Why has God done this to me?

LIVING CHRISTIAN SCIENCE by Marcy Babbitt

Chapter One: 'Search and Discovery in Indonesia'

As an outspoken young Dutch-Indonesian woman who had studied dance in Europe and was now (1942) living under Japanese rule in her native Indonesian, Adele Blok was captured and imprisoned. Her 'first three days of imprisonment were spent in solitary confinement. There was nothing in the cell except a small board of wooden slats used in Indonesia for shower purposes. The window had been hammered shut, no light entered the cell, and [she] had no way of measuring time. Also during those three days [she] was not given any food' (p. 8).

'Why has God done this to me?' she cried.

This prompted much soul-searching and purification. What she discovered was a great deal of dissatisfaction and ingratitude in herself. 'Ungrateful for the sunshine, I could see now what it meant to me. The beauty of the universe, the heavens, the trees, the grass--I hadn't thought of them as I went complainingly through life. ....I had not been grateful for the food and would often throw it away; now I had none' (ibid).

The challenges continued. She was led to relocate to Jakarta (where her eventual mission in life was to be revealed to her) where a man persuaded her to take up mysticism and she was almost swallowed up by a malevolent power. She then was again sent to prison, and was severely tempted either to resign herself into believing that the effort to do good was useless or to simply 'escape from reality' and give up. What she did decide to do was 'never to admit that evil is stronger than good' (p. 11), at which she 'regained [her] poise' (ibid) and was transferred to a different prison and soon released.

After her release, she was offered a copy of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. Reading the chapter 'Science of Being' she now understood the 'distinction between Jesus and the Christ' and 'everything suddenly fell into place' (ibid). Convinced that she had found the truth, she and her assistants 'began to study this beautiful book every day' (p. 13).

With the end of World War II and the departure of the Japanese came the struggle for independence from the 300 year-long colonial rule of the Dutch. Most of the Dutch Christian Scientists left Indonesia and very 'gradually more Indonesians began to come to [the] church services (p. 14).

Ms Blok shares a beautiful example of Christian Science healing. An earnest young student was sick but did not want the operation his mother wished him to have. Adele asked him if he accepted 'the basic message of our religion that now you are the child of God' (p. 15). He wavered but in a simple exchange with Ms Blok 'the light...broke through, and the fear of his disease left him. ...Then he understood that sickness is a mistake of thought...' (ibid). He was soon well.

A very clear thinker, Adele Blok shares that 'No man on earth can give us anything we don't already have by divine right, and no man on earth can deprive us of anything that is ours by divine right.' (p. 17).

Ms Blok was a practitioner and teacher of Christian Science for many years.

Julie Swannell