On a recent Friday night, when my wife was away in another state and I was spending the weekend in another city, I received a call from our teenage daughter. She was at a service station located at a busy intersection in the city where we live, and she was upset and afraid. She said that she and her girlfriend were safe but that two men had just forced them from her car at gunpoint and had stolen the car with their purses and other belongings still in it.
My first thought was that there was nobody nearby to help our daughter, as her mother and I were away, and it seemed important that the person staying at our home remain there, since the robbers had fled with our daughter's keys and identification. Promptly, however, I turned to God in prayer and was able to assure our daughter calmly of the Father's ever-present care for her and her friend. I silently affirmed that our daughter was "cared for, watched over, beloved and protected" and that she could "walk . . . with courage each step of the way," as we read in a hymn from the Christian Science Hymnal.
I asked our daughter to call me after she had reported the situation to the police and had been driven home. In the meantime I called my wife to ask her to pray. However, she had not yet returned to her lodging.
