When unemployment becomes a national problem, and distressing headlines count the unemployed in the millions, the individual who isn't bringing home a paycheck may succumb to a negative conclusion: "How can I expect to find a job, when there are millions of men and women out of work? I'm a statistic—a nonentity!"

Such was the case in the United States during the early 1930s—before a national Work Projects Administration undertook to put people back to work. A young widow with a preschool daughter was obliged to take refuge in the home of her parents. She felt defeated, rootless, and quite unnecessary. Her skills seemed unwanted. Even her responsibilities as a mother seemed meaningless, since her own mother was more capable and entirely willing to love and care for the child. She faced, she thought, a stone wall too high to climb. And suppose she were able to climb the wall—would there be anything worthwhile on the other side? She doubted it. Then, because there seemed no other way out—she prayed, using the twenty-third Psalm as her foundation for an improved outlook.

"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want . . . ." But she did want—she had many wants. She wanted a job, a home of her own, a husband. The wants brought tears to her eyes. Angry tears of frustration and self-pity.

She dried the tears and went back to praying. "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures . . . ." To be sure, she was lying down in green pastures—that is, resting, sheltered, and cared for in her parents' home. That, of course, was reason for gratitude; and gratitude, she had learned in Christian Science Sunday School, was the first step toward healing.

"He leadeth me beside the still waters " Water, she reasoned, served more than one purpose. It quenched the thirst, and it cleansed. It was essential to the growing plant. Well, she might be growing. Could the still waters stand for contemplation? This was, indeed, a time for contemplation—and that was about all. But the cleansing? Well, she could wash away the smudges of self-pity, resentment, discouragement, and anger. She could search her consciousness and rinse away anything unlike good.

"He restoreth my soul . . . ." This word soul, though it stands here for "spiritual sense," means God when it is capitalized. She had learned this about God in Sunday School. ^{See Science and Health 578:8 .} And she recalled Mrs. Eddy's statement "Spirit, Soul, is not confined in man, and is never in matter." ^{ibid., p. 467.}

She could relate, certainly, to the word confined—for she did seem trapped in her personal situation. But to experience a restoring of her spiritual sense, her sense of God, Soul, she would need to see her way out of the material situation of unemployment and frustration. And how could this be achieved in a world where she was nothing but a statistic?

"He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. . . ." She was certainly willing to be led in right paths—and she resumed her prayer: "Just show me the path, Father. I'll take it!"

At that moment she looked down at the kitchen floor. The kitten had spilled a dish of milk and had left tracks everywhere. The child had scattered crumbs beneath and around her high chair. The floor was a mess. Why hadn't somebody noticed? Every smudge on that floor was suddenly magnified. Why hadn't she noticed—and why was it so important to grab a pan, fill it with warm water, take a clean sponge, some soap and a cloth, and get to work on that floor? She did so, with vigor and joy. She scrubbed, she sang hymns, she pondered and took stock of all the new, shiny thoughts released into her consciousness.

"Employment is right where you are—doing what needs to be done—doing it to the glory of God," she thought. "Employment is the circulation of right ideas"—spiritual ideas that proceed from God. She gathered new ideas even as she continued to work.

She had always shirked housework, for she considered herself to be the "artistic type," too good for grubby tasks. She was creative by nature and loved rhythm, poetry, art. She had claimed to enjoy disorder—it was comfortable. Now she no longer enjoyed it. There was rhythm in the sponge . . . music in the splashing water . . . patterns of beauty and light on the linoleum as the clean floor began to reflect the sunlight coming through the kitchen window. Wouldn't her mother be surprised when she arrived home—to see the clean floor, the tidy kitchen? All these weeks the younger woman had been wallowing in a sense of mortal self, worrying about self, coddling self, protecting self. Now she caught the fresh new flavor of unselfed love. Odd, to find it on the kitchen floor!

"Thou preparest a table before me . . ." she sang with the Psalmist. (The tune was of her own composition.) Suddenly the phone rang. It was the voice of a friend: "It's a terrific job—in a quiet little office—for a very nice boss. Doesn't pay much, but they need someone just like you."

Her prayers resulted in more than a job, however. It was a complete healing of unemployment. Never again, from that day to this—half a century—was the woman without employment. She knew exactly what to do to be fully employed: glorify God.

The answer, she had learned on that kitchen floor, was to glorify God by doing the task at hand . . . and the next, and the next, and so on—each one part of the Father's plan for unfoldment. And the result of this effort to follow Christ? Mrs. Eddy says in interpreting the last part of the Psalm, "I will dwell in the house [the consciousness] of [love] for ever." ^{ibid., p. 578.}