Shooing error away

William Marshall Fabian

Early each fall, Heather and her family pick apples. They drive to the country, past fields of corn, to a large apple orchard where people can pick their own apples.

Everyone gets on green wagons that are pulled by a large green tractor to the trees with the ripe fruit. There are always so many apples on the trees that it's easy for a little girl like Heather to pick her own apples and put them in her sack.

One time Mommy and Daddy brought a picnic to the orchard. After the apples were picked, weighed, and paid for, the family ate lunch at a picnic table. Of course, they munched on fresh apples and sipped apple cider.

The cider was sweet and tasty, and a bee flew in to visit. Heather knew she should be still when a bee was near, but when the bee landed on her face she tried to shoo it away. Her hand touched him, and the bee stung her.

At first the sting hurt and Heather cried. Mommy carried her to sit on a bale of hay nearby. "Heather," she said, "God loves you, and so do I.^{Heather had learned about God's love in her Christian Science Sunday School . Her class had talked about many Bible stories. They had also learned to call anything that is evil or hurtful by the name of "error." It means a mistake, a nothing, a belief that isn't true. Anything that is not like God's goodness must be error.} Do you remember the story about Daniel in the lions' den?^{See Dan. 6:7–23 .} Daniel was quiet with the lions. He knew he was innocent and that God's angel was caring for him, so he must not have been afraid. Daniel probably didn't even shoo the lions away, because he knew they couldn't hurt him. But what we can shoo away is the error that makes us afraid."

Heather stopped crying. She sat quietly, wanting to feel God's love for her, the way Daniel had. She shooed error away from her thinking.

Then she said, "Mommy, I'm thankful for the good time we're having picking apples. Let's sing one of our prayers the way we do before we eat dinner."

Thank you, dear God for our happy day
And for the love that You send our way.

Now Heather felt sure of God's love. She hopped down from the bale of hay and led Mommy back to the picnic table to finish lunch. The bee sting mark disappeared before they ate their funnel cakes for dessert. And after lunch they rode on the wagon again and picked more apples.

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