Article August 27, 2007 Issue

WHEN A TRANSITION ISN'T THE ONE YOU WANTED

BY CHANNING WALKER

IT WAS A TRANSITION I, perhaps selfishly, didn't want to make. I'd just finished college, had already experienced some positive breaks in launching a career in the theater, and then, Wham! It felt as if I'd struck a brick wall. I was drafted for two years of military service. It seemed that the transition I wanted to be making had just been snatched away. The one I didn't want, stared me in the face.

I wasn't alone. No one in my unit had enlisted. We all faced unsought transitions from civilian life to life in a barracks regulated down to the minute by a drill sergeant. But I soon realized I had a choice. Was this to be a transition to a time of discontent? Or could something rewarding come from it? I quickly came to see that this called for a prayerful perspective. Circumstances really didn't dominate my life. No, I couldn't change the fact that I was going into the military. But to a degree far greater than I'd ever have guessed, I could decide whether this transition would be a time of spiritual growth and even a time of joy.

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy stated flatly, "Your decisions will master you, whichever direction they take" (p. 392). This was clarifying. My decisions did not have to take the direction of self-pity; they did not have to take the direction of resentment; they did not even have to take the direction of resignation to a two-year detour. I could pray. I could remind myself that the Almighty was in control, right now. I could acknowledge that I was here to be about my Father's business—today. I could admit that productivity and usefulness and fulfillment had a divine basis, and therefore were at hand each moment.