"You must have pulled some strings!" remarked one of my high school teachers as I gleefully packed my belongings. She just couldn't believe I had been to my first lecture at a well-known English university that very morning.

"No, there was no string pulling," I answered quietly. Inwardly I smiled at how it had worked out for me to leave high school and start my college education, all on the same day. I knew it had happened as a result of my better understanding of God's loving care.

I'd gone back to school that autumn in a very dejected frame of mind. It was frustrating to spend an extra year in high school only because I was too young to enter college. Here I was with all the qualifications for college—enduring another year of high school.

On the way home from a Wednesday evening testimony meeting at our local Christian Science church, a member asked me how I was getting on. I told her "there weren't any courses in high school to stimulate And I felt it was all a waste of time.

My friend said I could only be in my right place, and I knew she didn't mean in a correct geographical location or in a certain situation. She was reminding me I was always in my spiritually correct relationship to God as His reflection. Mary Baker Eddy makes it very clear that God helps us. She says, "He has mercy upon us, and guides every event of our careers."  ^{Unity of Good, pp. 3—4;}

I began to understand that I was about my Father's business, as the twelve-year-old Christ Jesus had told his family he was. Instead of sitting around complaining, I got to work and wrote to universities for details about enrolling the following year. In writing to my first choice I was impelled to ask if there was any immediate vacancy, even though this seemed a wild improbability since it was already September. I knew that universities and colleges were at that time full of ex-service men and women, with few places left for those wanting to enter directly from high school. Also, there was still the problem that I was a year younger than the usual minimum age. But I felt urged not to give up.

More important than taking active steps to enter college was the change in my attitude. I began to regard my extra high school year as a great opportunity. I saw the possibility of learning to work independently. So much so that I was able to translate an entire book of Vergil's Aeneid in one month. Also, I was chosen for an important student government position. I had learned to be happy right where I was.

The prophet Isaiah depicted a similar transformation. He envisaged first a scene of utter desolation and despair, which he described as lasting "until the spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest."  ^{Isa. 32:15.} Truly my wilderness had become a fruitful field, because I had allowed "the spirit . . . from on high," God's healing truth, to be a potent force for good in my experience.

Then a letter came from my first university choice. It said there was an unexpected vacancy and asked if I would complete the enclosed application. Also, the prospectus revealed the amazing fact that applicants could be accepted at my age under exceptional circumstances! I showed the letter to my headmistress, but she said it couldn't possibly be referring to an immediate vacancy, as she had heard of qualified applicants who had been refused admission the previous spring. But this didn't stop me. I applied.

It was a Friday morning when the letter came. I was asked to go to the university for an interview immediately. I quickly changed from my regulation English high school uniform into "civilian" clothes. By the end of that morning I had been interviewed, registered (I didn't know until the next year what a long process that usually was), and had attended my first Latin lecture. That afternoon I went back to school to collect my belongings and say good-bye. It created a minor sensation. The headmistress couldn't believe it. But it was a fact. My fruitful field could truly be counted as a forest.

God's care is constant, but we must be willing to put aside human planning and obey only His direction. Then we aren't fooled into thinking someone else can take our place or that we need to pull strings.