Can accidents be prevented? Can the effects of accidents be turned around? I've thought about this many times when coming upon the scene of an accident, especially when there were serious injuries or loss of life. Surely such tragedies don't need to happen!

As a child I learned that God is Love; yet I was also taught that there is evil, too, and that you have to take the bad along with the good. Many times I heard, "That's just the way life is." Somehow I just couldn't reconcile the two opposite points of view. I just couldn't believe that a good God would allow bad things to happen to His children.

It wasn't until I became a student of Christian Science, the Science of the healing and saving Christ, that I learned that God is also Life. I reasoned that since God is totally good, Life also had to be totally good, despite what the material senses were saying. What a spiritual awakening it was for me to learn that many people have proved through prayer on a scientific basis that right here, right now, we can bring our lives into conscious unity with divine Life. By claiming our oneness with the source of all good, where evil (accidents included) is unknown, we prove harmonious being in our daily affairs.

Praying to God is more than asking God for something, such as "Please keep me safe." Petition has its place in prayer, but the highest prayer is really communion with God. It is having absolute faith in good, in divine Life, and holding fast to the truth that God is All-in-all, all Life, regardless of what might appear to the contrary. As Christ Jesus proved, such communion with God is answered in the way it is needed and in the way we can best understand.

As we work with the spiritual facts of being, we begin to glimpse something of God's spiritual creation, in which everything is in perfect and divine order. This realization empowers the regeneration so necessary for spiritual growth, leading us out of the darkness of fear into the light of a better understanding of God and of man's relationship to Him. Spiritually considered, safety is the consequence of man's coexistence with God. Prayer based on this understanding inspires confidence and power to pray as the Master did—heartfelt prayers that affirm Truth with total conviction of the Father's ever-present care. As explained by Mrs. Eddy, who discovered the Science of prayer we've been discussing: "Prayer is the utilization of the love wherewith He loves us. Prayer begets an awakened desire to be and do good. It makes new and scientific discoveries of God, of His goodness and power. It shows us more clearly than we saw before, what we already have and are; and most of all, it shows us what God is." ^{No and yes, p. 39.}

Sometimes there isn't time to go off alone to pray when danger seems imminent. If we have prayed daily and are striving to live in accordance with our prayers, those prayers go right on working for us, gathering strength, reinforced by fresh inspiration each time we pray. They are always ready to sustain and protect us, no matter how hard the shifting winds of adversity may blow, or how little time there may seem to be to make right decisions.

While driving on the highway, I once found myself in a situation where it seemed an accident was unavoidable. And yet, in what would have seemed a miraculous way, the accident was avoided. It was as if an unseen protective hand steered me out of harm's way. How grateful I was for the prayers with which I'd started my day and for the gathering of angel thoughts that remained with me all through the day, faithfully guiding and protecting.

It is possible to gain a practical conviction through the study of Christian Science that because man is God's expression, his safety is assured. It is scientific, perpetual, fundamental, and changeless. It is not dependent upon material conditions or circumstances. It is essentially mental and spiritual, a quality of God's being. It is found in man's unity with God, the source of all good. It is not something to be threatened or destroyed by constantly changing mortal beliefs.

Man is not a mortal struggling with the ups and downs of life. He is God's expression. He is idea, the infinite reflection of Mind. Therefore Mind determines man's action, condition, intelligence, and continuity. Mind governs through divine law, which allows no margin for error or mistakes. Man's safety is assured forever as he moves, unfolds, and progresses in Mind. As explained in Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy: "Accidents are unknown to God, or immortal Mind, and we must leave the mortal basis of belief and unite with the one Mind, in order to change the notion of chance to the proper sense of God's unerring direction and thus bring out harmony.

"Under divine Providence there can be no accidents, since there is no room for imperfection in perfection." ^{Science and Health, p. 424.}

The faster we give up the false, mortal concept of ourselves and others, and the more we learn about God and His man, the more we learn about our real identity and how it is controlled and protected. Our spiritual identity is the only one we really have. We must hold to it, even though the material senses still testify that we live in the flesh. Although it may be hard at times to hold on to the spiritual facts of being, especially when we are faced with disastrous physical evidence that someone has been the victim of an accident, this prayerful effort does heal and remove the effects of accident.

Two students of Christian Science, a husband and wife, were able to prove this to be true when they sustained very serious injuries in an automobile accident. It was feared that they would not live. A Christian Science practitioner was called and told of their grave condition. Turning to the Bible, she read, "The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up." ^{James 5:15.} This Biblical promise renewed her faith that she could turn to God in any emergency and be assured that He would answer the call for help.

Supported by the practitioner's daily prayers, the wife made steady improvement until within a short time she was able to be moved to a Christian Science sanatorium, where nursing care continued. The husband soon followed. Shortly afterward they both returned home healed. Even though they had walked "through the valley of the shadow of death," God's love was there before them to comfort, sustain, and heal. They saw more clearly than ever before that all there is to death is material-mindedness, that God alone is Life. Death is overcome as the belief of life, substance, and intelligence in matter is rejected for the understanding that God, Spirit, is the only life of man.

What was it that brought these people through to safety? It was the living Christ, the liberating idea of Life that had grown and expanded in their consciousness over many years of study, prayer, and Christian Science practice until it had become the impelling motive of their entire lives. So convinced were they of God's infinite love and unfailing care that there was an immediate response to scientific healing prayer. There was no resistance to Life to cause them to succumb to death, which had seemed so imminent. Even when the material senses reported that they were unconscious and unable to help themselves, the Christ-idea was alive, awake, and active, fulfilling its mission as Saviour.

If you are believing that accidents are to be accepted as a part of life, or seeking healing from the effects of an accident in the past, you can start right now to gain your freedom. Even a mustard seed of faith that God is in control at all times can begin to dissolve the stranglehold of fear that would prevent one from seeking safety outside of material selfhood and matter. You may hear varying opinions on the subject, but it is well to remind oneself that in the long run it isn't what other people think that is important. It is what you think that counts.

As we individually pray to see more evidence of God's direction in our lives, accidents will lessen, and we will find that all right activity is to be enjoyed without fear. Right thinking and acting not only assures our own safety but blesses all who come within the radius of our thinking.

The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by him; and the Lord shall cover him all the day long, and he shall dwell between his shoulders.

Deuteronomy 33:12