Never robbed of peace
It was a summery January afternoon in Australia when we invited friends over for lunch after church. As the heat rose, we opened the side door in the dining room to let in the breezes.
Later that evening, my husband left for a business trip, and as it was a school holiday week, our son went off to the Outback with a friend. Our daughter, Kenzie, and I were looking forward to some time together—just the girls.
She was sleeping, as was I, in my room when the doorbell began to ring incessantly at about one o’clock in the morning. I started to head down the stairs when I realized that the curtains had not been drawn and that whoever was at the door would be able to see that I was alone. I decided the wiser course was to go back to the bedroom and phone the police.
The bell stopped ringing. Just as I was spelling my name for the third time to the operator, I heard footsteps on the stairs. The operator told me to take my daughter and stand on the front veranda until the police arrived. We stood there singing hymns to quiet our fears. The police appeared right away and directed us to stay on the veranda. To say I was relieved when a policeman burst through the bedroom door is an understatement.
The police declared the house was clear. Indeed, the intruder or intruders had come in through the dining room door, still unlocked from our lunch, and slipped out through the back garden and over the fence to the park behind, when the police arrived. I thought the only things missing were some candlesticks. But after spending the next day taking Kenzie out to lunch and the ballet, followed by a little shopping, I realized at bedtime that the real robbery had been of our peace.
Sleep was hard to come by, so again we turned to loved hymns from the Christian Science Hymnal and to prayer until we could rest. In the next several days, I prayed to understand that peace was a God-given treasure, and could not be stolen. “Love gives nothing to take away” and “Nothing is lost that God gives” were both constant reminders from Mary Baker Eddy’s writings of the permanence of good that comes from God (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 193 ; Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 111 ).
I reasoned out from the spiritual fact that we, as spiritual ideas of Spirit, God, live in an atmosphere of uninterrupted harmony. This was an opportunity to understand that fact more completely. The Bible promises, “In him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28 ).
I prayed to understand that peace was a God-given treasure, and could not be stolen.
During this time, I realized that the only reason for our encounters with others, according to divine Love, is blessing—to bless and to be blessed. The intruders, I prayed, also had and included all good, as God’s children. They may have thought they had come to steal, but instead, I could give them what would deeply satisfy—prayerful assurance of their completeness as part of God’s creation. For days, I made sure that my only thoughts of them were the thoughts I would give to any guest in our home, thoughts of brotherly love and kindness, seeing their needs as fully met.
Meanwhile, Kenzie seemed to be shaken to the core by this unforeseen event. At the time, in Melbourne, a girl of her age had been kidnapped from her bed. The news of it took over the headlines for weeks, and it loomed in our daughter’s thinking as a terrifying possibility. For weeks we prayed and sang hymns. I reassured her at every opportunity of her safety in God’s kingdom. Still, whenever my husband and I had to leave, even though we always had a baby sitter come stay with her, Kenzie would phone us, and need help. She began to associate safety with our home back in the United States, and longed to go back there.
After some months had gone by, I realized that I had to trust her own relation with God more. Kenzie’s peace did not come through me, or through our chats. I could support her, but I needed to release her to her Father-Mother, where her security was deeply and permanently established. I knew that discovering this peace would propel her spiritually, and would be found as part of her spiritual might.
She clearly felt this shift, and spent more quiet time in her room in prayer. I would often go to her room for a final tuck-in and find her curled up with her Bible or Science and Health, open to a page that she’d found helpful before falling asleep. She was earnestly seeking, and finding. I was no longer concerned, but watched this spiritual adventure she was on with expectation and confidence in the good that was taking place.
One afternoon, as I was going upstairs, she came rushing up and said, “Mummy, listen to this!” As we were crouched on the stairs, she began to read from the Bible: “When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet” (Proverbs 3:24 ). Then she said, “I’m not afraid anymore” (see Kenzie Odegaard, “Always at home,” Christian Science Sentinel, August 17, 1998, p. 21). And she wasn’t. She was freed from the fear from that moment on. The verse was a command, a directive, and a promise. It came to her straight from God through her own expectation and heartfelt prayer. Her joy at being led to this passage confirmed that God was with her.
Through this experience, we both learned these valuable lessons, treasures that have continued to bless us:
—Everything we have is good, and comes from God.
—Nothing from God can ever be taken from us.
—Our peace is permanent, uninterrupted, secure.
—God is our home and our safety.
Trusting God completely, we discover and possess these truths that bless us, and others.