Just As The Sand On The Beach moves from one spot to another—leaving some stretches of beach wider and others narrower—so, many of us have moved between different jobs or careers. We continue to change as people, and shift from one field of work to another.

My first profession was that of city planner. I learned not just about city life, but about developing alternative solutions, doing a cost-benefit analysis, and being able to discern between apparent problems and what the real, underlying difficulties might be. These were useful tools. But, more important, I also learned that whatever plan I came up with, God always had a better one.

Now, although I've left city planning far behind, I stop before plowing ahead with any project—no matter how promising it may seem—and say, "Father, is this what You would have me do today?" I have learned to keep listening until a sense of peace comes. Then if there's a better idea, I can go forward or change direction.

This approach calls for many of the spontaneous, joyous qualities of thought commonly associated with children. Jesus once said: "Verily I say unto you, Except ye be Converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 18:3, 4).

It's not always easy to get to that state of childlike innocence and honesty. One thing that has often helped me is to wait to be sure that I am not a victim of what one of my friends calls the "hyphenated selves"—self-will, self-righteousness, selflove, self-justification. In Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy wrote about how it is that "self-love is more opaque than a solid body. In patient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error,—self-will, self-justification, and self-love,—which wars against spirituality and is the law of sin and death" (p. 242).

There is actually a lot of encouragement in that passage. Selfish and self-centered ways of thinking and acting can be dissolved with "the universal solvent of Love." This Love is God. It takes patience and obedience to let Love be the planner. But I've found that listening to Love helps me get myself out of the way. Then whatever the job, whatever confronts me, I will find effective solutions and smooth ways to move ahead.

I have also learned that as my thinking changes, my experience changes, as well. When I try really hard to be more Christlike—to follow Jesus' teachings and example—my life adjusts, or changes, for the better.

I used to fear changing jobs—which often meant staying somewhere longer than most people would normally choose to do. This has happpened a number of times. Twice I was forced to leave before I thought I was ready to leave. Other times, I have left after praying about the next steps to take. This has usually involved seeing some good change occur right where I was, and then feeling free to move on to a new job.

Each time there were lessons to learn. The first and most obvious was that God was my full-time employer—whether I had a paying job in the workplace or not. That involved being sure that God's will—and not mine—was being done (see Matt. 6:10). When I prayed, the resulting insights might lead me not to willfully stick with a job longer than I needed to, or, on the other hand, not to willfully leave a job just because I felt inadequate, personalities were clashing, or whatever. It also meant looking beyond the human situation for spiritual direction.

Despite all I thought I had learned about coping with change, I was momentarily devastated just over a year ago when I suddenly lost my job. So it was back to the drawing board of prayer.

This time, strengthened by my past experiences of God's unfailing support, I faced down my fears by praying about each one specifically, one by one. Fear that I would lose my home. Fear that I would lose my freedom. Fear that I would lose others' respect.

I avoided accepting as inevitable some common assumptions about life's ups and downs, and turned instead to the stability that comes from God. It occurred to me that oftentimes change in life simply uncovers some new aspect of how God is good, and prompts one to see more of it. I reasoned that if I was really trusting God, then in the midst of whatever change I was encountering, good would be apparent.

It wasn't easy, but as I prayed to know and understand God better—to accept His unchangeable goodness—my fears gradually melted away.

It was a special joy to be able to pray for others who also had been impacted by my career change. This was a reminder that everyone was included in God's love, and not just me. Even though a number of major expenses came up unexpectedly, my husband and I always found a way to meet them.

The more love I felt in my heart, and the more I undertstood that nothing bad had really happened to me, the more opportunities I had to help others through prayer. Day by day, the evidence grew stronger that God was loving and caring for me. And each step of the way since then, God has prepared something so much better for me than I could ever have planned.