I work in a store in an area that has a high level of crime; this problem demands the attention of everyone operating businesses there. Sometimes it seems as though crime is irreversible—that without the help of physical force, we are powerless against it. But I have found otherwise.

One day last spring the store manager received a call requiring her to leave the shop to care for her child. I suggested we remain open and volunteered to work alone.

As she left, I assured her that I would be all right. We hadn't noticed that a young man had come into the store, who was evidently listening to us. He then began a conversation with me, trying to find out about the store's activity that day—how much money we had made, and so forth. I didn't answer his questions directly, but I did begin to pray.

Mary Baker Eddy declares in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "In Science man is the offspring of Spirit. The beautiful, good, and pure constitute his ancestry. His origin is not, like that of mortals, in brute instinct, nor does he pass through material conditions prior to reaching intelligence" (p. 63). I silently declared that God's offspring was the only man there was, and the only one I could see. The young man began digging through a box of miscellaneous tools and household gadgets, and then started striking the palm of his hand with a bicycle pump from the box. Then he got an extension cord and snapped it several times while talking to me about his experience in the military. I was very that other customers were leaving the store.

Silently, I began declaring "the scientific statement of being" from Science and Health to help me know that this man and I were both pure, undefiled children of God, and that because man is the reflection of God, he cannot harm any other child. In reality we can only reflect and express God's love and goodness to each other. "The children of God have but one Mind. How can good lapse into evil, when God, the Mind of man, never sins?" (Science and Health, p. 470)

I had at first considered searching for some object to defend myself with; this, however, just didn't seem to be consistent with the truths I was declaring. As I was talking with the last customer in the shop, the beautiful promise given by St. Paul in Second Corinthians flooded my thinking: "(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" (10:4, 5).

I looked up at the clock and saw it was 12:30 p.m.—the time when parking enforcement begins and vehicles parked in the street in front of the stores are ticketed. Although I did not know if or where this young man was parked, I felt impelled to say aloud, "It is now 12:30, and if you don't want a thirty-five-dollar fine, you'd better move your car from the front of the store!" The man looked angry for a second, but he put down the items he was holding and hurriedly left the store. The one customer who had remained in the store then said she hadn't wanted to leave me alone with that man, and that was why she had stayed. As she left, I locked the door, went into the back, and turned off the lights. Later I learned this man had been "working the street" with another man, who had robbed a nearby store of a large amount of gold jewelry.

I felt God's protecting power, and I was so grateful for the discipline of Christian Science, in which practical awareness and alertness are part of prayer. The Bible promises us "deliverance from evil" through God. I was also reminded of the statement from the Bible telling that "David prevailed over the Philistine... but there was no sword in the hand of David" (I Sam. 17:50).

Name withheld