God’s guidance during my travels
Originally appeared online in the teen series Your Healings - July 30, 2024.
I was spending the semester in London with a program for high schoolers. After a busy week, I decided to visit my aunt and uncle for the weekend. They lived two hours away by train. I’d been feeling stressed and wanted some familiarity.
When I arrived at the train station, already running late from my long walk, the ticket machine, instead of printing out the single train ticket that I was expecting, printed out four. I asked a station attendant why that was, and he told me that two of them were for the outbound journey and two for the return—and that I needed to get on a train on the other side of the city that was leaving in half an hour!
Worry and a sense of urgency building inside me, I rushed to the London Underground to try to get across the city. I’d never been away from home for so long before, and all I wanted was to see my family. Tears welled in my eyes as I noticed a giant crowd around the entrance to the Underground. I figured I wouldn’t make the train, which only made me want the comfort of my family more. I was also worried because my phone battery was low.
I needed to get on a train on the other side of the city that was leaving in half an hour!
But I wasn’t helpless. I’ve known since I was a little kid that I can always turn to God for help. So I started singing to myself a hymn that I know from Christian Science Sunday School. It’s called “Mother’s Evening Prayer” and is so comforting because of my memories of singing it with my grandmother. The first verse says,
O gentle presence, peace and joy and power
O Life divine, that owns each waiting hour
Thou Love that guards the nestling’s faltering
flight!
Keep Thou my child on upward wing tonight.
(Mary Baker Eddy, Poems, p. 4)
Love and Life are synonyms for God, so this reminded me that God is the only power and that Love was in control. I realized that I could accept that God was governing everything and that all I had to do was listen for His guidance. No matter what happened, I knew I was loved and protected.
I kept singing this hymn to myself like it was a prayer, and when I sang the verse that ends with “ ‘Lo, I am with you alway,’—watch and pray,” I suddenly became aware of a voice behind me. A woman was speaking to an attendant, asking him how to get to Paddington Station—the exact station I needed to go to. This felt like an angel message from God. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, angels are defined, in part, as “God’s thoughts passing to man; spiritual intuitions, pure and perfect” (Mary Baker Eddy, p. 581). I felt Love’s control and direction.
I told the woman that I was going to Paddington Station, too, and that I didn’t know exactly how to get there. She said we would figure it out together! I walked practically arm in arm with the woman as we looked for—and found—our train. She made me feel so comforted, and I lost all worry. I made it to my aunt and uncle’s house and enjoyed my time with them.
I am forever grateful for the way that God guides us, no matter where we are in the world!
