We were in the middle of a five-mile bridge over Lake Ponchartrain in Louisiana on a Friday afternoon. In heavy traffic, a large piece of tin suddenly appeared, blown in the air by a vehicle in front of us. The tin flew into the front of the car and slashed one of the tires. From sixty-five miles an hour, we were immediately reduced almost to a standstill. As traffic swirled around us, we moved into the emergency lane on the bridge. With enormous trucks roaring past at seventy miles an hour on one side and the choppy waters of the lake on the other, the temptation to feel insecure was frighteningly strong. During these tense moments, I began to pray.

Immediately this thought came: "Into His [God's] haven of Soul there enters no element of earth to cast out angels, to silence the right intuition which guides you safely home" (Mary Baker Eddy, Miscellaneous Writings, p. 152). "His haven of soul." How grateful I was for that beautiful description of the ever-loving presence of God, where His man always truly is.

A haven is a place of safety and refuge. Spiritually speaking, this is our natural habitat, for as the image, or idea, of God, divine Love, we live and dwell there. I also began to acknowledge that we truly were spiritual ideas, not material objects in danger of being hit by other massive material objects passing us at high speed.

A passage from Science and Health that I have often pondered was behind this reasoning: "The compounded minerals or aggregated substances composing the earth, the relations which constituent masses hold to each other, the magnitudes, distances, and revolutions of the celestial bodies, are of no real importance, when we remember that they all must give place to the spiritual fact by the translation of man and the universe back into Spirit. In proportion as this is done, man and the universe will be found harmonious and eternal" (p.209).

It was the phrase "the relations which constituent masses hold to each other" that particularly engaged me. I realized that as ideas within the Mind that is we could not possibly be under the control of this phenomenon of material belief. I was at peace. Someone stopped and said he would call a tow truck, which he did. Everything was taken care of easily.

As I thought about this experience that same evening, I realized that it is not really possible for man to get outside of what God knows of him. God defines us, has created us as the very expression of His indestructible, perfect nature. We can-not actually redefine ourselves or be anything other than who we are, or be in a place outside of the Mind that is our creator.

But if we are ignorant of this fact, if we are allowing vulnerability to find a place in our consciousness, then such thoughts may open the way for fear to control us. That morning, for example, I had seen on the television news a man who had had a remarkable experience of safety in an airplane. The reporter asked him if he was now afraid to fly again. He replied that one was safer in an airplane than in a car. I realized that I had not refuted the implication that it was possible to be in an unsafe condition—that is, outside of God's care. I also recalled statements that friends had made about the particular highway we had been on.

The powerful spiritual fact is that we, as God's precious children, are as safe in cars as we are in planes; as safe in any place as we are in our own beds; as safe in the night as we are in the daytime; as safe alone as we are with a companion. In other words, safety is not at the mercy of material conditions. Safety is an innate quality of our true, spiritual selfhood. We cannot get outside of the order and harmony of divine Mind. There is no tearing apart of God and man, no separation of a spiritual idea from its source, God, divine Principle.

I could tell of many other incidents of safety and care provided over the years in what seemed dangerous situations: a large box in front of my car—seemingly inescapable because of traffic conditions—being blown aside by a gust of wind after a heartfelt call to God; the ability to quickly change a flat tire, even though I had no idea of how to do it, when I responded to a clear inner voice speaking of God's love and presence right where I was; spiritual intuition that led me apply the brakes before I knew why, thus avoiding becoming part of a chain of car crashes. Acknowledging the presence of God wherever we are makes us receptive to the divine intelligence that is always ours. We are its very expression.

Replaying a fearful incident as though we have had a lucky break, a great save, even though done with gratitude, is not as wise as letting our spiritual sense tell us that to God we are never vulnerable mortals having a near miss.

The "haven of soul" is our permanent dwelling place—the secret place of which the Psalmist speaks in the ninety-first Psalm. This haven is yours, mine, everyone's. We need to acknowledge it, accept it, and be humble enough to let God show it to us. In this way, alert to the wisdom and confidence that come from Him and that guide us safely, moment by moment, day after day.