ONE DAY LAST SEPTEMBER, I SAT IN my home office pondering my life and wondering what God wanted me to do next.

Two years before that, I'd left a high-level executive job, which definitely felt like the right step, and started following a new plan. I was discouraged when that new plan didn't work out. So, I devoted more time to volunteering at church, helped with our church's Christian Science Reading Room relocation, and returned to a university for a yearlong professional program in editing. Once I'd earned my editing certificate, the world was experiencing a severe economic downturn and jobs were scarce. And again, I was back at that same desk in my home office wondering what to do.

At that time, I was grateful that my financial needs were met, but I felt like I was experiencing an identity crisis. I'd "grown up" in my former job, after having spent almost 20 years with the same company. It seemed to define my career and my personality, and I had a hard time letting go of that role.

As I sat there feeling dejected, my eyes fell on a small packet of lily-of-the-valley bulbs sitting on my desk. I had been procrastinating about planting them and thought they should go in the ground soon, before they dried out. Then, on a corner of the packet, I saw the words, "Guaranteed to Bloom!"

Of course! Those bulbs were guaranteed to bloom—and so was I.

After I laughed out loud, it occurred to me that this was more than a feel-good message—it was a spiritual fact. God made me to bloom, guaranteed. That was the truth about my identity.

As I've learned in Christian Science, identity is really a spiritual, rather than a human concept. Our identity as God's creation is established in the first chapter of Genesis in the Bible, where God made man (meaning male and female) in His own image—good, perfect, powerful, whole. God made each of us to be fruitful, to "replenish the earth and subdue it," and to have "dominion" over it. This means that we have dominion over each aspect of our lives, including our identity and careers.

You would think after that lovely inspiration I would have run right out and planted those bulbs. But I continued to put it off for a few more days. (I've often felt that inspiration can be most powerful when it first comes to us, but sometimes seems to fade as other concerns crowd in.) When I finally put them in the ground, I could hardly wait to see the tender green sprouts—as well as prove God's guaranteed goodness in my own experience.

I watched and wondered if the blooms in my career were really going to pop up. I realized that hovering like this was not the way to trust in God's continuously unfolding care of my life, and not a very effective way to garden, either! I had been looking to something material to validate a spiritual inspiration. I didn't need to keep waiting for my life to bloom, because inspiration had already blossomed in my thought.

One day, while driving to my weekly volunteer position at our Reading Room, I found myself feeling guilty about not holding down a full-time job. I had worked my whole adult life, and it felt so strange not to be bringing home a paycheck. Again, I struggled with a feeling of lost identity as I saw many people on the freeway commuting to work. I was tempted to feel left out and lacking purpose, before I thought again of the promise "guaranteed to bloom."

It occurred to me as I drove along that there is only one Mind (a synonym for God). I took this to mean that there must be only one foundational purpose for God's children. And since there is only one purpose, which is to express the glory and goodness of God, then there must be only one job. One individual's job is no more important than another's in God's eyes. All jobs are of equal importance—in purpose and in productivity.

This idea immediately dissolved the guilt I'd been feeling. I knew that my work in the Reading Room was very important, and I enjoyed helping people find solutions through the resources there. Just because this job didn't bring in a paycheck didn't detract from its importance.

This statement from Science and Health helped clarify the concept of purpose even further: "Spirit, God, gathers unformed thoughts into their proper channels, and unfolds these thoughts, even as He opens the petals of a holy purpose in order that the purpose may appear" (p. 506). To me, this meant that I didn't need a new purpose, but I did need to be sure I was seeing what God was already providing for me, even though it might look different from what I was used to.

Soon after this realization, I had a lovely surprise again involving flower bulbs.

I like to "force" narcissus bulbs to bloom (a kind of easy-to-grow white daffodil) in order to have decorations in time for the Christmas holidays. The previous fall, I had popped the bulbs into glass jars and filled them with small stones and a bit of water. I put them outside for a few weeks and then brought them inside to bloom. I've always had success with this method, but this time nothing happened. The tiny, little green stalks poking up from the bulbs didn't do anything. After a few weeks, I couldn't stand seeing them stagnant anymore, so I tossed them into a flowerpot filled with soil outside the back door.

A month or so after the holidays, we were having unseasonably warm weather. Although those bulbs hadn't been planted properly, the green stalks started to shoot straight up. Their white roots, so dry and brittle when tossed into the pot, were bright and supple, and reached down into the soil. And on one stem, a flower bud began to emerge. I was amazed! I had tossed them haphazardly into the pot, and none of them were planted beneath the soil.

Those tender bulbs had been subjected to freezing temperatures, rain, sleet, and little sunlight—and yet they bloomed beautifully. For weeks, those white, fragrant narcissus blooms reminded me of their sweet surprise.

The bulbs hadn't had an "identity crisis" and failed to bloom because they weren't planted exactly as expected. After this, I looked back on my path and realized that the time I spent volunteering at church and helping with the Reading Room was exactly where I needed to be. I wouldn't have been part of some very important relocation efforts to help further its work if I had been employed full time, and this was the point at which I happily became a regular member of the Reading Room staff.

Soon, I also started a freelance marketing/communicatiions business, found a tiny office to let, and best of all, began devoting regular time to the healing practice of Christian Science. I thought, What if God has given me this quiet time to spend learning more about Him and understanding better how to put that understanding into practice?

My career had taken a new turn, made up of happy and fulfilling employment I hadn't planned. Though very different from the full-time executive job I was used to, and a bit more unconventional, my career had been blooming all along, as had inspirations about my identity.

God's promise of good is universal and applies to everyone, in every walk of life. This fact is not coincidental, but is based on spiritual law. What if we feel as though our bloom is a long time in coming, or that the bloom has already faded? God's promise, just like the spring, is actually never-failing and everlasting. We bloom! Guaranteed. css