Prayer leads to a summer job

When I was studying forestry as an undergraduate in university, the idea came to me to seek summer employment in the tropics. Over a period of eight months, I wrote letters to individuals and organizations in Central and South America. I received offers for work, but all were without salary, and transportation costs were not paid. The summer was fast approaching, and final exams were coming up. One prominent botanist wrote me back that perhaps if I went on to graduate school in the future, I might be able to come to his research site in Costa Rica for a three-week class. But he said there was no paid work available currently.

I turned wholeheartedly to God and began praying about this. I had learned in the Christian Science Sunday School that God is all-knowing Mind, and that I reflect this Mind. So I worked at listening for what Mind would tell me. What came to me to do was to follow Jesus’ command, “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” (Matthew 6:34 ). Mary Baker Eddy echoes Jesus’ statement when she writes, “We cannot boast ourselves of to-morrow; sufficient unto each day is the duty thereof” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 161 ). Striving to be obedient to these commands each day, I refused to worry about the future. This was the hardest thing I’d ever done, and I had many struggles with myself to stay focused on the current day’s tasks.

From my study of Christian Science, I understood that God is eternal and knows nothing about time. In the Glossary of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mrs. Eddy defines time in part as “mortal measurements” (p. 595 ). She also writes, “Never record ages. Chronological data are no part of the vast forever. Time-tables of birth and death are so many conspiracies against manhood and womanhood” (p. 246 ).

I had demonstrated the truth of this statement already at the university. I had sought and obtained a summer job with the United States Forest Service when I was a freshman, even though those jobs were usually open only to sophomores and juniors. I had also traveled to Jamaica as the only undergraduate to participate in a botany field course normally open only to graduate students. Grounded in the idea that age doesn’t define God’s children, I had been unafraid to ask the teacher in charge for permission to join the class, which he granted. As I addressed my daily duties and recognized that I’d overcome time limits before, I gained confidence and worried less about the apparent lack of a summer job.

One afternoon about two weeks before the end of the school year, as I was sitting quietly, the idea came to me to go and speak to the forest economics professor at my school about my desire for a tropical forest job. I immediately dismissed it, thinking it was absurd since he specializes in economics, not the tropics. Still, the idea to go and see him came forcefully to me again, so I did. After I explained to the professor my desire to work in the tropics, he said I should call a professor at a forestry school in another state. I did so, and this man suggested I call another professor at a forestry school in Seattle, Washington. I immediately did so, and he told me he had just received a call from an employee in Costa Rica who had quit his forestry job. The professor asked if I could come and replace the man. I agreed to go as soon as I had finished my final exams, and he sent me money to fly to Seattle for training and equipment. Then he sent me to Costa Rica to work for the whole summer, on salary, establishing inventory plots in a jungle with the assistance of two employees. When I arrived in Costa Rica, I met the famous botanist who had written me earlier, much to his surprise. I was able to live the entire summer off the initial money the Seattle professor had sent me, and save the salary.

This experience convinced me that there truly is just one Mind, God, and that this Mind is ours. Each and every one of us reflects this divine Mind. And since divine Mind is God, it is good, and guides us with love. By taking “no thought for the morrow,” I had been enabled to better listen for the daily ideas I needed to tell me what daily actions to follow. These ideas guided me to a job opening 3,000 miles from where I was at the exact time it became available.

Richard A. Grotefendt
North Bend, Washington, US