During my early apprenticeship in Christian Science, I had this revelation: if I react to the appearance of evil in any way, then I admit its reality, I make it real. What is needed, regardless of circumstance, is a Christianly scientific response. Acting on this understanding, by facing evil instead of running away from it, enabled me to avert tragedy at the time when I had this revelation.
More recently I faced a challenge of a different order. I was physically attacked. At the moment I realized what was about to happen, I naturally took refuge in divine Love, expressed in forceful utterance: "God is Love." These words were my immediate and only response to the assailants. There was no time for anything else. The instant realization that "God is Love" became a panoply of infinite grace to me.
After a church meeting late one evening in Russia, I returned to my apartment just as it was about to be robbed. I had already inserted the key to unlock the door when an angel thought commanded, Do not unlock it! I obeyed. Five feet away stood three men. As it turned out, this act of obedience prevented them from robbing the apartment, which at the time was home to an important part of the church treasury. What occurred next I only know from the people who arrived at the scene moments later. One of them, a young woman, told me later that when they had driven up in their car, a man who had been standing outside the building ran inside. Seconds later, four men ran out of the building, practically colliding with them as they entered.
