One Starry Night

As I knelt down by the sliding glass door to pray I heard a voice over my shoulder, say, “Aw, Mom, this is never going to work.”

I testify that the prayer that I affirmed did work and I would like to share it with you.

It was a cold, clear, starry winter evening after supper in 1986 that my oldest son and I embarked outside to “sight” in his new telescope, hoping to catch a glimpse of Halley’s comet.

Dad was off on a service call, and our youngest 18-month-old son was left inside the house.

As we were setting up the telescope the thought came to me, “What about the back door?” I looked up in time to see my young son with his back and padded bottom sit down by the sliding glass door.

I gasped knowing he was very close to the door’s foot lock.

I ran to the door; sure enough, he had sat on the latch and we were locked out.

For the next 15-20 minutes my oldest son and I coaxed the baby to lift the latch on the foot lock. We knelt down by the door motioning and saying, “Lift the lock, lift the lock….” We also, periodically, ran several times to the front door with the baby following us, to have him unlock the deadbolt, but to no avail, as it was really out of his reach.

Realizing the futility that the front door’s deadbolt was too high up to reach, we settled in at the back door with the foot lock.

In Christian Science we have learned that God is no respecter of persons and he is the divine Mind of all. We all exist in God, Spirit, moving and having our being.

Adam Dickey writes in “God’s Law of Adjustment,” that “All we have to do is scientifically to bring this law of adjustment into contact with our unfinished problem, and when we have done this we have performed our full duty.”—that “In reality, the problem is not physical, but purely mental, and is the direct result of some thought cherished in mortal mind…. that “there is a law of God which, when rightly appealed to, would bring about his rescue.”

For me, this means that when we recognize what is absolutely true whatever seems to be hindering will yield to God’s law.

Our experience was proclaiming that we were locked out—separated from each other.

My prayer that night though, didn’t run this gamut of intellectual reasoning, as it was purely inspirational to kneel down and close my eyes to the situation and pray. I declared in my silent prayer, “There is just one Mind.”

As I opened my eyes, the baby reached down and, with his finger, disengaged the lock by lifting its latch. We were in the house in lightning speed just from the simple acknowledgement in prayer that there was just one Mind.

Though my oldest son and I did not see Halley’s comet that night we did catch a glimpse of a good and gracious God, the divine Mind of all.

DLH, March 27, 2012