Not Just Big Things

THE thought that I could pray for a solution to the problem I was having startled me. Compared to really serious life-or-death emergencies it seemed so trivial, even a little ridiculous. I think I must have had a misplaced feeling that you weren't really supposed to turn to God with mere annoyances.

The problem I faced was simply how to get rid of a twenty-five-year-old car my husband had once used to commute to work. We rarely used it, and neighbors had complained about seeing it parked at the curb.

``It really has to go," I felt. So I did pray about what to do, even though I felt self-conscious about turning to God with such an unimportant problem. I asked God simply to help me know how to work out the situation, although I think I was really hoping that my husband would finally agree to advertise the car for sale!

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, tells us: ``Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need." She adds that this same divine Love, God, is always supplying all good to all mankind. I know this is true because I've seen it proved in my own experience innumerable times and Christ Jesus said that ``with God all things are possible."

Well, I didn't instantly see how to solve the problem concerning the old car, but what did come to mind was a verse from the book of Isaiah in the Bible. It reads: ``Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain." The simple, powerful words struck me at this particular time as exquisitely gentle, personal and tender. They were the touch of the Christ, quieting my anxiety about the situation.

The words reminded me also of a page in the Preface to Science and Health, where Mrs. Eddy explains: ``The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus' time, from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation."

The unsightly old car was still out in front of our house, but I was comforted and rested by those moments of praying. I stopped thinking of ways to convince my husband to sell the car--or have it hauled away, and this was a relief, I'm sure, to him as well as me! Whenever I began to feel annoyed or discouraged about the car, I thought about how divine intelligence is always present to help us solve the big, intimidating problems and to make the rough places in human life plain and level.

Less than a week later, a young man came to our door and asked hesitantly and hopefully if I thought whoever owned ``that nice old car out front" might be interested in selling it. He needed to drive daily to his job twenty-five miles away, and he especially longed for a car he himself could easily repair. ``My dad taught me how to drive in a car like that one," he said. He even added, ``I love the weathered look of the paint."

The young man and my husband became instant friends. An offer was made and accepted. There wasn't a rough place in the whole transaction.

The incident made me more sharply aware that one can and should turn to God, to omnipresent Love always--for healing of both the seemingly gigantic, ``life-threatening" problems and the small ones, too. Everyday experiences can be made smooth with divine Love. The rough places can be made plain, and the danger of stumbling can be lessened.