it. It doesn’t make any difference who you are, or what the situation is. That book, the Christian Science textbook, brings to thought the light of the Christ. It may not come overnight, and you may find yourself at times dealing with fearful odds against you, but I’d say pursue. I did.