For over a year, I had enjoyed the peace and solitude of my little isolated cabin-home. Then, in the middle of the night, I was wakened by the dogs' barking and saw a prowler in the driveway about fifteen feet from my bedroom window. Overcome with panic, I crouched on the floor in the dark and dialed 911 as the prowler knocked on the front door. It turned out the "prowler" was a disoriented, frightened, and disorderly woman whom the police took into custody.

I knew that an agitated, fearful—and fearsome—individual was not a true description of any child of God, for the Bible tells us man is the image of God, pure and perfect. Nevertheless, I still felt some fear that this woman might return, or that someone else might threaten me; and I continued to feel nervous and uncomfortable at night and also on walks with my dogs. I felt trapped and unprotected. I had to reclaim the safety and dominion I had known prior to this incident.

One evening about two weeks later, I was walking the dogs and found myself asking, "Just what are you afraid of?" I quickly heard the answer: "I'm afraid of losing ..." I stopped immediately. This was quite a surprise for someone with few possessions, yet the thought was so clear I could not question it.

The Bible story of Job came to mind. He had great possessions and a large family. He performed daily rituals to protect his ten children. When he lost everything and became seriously ill, he said, "The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me" (Job 3:25). Later, when Job acknowledged God as the only power and creator, and when he loved others as himself (the two great commandments Christ Jesus called us to obey), he was freed of disease and was blessed with even more than before.

Possession clearly implies an "I" separate from God. It suggests that I am afraid of losing my job, my spouse, my home, my life, or of getting his disease, being involved in her problem, being the victim of their anger. In reality, we have nothing except that which is given to us by God. In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy, part of a description of man states, "He is the compound idea of God, including all right ideas; ... that which has no separate mind from God; that which has not a single quality underived from Deity; that which possesses no life, intelligence, nor creative power of his own, but reflects spiritually all that belongs to his Maker" (p. 475).

The child of God cannot be separated from the substance of good, from God's infinite goodness and love. Spiritual substance cannot be limited to material forms or be lost in mortality. By reflection, we have all the goodness of God eternally. There is unlimited supply for all, just as the rays of the sun, the rain, and the air are given to all impartially. Man is not truly a vulnerable, material entity apart from God. No one could take from us what is ours as a child of God.

Mind never fears the loss of its ideas, for it is the creator and substance of them and therefore could never be separate from them. As the reflection of this Mind, how could man experience loss or invasion, or even claim personal possessions? He can only have the unlimited goodness of God.

These spiritual truths brought me an immediate sense of freedom—freedom from fear of loss and also freedom to claim access, with all others, to God. With a renewed sense of safety and dominion, securely based on a deeper understanding of divine substance, I found that all fear left. I enjoyed my walks and slept through the night in perfect peace. Little had I considered myself possessive! But how grateful I was to learn this lesson and to gain a truer sense of safety and possession.

We can all go forward, in the words of Paul, "as having nothing, and yet possessing all things" (II Cor. 6:10). Truly, we do have dominion over fear of loss as we recognize the security of our relation to God.

DEUTERONOMY

The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand.

Deuteronomy 28:12