We were a happy family, with three children under the age of five. I was a stay-at-home mom. My husband was a flight instructor, attempting to build some flight hours in order to get a job with a commercial airline. Although this job experience was necessary for his flying career, the salary was insufficient provision for us.

Nevertheless, this proved to be a holy time in which I learned what God's provision for His children is all about. I grew to understand that real, permanent income was God's outpouring of spiritual ideas to us.

Before this, I'd thought that I had to rely on my salary, my parents' income, my husband's earnings, or the amount of money we had in our savings account. Now I discovered that none of the above is truly the answer to lack, and that our need for financial security could be met totally by finding out what God's provision for us was. I found out that God is infinite Love and that it is natural for us to have all the good our loving God is giving us.

God's sure provision is described in the Bible: "They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house" (Ps. 36:8). I began to understand that my family could never be separated from His good gifts to us. If we were lacking for anything, it wasn't that He was withholding; rather, we were in some way needing to see and accept our existing supply of His goodness.

I couldn't imagine God saying, "This person will get a small amount of money, and this one over here will get a lot more." This approach could never be true about an all-loving God. We come under His law of equality, as St. Paul describes it in a letter to the Christians at Corinth: "For I mean not that other men be eased, and ye burdened: but by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want, that there may be equality" (II Cor. 8:13, 14). What God is giving is available to everyone.

Another book of the Bible promises that God will "open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it" (Mal. 3:10). In the spirit of this promise, Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy ties financial stability to the thoughts we get from God: "God gives you His spiritual ideas, and in turn, they give you daily supplies" (p. 307). At this time when we were struggling to keep our family afloat, a friend who knew this quotation pointed out to me that it says to go first for the spiritual ideas, and then, in turn, that these spiritual ideas will give you daily supplies. "We often go for the daily supplies first," she said.

With all my heart I asked God for His spiritual ideas.

One morning when I was praying about what to do with a bill we couldn't pay, I asked myself, "How can I possibly get this amount of money?"

In the next instant this "spiritual idea" came: "Never ask how you can get, but instead ask how you can give."

"God, how do You want me to give?" I asked, again, with all my heart.

At the time, we had very little in the house to eat—a few hot dogs, buns, and some milk. I got the idea to call a neighbor. She was caring for another neighbor's children whose parents were away on an emergency. I asked her if it would help for me to give these children lunch. She was grateful, and sent the children over.

At the moment that I was feeding them lunch (our last remaining food), the phone rang. It was someone who was interested in buying an old car we had that was badly in need of repair. We had been trying to sell this car, but had not had even one call from an ad we'd placed in the newspaper. Before I wrote the ad, I had prayed. I'd felt led to ask for the exact amount that was needed for this particular bill.

The caller came after lunch to look at the car, and he bought it for the stated amount—there was no need to lower the price. Both of us were happy as he jump-started the car and went on his way.

The important lesson I learned from this was never to ask how you can get, but rather, how you can give. This is based on a law of God that says that what you hold in your consciousness you also see in your life. Output His goodness in love for your neighbor or in whatever way you are led by prayer, and then expect, with great joy, His abundant income. It will meet all your needs.