No lapse in memory
A few years ago, while I was driving home from a shopping trip, I suddenly felt very strange. I realized I was lost. I didn’t know who I was, where I was, or where I was going. I was neither thinking nor seeing clearly. Not knowing what else to do, I began driving in and out of driveways, but none looked like mine.
I finally decided to leave the area and go the opposite way to see if I recognized anything familiar. I read the name of a building that I thought I recognized and decided I must be approaching from a different direction. (Later, I realized the building was only about three minutes from my home and that I passed it on a regular basis.)
I decided to pull my car to the side of the street and turn off the engine. I declared aloud: “I know that God is ever present. I know that God is Mind. I know divine Mind is absolutely in control.”
Soon, I heard a tapping on my window—an answer to my prayer! A friendly looking man, driving a pickup truck in the opposite direction, had stopped across from me to see if I needed some help. He asked if I was having car trouble. I told him I didn’t think so, but could he tell me where Spring Hill Road was? (I was pretty certain I lived on that street.) He asked me to turn around and follow him. When he turned right, I should turn left. I thanked him sincerely and did so.
After I drove a short distance a few homes looked familiar. I decided if I saw a driveway that looked familiar, I would try to open the garage door with the remote control in my car. I found a drive that looked like mine, tried the remote, and sure enough the door opened. I was flooded with gratitude, and even more so when I entered the house and my little dog covered me with kisses. Holding him in my arms, and thanking God aloud, I went straight to the phone.
I called a Christian Science practitioner and tearfully asked for help. I related the entire experience to her and told her how shocking and deeply disturbing it had been. I was worried that my neighbors might have seen my driveway antics. What if they told my son, and he restricted my driving? This really concerned me as the car is my only means of transportation in the town where I live. I asked the practitioner to help me see the completeness of the demonstration—to see that God, divine Mind, was always caring for me and that I couldn’t fall out of His care or suffer any lapse in memory.
Needless to say, she lovingly helped me to do just that. None of “the little foxes, that spoil the vines” (Song of Solomon 2:15 ), the limiting thoughts that would suggest my separation from God, showed themselves. With the help of the practitioner, I realized how, step by step, divine Mind had directed me. She asked me to read the weekly Bible Lesson again and find everything in it that applied to my experience. One helpful citation from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy stood out to me: “The relations of God and man, divine Principle and idea, are indestructible in Science; and Science knows no lapse from nor return to harmony, but holds the divine order or spiritual law, in which God and all that He creates are perfect and eternal, to have remained unchanged in its eternal history” (pp. 470–471 ). This was just what I needed.
The experience has never recurred in the several years since, and my healing was so complete I never wondered if the challenge I’d faced might have a name. God’s angel messages never fail.
Jeanette Harvuot
Warsaw, Indiana, US
