A walk away from a plane crash...

The importance to me of beginning each new day by prayerfully acknowledging God's love and protection for me and my loved ones cannot be overemphasized. On the morning of Friday, September 8, 1995, I typed on the computer, "The impenetrable protective shield of divine Principle is surrounding my children, my husband, and me [protecting us] from all false, mortal beliefs of accident, violence, sin, disease, and death by God's fixed, infallible, almighty law." This proved true.

My husband and I were flying to Yosemite in a small, four-passenger airplane for a weekend meeting. As we were taking off, the words to a hymn from the Christian Science Hymnal came to thought: "Everlasting arms of Love / Are beneath, around, above" (No. 53). We had a pleasant flight until it came time to land the plane. The pilot was unable to land and decided to fly back around and try again. My husband was in the copilot's seat and I was sitting behind him. My husband, a student pilot at the time, shouted at the pilot to lift the wing on our side (it was within a foot of touching the ground), and we narrowly missed a pole and buildings on the left side of the plane. But the plane was not gaining altitude quickly enough to avoid the mountain ahead of us.

When I realized we were in trouble, I started doing my own shouting! I'm not sure of the exact words I used, but I was definitely declaring that the law of Principle was in control and operating then and there for us. The next thing we knew, we had crashed in a field in the middle of a hillside. Within ten seconds of crashing, we were out of the plane, which was rapidly enveloped in fire. Really, it was all like a dream. We had truly been protected—a plane, a material object, had been destroyed, nothing else.

The airplane had rapidly been enveloped in flame, but we were truly protected.
The four of us moved quickly across the field. I was barefoot, as I had taken off my shoes during the flight. I was shouting "Thank-yous" to God nonstop. (Later that evening, one friend asked my husband what I was shouting about "being surrounded." He explained I was shouting that we were surrounded by Love, God. Our friend replied, "Yes, I could feel it!") Three of us declined medical assistance, and I was able to walk to a nearby house to call a friend who is a Christian Science practitioner and ask for her prayerful treatment for my husband and me.

We arrived in Yosemite that evening after stopping in a nearby town to buy clothes and shoes for the weekend. Our every need was met. Among the eighteen people in our group, there were many religions represented, and a few individuals who previously had not been certain of God's existence. This incident made believers out of the nonbelievers, and everyone rejoiced in the "miraculous" protection we had received.

My husband and I did not sleep that night. We spent the night in prayer. Besides the predictions of pain that accompany the belief of accidents, my husband had a deep gash on his head, and cuts on his legs and mouth. The next morning, he demonstrated his dominion while taking a bus to the top of Glacier Point and walking the 9.6 miles back down to the valley. At breakfast that morning, I was explaining how I had felt walking through the field with the plane on fire. I was telling how God had said to Moses, who was standing in front of the burning bush, "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet," and a man across the table from me finished the sentence, "for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground" (Ex. 3:5).

The entire weekend we felt as if we were on holy ground. The dominion we felt enabled us to fly home on Sunday without fear. My husband's injuries were healed within a few days, and he continued with his flying lessons, receiving his pilot's license a month after the crash.
This entire experience has fortified my conviction that God is the only power, presence, and action in the universe. I truly have never felt so loved.

Karenlee Raitt Mannerino


Chico, California