During the winter of my first year in college, I had a demonstration of God’s power that strengthened my conviction that He is the source of all good. What He gives, none can take away.

I had received a laptop computer from my parents as a high school graduation present before going off to college, and it had been a really good and useful tool. However, in the middle of the winter trimester, my computer began to have a problem that prevented it from connecting to the Internet. I took it to the university’s technology Help Desk and left it to be fixed over a long weekend break. That weekend, I went on a retreat with a student group. On Monday, I expected a call to let me know that my computer was ready to be picked up.

Just before 5:00 on Monday evening, I did receive a call, but to my surprise it was from the head of Campus Security, who said he needed to talk to me. When I arrived at his office, he and an officer from the local police department informed me that my computer had been stolen when someone had broken into the Help Desk office on Saturday night. The officer told me that I had been the victim of a crime and there was little hope of getting my computer back after more than a day. The head of Security told me the University would do everything it could to find my computer, but asked me to get some information for replacement by the insurance company.

I was shocked to hear this. However, even before leaving the office, I began to pray silently, knowing that God was the source of all good for me and all of His ideas, and that the good that God bestowed could not be taken away. As a student in a Christian Science Sunday School, I had been learning these spiritual truths about God throughout my life. Back in my dorm room, I called my parents to let them know what had happened and asked for help in finding the insurance information. They were able to provide me with many good ideas of how to pray, especially relating to God as the source of an infinite supply of good for His children. They were not able to find the information, but planned to keep looking. They also called my grandmother, a Christian Science practitioner, for more prayerful support.

The next morning, I read the Christian Science Bible Lesson, which is a selection of citations from the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, as I normally do. The Lesson also had a number of helpful ideas, relating to God supplying all good. I kept these in mind as I went about my normal activities. I also sang hymns from the Christian Science Hymnal to myself, such as No. 263 which says, “Only God can bring us gladness.” That evening, I again talked to my family, who had found the information that was needed to replace my computer and e-mailed it to me. We shared some of the inspirations that had come to us through prayer. Before hanging up, my brother, Kieran, told me that now that I had the information, my computer would be returned to me! This was a message of hope that God delivered to me through Kieran, because as it turned out, that’s exactly what happened.

After talking to my family, I went for a walk around campus. During this half hour, I wrestled with the mental image I’d formed of the perpetrator. I was feeling angry toward this person, angry that they would seek to deprive me of something I needed. But this was the wrong way to view the situation, and I remembered this passage from Science and Health, where Mrs. Eddy writes: “Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God’s own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick” (pp. 476–477).

As I saw what Jesus saw, the perfect man of God’s creation instead of the imperfect, sinful man, the true picture could come to light. And this applied not only in situations of disease but also to theft and with any claim waged against the perfection of God’s children. I began to pray more diligently to shift my thinking from picturing a thief, to seeing a perfect child of God, incapable of committing a crime and not lacking in anything which would give them a reason to want to steal from another.

At the same time, I also realized that I had a false picture of myself. I had accepted, as part of my identity, what the police officer had said—that I was a victim. In Sunday School we had recently been discussing how there could be no victims in God’s kingdom. God is Love and Love is all. If there is nothing real that can victimize man, then he cannot be a victim. A big concept, but I saw how it applied to my need here.

Wednesday morning, I went to the computer lab to print out the insurance information and take it over to the Help Desk. While there, I noticed an e-mail from my grandmother that shared some of the ideas she had been praying with and expressed confidence in a positive resolution. After reading her e-mail, I started to close the tabs I had open in preparation to log off.

Before closing my university e-mail account, I clicked “check messages,” and a new message appeared. It was from the secretary of one of the academic buildings, writing to tell me that my computer had been found and that I could come and pick it up!

Immediately, I thanked God for what I am certain was a demonstration of divine power. I ran over and picked up my computer, which had been found in a lounge. The secretary was not even aware that it had been stolen, but she figured out that it was mine because of a name tag that I had put on the power cord a week before the problem began. There had also been a tag on the computer itself, but I had taken it off after a Trivia marathon I’d participated in. I recognized that it was due to inspiration from God that I had not removed the other tag.

Then I went back to the Help Desk. When they said they were not sure if they could fix my computer, I told them not to worry, they would be able to. I knew that divine Love does not provide incomplete healings; I could not get my computer back only to learn that it still could not do what I needed it to. The next day, I received the phone call I had been expecting on Monday, that my computer was working again and ready for me to pick up.

This was such an amazing proof of God’s infinite supply of good that cannot be taken away, even when the material picture offers little hope for a positive resolution. I am also grateful for a deeper understanding of how to change my thinking about myself and others, and how this contributes to healing. Finally, I am grateful to be typing this article on the computer that nearly two years ago was stolen and some feared was gone forever.