Four days before Christmas,...

Elizabeth F. Lackey

Four days before Christmas, 1943, I was called early in the morning on the long-distance telephone by the War Department at Washington and informed that our youngest son. the pilot of a B-24 Liberator bomber, had been missing in action in the Asiatic area for several days, and that nothing was known of the crew, the plane, or their location.

For four days and nights I prayed, knowing the truth about the safety and security of God's children. In Christian Science I had learned that man is forever inseparable from God, his true Father-Mother, who is infinite divine Love. I realized that the pilot and his crew were in reality God's children, and that as such they lived, moved, and had their being in the divine Mind, which knows all things, and guards and guides its own. My sense of God's protecting care was strengthened by clinging to promises in the Bible, and statements of truth in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, and in well-loved hymns from the Hymnal. These were all veritable angels, messengers from God.

From the Bible came the verse (Job 28:7), "There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's eye hath not seen," which assured me that the enemy could not find these lads because God was guiding them in that path of safety, whether they were on the land, in the air, or even in the sea; that in reality they were "hid with Christ in God." The ninety-first Psalm, telling of God's protecting care, pointed out that God would never leave them nor forsake them. The hymns beginning. "Trust the Eternal" (No. 359), "He that hath God his guardian made" (No. 99), "In heavenly Love abiding" (No. 148). and others brought me comfort and courage through the nights. The expression of joy instead of doubt while I was carrying on with my usual daily duties gave me further needed assurance.

On Christmas Eve a cable message came through from China from the pilot himself, notifying us that all were safe and being cared for. Many months later it was revealed that the whole crew had parachuted thirteen thousand feet while their plane was in flames, and that they had landed thirty-eight miles inside the Japanese lines. No man knew where his crew mates were, but four and a half days after they had parachuted. with the aid of Chinese guerrillas they were all brought together, the last man being found twenty-five miles from where the pilot had landed.

These Flying Tigers of General Chennault's Fourteenth Air Force, who had flown together to the China-Burma-India theater, had three other planes demolished but came back safely to the States the following year.

Experiences like this cause Christian Scientists to give glory to God daily "for his wonderful works to the children of men." For over twenty-five years I have depended on God's power, as taught us in the Bible and in the Christian Science textbook, to solve all problems, both physical and mental.—(Mrs.) Elizabeth F. Lackey. Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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