ON the way home from Palestine, Texas, I let my sister Tara play with my tape player. I told her to be careful and not to break it. I'd had a tape player in the past, but this was the best one I had ever had. She played with it and fell asleep in the car.

After we got home, we decided to go have a picnic with some friends for Easter. We ate hamburgers and cake. While we were eating, Tara pulled out my tape player and started listening to music. I got mad and complained to my parents that Tara brought the tape player without my permission. Then I told Tara: "You'll break it. Give it to me." I still let her listen to the music, though.

Later, everyone decided to go feed the ducks at a pond nearby. Tara had the tape player in her hand and started walking over with us to the pond. Suddenly, the tape player slipped from Tara's hand and fell into the pond. I watched it sink to the bottom. I felt as if I were going to explode with anger, and I cried out a big grunt of anger. I ran to the picnic benches and told my mother what happened.

Then I thought about Christ Jesus and how he was so forgiving, and how anger or fear didn't get in the way of his loving others. I thought about how we were trying to be more like him every day in following his teachings. He listened to God and healed the sick.

I also thought about how material things are not what's really important. They can be lost. But Love, God, is always there. Loving thoughts are the important things, because that's how we heal and help each other every day. A tape player could not destroy the love and peace between my sister and me. My sister and I have everlasting love that can't be destroyed by a material item. We are God's children, His expression.

I went over to Tara and said: "Tara, it's no big deal. Don't feel bad, because it's not what's really important."

Tara told me that she was a bad person. I said: "Tara, you are not bad. Don't feel guilty. It does not matter. What matters is that you are OK and that our relationship isn't destroyed."

After that Tara and I had fun and didn't let anything else ruin our day.

Parent's note: When Ashley came storming back to us and announced that her sister had dropped her tape player into the pond, she was upset. Within a few minutes, however, we noticed her back at the pond with her arm around her sister, patting her and appearing to comfort her. She was perfectly free from that moment on. It wasn't until she wrote about the experience later that afternoon and asked me to read it, that I knew about the healing that had taken place in her thought.

Earlier that weekend she had lost a silver charm bracelet, and we thought it had been dropped when she had taken a walk in the woods. Monday when I called a relative to tell her to watch for the bracelet, she called back within a few minutes to say she had walked straight to the couch, looked under a cushion, and there was the bracelet.

I know Ashley's total freedom from any sense of loss having to do with the tape player paved the way for the recovery of the bracelet. I am so grateful that both children have learned to turn to God in time of trouble and pray with confidence to their Father-Mother God.

Vicki L. Wolfe