Traveling alone? or with God?
Originally appeared online in the teen series: Your Healings - July 2, 2019
What’s my flight number?
I was on my way home from a service trip to Ecuador, feeling inspired by all the amazing opportunities I’d had and all the growth I’d experienced. On the last day of the trip, our whole group got on a flight back to Florida, where we would then go our separate ways. Once we arrived in Florida, we got off the plane, said our goodbyes, and a small group of my friends and I headed to the terminal where we would get on our flights back home. I was checking in at a kiosk in the new terminal when it suddenly hit me: I couldn’t remember my flight number.
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I asked one of the nearby airline employees if she could help me out.
“No.”
A bit taken aback, I returned to the kiosk and tried again. I came to the same point in the series of prompts where I had to plug in my flight number. I was starting to panic a little. It was four in the morning where my parents were, and I didn’t think they would pick up the phone even if I called. The two adult chaperones who had been on the trip were somewhere else in the airport, and I knew they didn’t have my flight number anyway.
Suddenly, part of Hymn 350 from the Christian Science Hymnal came to mind: “All will be well” (Mary Peters). I started repeating this in my head like a prayer, knowing that nothing can be lost or forgotten in God’s kingdom, which is right here, because God is Mind and includes every good and useful idea. I’d learned this in the Christian Science Sunday School when I was little, and had seen the truth of it in many experiences in the past. I also prayed with the idea that harmony, which is actually a law of God governing all of us all the time, was at work at that very moment.
A tangible feeling of peace and love washed over me.
Immediately I felt calm, my thoughts stopped whirring with fear and panic, and the number 537 came to mind. A tangible feeling of peace and love washed over me, and I typed the number into the kiosk. In a couple of seconds my flight information came up, I confirmed my flight, and all was well! I felt so grateful to have experienced God’s love and care in such a tangible way.
Thanks to experiences like this one, I have grown so much closer to God, and I have started turning to God more quickly when I am struggling. I know that God really is here for me, no matter how big—or little—my need.