Testimony of Healing June 8, 2015 Issue

Harmony restored in the workplace

Name Withheld

In academic environments, it’s not unusual to receive grant funding for programs. The funding is set up in advance, and when the money runs out, it’s gone. Generally, new money can’t be transferred in, and leftover money can’t be spent on other projects, no matter how worthy they might seem. Over time, an understanding may develop among the staff that all the money needs to be used up through creative recordkeeping. In these circumstances, an employee who willingly goes along with established procedures is often seen as more valuable than a worker with stronger job skills.

When I worked in such an environment, at first I didn’t see anything wrong with following those workplace “rules” that were so important to the managers. I felt God had led me to that job, and I was happy using my skills and creativity to accomplish an important goal. But as time went on, I decided that I wanted to live more consistently the values I had been learning in Christian Science. It was difficult for me to reconcile some of the practices in this job with concepts such as truth, purity, honesty, and lovingkindness.

Frequent clashes with a supervisor made me feel as though work was a battlefield. In prayer one night, I asked God to show me what I needed to know about the situation. I was surprised to have this sentence come to mind: “Put away thy sword, daughter.” Briefly, I felt annoyed, because the message I wanted to hear was that other people, especially the supervisor, would be corrected! But paying attention to this message, and the contents of the weekly Bible Lessons from the Christian Science Quarterly, gave me a greater understanding of my role in the problem. I needed to put away my weapon—forsake all angry responses.

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