By Rosalie E. Dunbar

I was working toward my Ph.D. in religious education from New York University and part of it involved doing research in Ireland.

I parked along a dirt road on a very remote mountainside.  It had taken most of the day to get to the site, and I didn’t have a lot of daylight left to complete what I needed to do.  So I rushed out of the car and headed along the trail.

It wasn’t until I couldn’t see the car from where I was that I got worried.  This was before cellphones, and I had no idea which direction I needed to go to get back to the car.   No one knew where I had gone.  There were no houses nearby. In short, there was no human help or guidance available.

Prayer was clearly the only option.

Mary Baker Eddy writes about the importance of trusting God and resisting the temptation to be afraid. She also brings out the Bible’s point that God is ever-present, all-knowing Mind.

I turned to God and just asked Him to show me the way.  Peace came over me. As I stood there looking out over the ocean, I remembered that the three small islands I was seeing had been on my right as I walked into the area.  Then the obvious direction to walk was with them on my left. When I finally got to the car, I paused to give thanks.  As the Bible says, “God is a very present help in trouble”  (Ps. 46:1). I had just seen proof of that for myself.