I'm remembering another special experience now that I'd also be happy to share. Funnily enough, like another one Judy posted earlier, it involves Bracknell... 😉
A few years ago, I was living just outside Reading in Berkshire and had just got a car of my own for the first time, thanks to friends who'd sold me their old one. I was taking my time and practising driving it, as it was quite some years since I'd last driven a manual car and this one wasn't the world's easiest to handle. I was also needing to get used to driving in Britain. (In Australia, where I learned to drive, we drive on the same side of the road as the UK, but our roads do tend to be straighter and wider and with less traffic in general.)
Anyway, once I was comfortable driving around the local streets, I felt it was time to venture further afield, so one evening after work, I planned to drive over to Bracknell and back, using the short stretch of motorway. All was going fine until I came to the rather complicated series of roundabouts leading up to the motorway. (It's called Winnersh Triangle... anyone who's tried driving through it will know what I mean. :confused:) I managed to get into the correct lane each time, but all of a sudden, coming around the final roundabout, I was hit out of nowhere by a terrifying panic attack something I'd never experienced before, certainly not while driving.
For several moments, I felt like I was on the verge of losing control of the car and crashing. Somehow, though, I got up onto the motorway. The worst of the attack had passed by this time and I could think again, but I was still just about shaking with fear, and being on a motorway, I had nowhere safe to pull up and stop. So I just had to drive very slowly in the left hand lane (probably just about on the hard shoulder much of the time) until I reached Bracknell and parked in a side street.
By this time I felt like I really could NOT go back the way I'd come I was just too scared, even though I knew very well the fear was completely irrational. But it just seemed to be taking over my thinking completely. I could have tried going home by the quieter back roads (I didn't have sat nav then, but had the county road atlas with me), but I knew deep down I had to confront this silly fear and go back on the motorway. I made myself turn the car around and head back the way I came, but chickened out just before the motorway and pulled into a filling station car park instead.
I was still shaking and almost crying with fear, wishing like anything that I wasn't alone and had someone to take over the driving. But I didn't, and yet I felt in no fit state to go any further. What if, with all this near panicking, I really did lose my nerve and crash the car? The more I thought about it, the more frightened I became... it was fast becoming a vicious cycle. The situation needed prayer, I knew deep down, but I felt like I just couldnt get my thoughts clear enough to even listen for Gods voice, let alone hear it.
Somewhere in the midst of all this, I went fumbling in my bag for some reason and found a CD I'd bought a while earlier and hadnt yet listened to an album of hymns by a local singer and composer. That seemed like an answer of some sort, so I slipped it into my cars stereo. The first few songs were ones I knew, which did make me feel a little calmer, but then came one I hadnt heard before. It was a setting of a poem called "Lullaby for a Child", which describes how God says to all the sleeping birds, lambs, flowers and children:
"I am loving, while you sleep
in bed or nest or fold,
all My darlings; every one
in My arms I hold.
I am loving while you sleep,
softly now and still,
every flower and bird and lamb
and you, My child, as well..."
(You can read the whole poem here: http://sentinel.christianscience.com/shared/view/2n2rl5zn48k?s=e )
Well, of course I wasn't sleeping at the time, but I had tears flowing down my face as I listened... I just felt so closely held and loved by my Father-Mother God. All that fear was completely gone, just lifted off me, and I knew it wasn't coming back it had never been my real thinking in the first place. Once the music had finished, I re-started the car, headed back to the motorway and drove home with no trouble at all, singing hymns and thanking God all the way! 🙂
I've done plenty more driving since then, in many different parts of Britain, and have never had another panic attack while at the wheel, but I've often remembered that experience and what I learned of how fear has no real power at all and how much God loves me and everyone.
Thanks for that Charis.
The "Daily Lift" that I get by email a couple of days ago, reminded me of an experience my mother had when she was a teenager and going to a CS Sunday School.
They lived down at Selsea, near Portsmouth and the family had gone to the seafront somewhere nearby, which was quite crowded. A young woman suddenly ran past and snatched my grandmother's handbag and managed to get out of sight by dodging through the crowds.
They reported it to the police, who said disparagingly that Gran would never see that handbag again. My mother said she simply wouldn't accept that as final as she had been learning that God made humankind in HisHer "image and likeness" (Genesis 1:26, 27) She knew that one of the qualities that often describes God in the Bible is truth, so she just stuck to the fact that the image and likeness of Truth has to be honest, fair, compassionate and decent. Her family thought she was nuts thinking like this.
She also prayed with this idea from Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health (p 476-7):
Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw Gods own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy.
After two weeks they had a call from the police station to come in and they told them that the young woman had kept the handbag for 2 weeks but had felt so guilty that she had been unable to even open it. It was weighing so heavily on her that she came into the police station to hand it back and to confess.
When you hear this lovely 3 min "lift" you'll understand why I was reminded of the story my mother often shared with us.
Right reasoning
Love and peace,
Judy
From two stolen articles that were returned, here's an account of a ring that came off while swimming in the sea!
One day I swam out over the coral reef at Waikiki Beach, where I stayed until dusk. To my dismay, when I got out of the water, I realized that the signet ring my father had given me before I left England had slipped off my finger.
With this loss, the thought of being thousands of miles away from my family gripped me. At this low point I called a local [url]Christian Science practitioner[/url] and asked if she would pray for me. She obviously understood my anguish, but she helped me understand that the ring, given to me by my father, was a symbol of his love, much like the prodigal son’s ring symbolized his father’s love.
I saw that I wasn’t separated from my father’s love, even if I no longer had the ring. I also began to understand that the source of all real love was God, divine Love. The nature of God’s love for His creation man is unbreakable, permanent, and can never be lost.
As we grasp this fact, we see evidences of this truth in our human experience.
Here's the link so you can find out what happened. 🙂 [url]Dwelling in God’s presence[/url]
I've "resurrected" this thread today as it's May Day and a short audio has been posted which is by the youngest daughter in post 20 above. It is also titled, [url]Lilacs at midnight and the link to her mother's article is just below it.[/url]
Love and peace,
Judy