Prayer-Powered Shipment

'WHEN my ship comes in! That was the solution to all kinds of financial problems if I was to believe my husband. Living by a river that wasn't navigable added to the absurdity of this standing joke.

Another relative had a solution to our strained resources that at first sounded just about as likely to be useful. He talked about something Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need. I knew that divine Love meant God, yet I still couldn't see any solution to our difficulties. But there was no point in watching for a ship; that was a joke. So even though I did n't know very much about the divine Love notion, I decided to pray.

I had just begun studying Christian Science. I didn't understand much of what I read in the Bible and in Science and Health, but I had always loved and trusted the Bible, so I kept reading and praying. I expected prayer to have an effect, but I thought the results would be experienced sometime in the future. Still, that sentence my relative quoted seem to be saying that prayer had an effect now--in our daily lives. I didn't, at first, realize what the implications of that concept were! I just kept on pra ying.

One day the youngsters came running into the house, screaming and yelling that our ship had come. They were excited beyond telling, but completely certain our ship was there. I looked out the window, and there was a large boat on a trailer backing into the driveway. That boat belonged to a family friend and was overflowing with things my dad had sent for us: clothes and toys; bushels of tomatoes and other produce; frozen meat.

What a celebration followed! There was such an abundance of good--and plenty to share with the neighbors. But there was another element: it was a glow of suddenly knowing we were very loved, in a very special way. Divine Love, I saw embraced everyone, and had met our need in a way we could never have imagined. Even the neighbors remarked that something wonderful had happened. I understood a little better how the multitude must have felt when Christ Jesus fed them by the sea of Galilee.

That ship's arrival was a turning point. Since then there have been other opportunities to prove "Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need. And the needs have been supplied in a steady and orderly manner. I'm still learning about how simply, practically, and perfectly God gets the job done. In the next sentence Mrs. Eddy explains: "It is not well to imagine that Jesus demonstrated the divine power to heal only for a select number or for a limited period of time, since to all manki nd and in every hour, divine Love supplies all good.

At the time "our ship came in I could see no further than our need for money. But turning to God in prayer had brought exactly what we needed, and it was immediately usable and complete. We are all God's children and He cares for us. It says so in the Bible. First Peter gives us some idea of the power and certainty of God's care: "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

We can trust God, our Father-Mother, to meet our every need, and to do it in the way that is best and most understandable for us. God's care is for right now. And His way is always better than anything we could envision.