Last year a devastating event occurred. Standing in line at a place of business, I received a phone call informing me that my daughter had just been shot while attending to her duties as an elected official. There was no other information about where or how my daughter was. Stunned, I managed to reach my car. As I sat there trying to formulate a plan—where I could find her, whom I should call, what I was to do—I heard: “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalms 46:10).
At that instant I felt a warmth wash over me, and immediately all fear vanished. I was calm and felt absolutely and positively assured that my daughter was safe. I knew in my very core that wherever she was, at any plane of existence, as a child of God she could never be anything less than perfect and whole.
The scene at the hospital was chaotic. The families of the many other victims of the shooting were clamoring for information. All the while I entered into my “closet,” as Jesus instructed us to do when praying, and I shut the door and prayed “to my Father in secret” (see Matthew 6:6). Later, medical opinions were offered, but I was buoyed by the knowledge that my daughter could suffer no loss of perfection. All of the qualities of God that she expressed—the intelligence of Mind, the joy of Spirit, the kindness of Love, and so on—constituted her true substance. These qualities were forever intact and could never be destroyed.
