Dick: In 1990 my dad passed away and I took over his small manufacturing business making die-cut and computer-cut vinyl decals. I had never worked for my dad, so I knew absolutely nothing about running my dad’s business and the manufacturing processes involved in creating the product. I suppose simultaneously learning and operating it for eight years was a demonstration of God’s goodness and grace in itself. In the winter of 1997 I made the decision to sell it and move on to something new.

Manya: We’d been married just a year when Dick told me that he was bored with the business. He’d been a self-employed consultant most of his life and was tired of being tied down to his 9-5 job. Add to that the competition from overseas companies with their cheaper manufacturing and labor costs, and he was ready to move on. Dick had been looking into a new business opportunity that engaged his creativity. Well, he thought selling his dad’s business would be pretty easy, and so he didn’t take any immediate action.

Dick: What she means is that I procrastinated! Then, in the early spring of 1998 I got a call from my landlord about the lease on my space which was due to expire at the end of May. He notified me that my rent would increase nearly 50 percent and, instead of a three-year lease he now wanted a five-year lease. I was totally unprepared for this news. My response to him was that I was going to sell the business and probably wouldn’t renew the lease.

Manya: Dick and I had talked about this, but it always seemed a step farther out there. But now push had come to shove. He would be selling the business, but the next step for him was not yet in place. I looked on all this with a bit of concern. At the time we had four children from Dick’s previous marriage and an infant granddaughter living with us full time. Having relocated to Northern California just a year earlier, I was in the process of establishing my Christian Science practice in our new community and wasn’t generating much income for the family. It was time to really pray about this!

Dick: Of course I began praying, too. One of the first things I did (which one wouldn’t ordinarily do) was to call four of my best customers to see if they were interested in buying my business. Three of them called me back and they said they weren’t interested. The fourth one never called me back. This came as quite a shock.

I then contacted two brokers who specialized in selling small businesses. Neither was interested in working with me, possibly because the sale wouldn’t have generated the kind of commissions they were accustomed to, but both estimated it would take about a year to sell the business. Well, I didn’t have a year.

Manya: This was a rugged time for us, and it didn’t appear there was an immediate answer. But each time the suggestion of hopelessness appeared, we prayed through it knowing God had an answer.

Dick: My lease expired, and I negotiated with the landlord to rent month-to-month. He told me he planned to advertise the space as available, and if he found someone interested, he would let me know first and I would have the opportunity to renew the lease. Just two weeks later my landlord called back and said he’d found someone. What did I want to do? I had no idea, but the words that came out of my mouth were “I’ll be out by the end of the month.” I had just two weeks to move out.

Manya: Dick called me in a panic right after he talked with his landlord. This was probably the most difficult point of this whole experience. How was he going to close his business, ship current orders, and move all the equipment in two weeks’ time? His thinking was in constant turmoil. As days passed and he found no answer, he would toss and turn in his sleep. His distress was palpable, and each night while he tried to sleep, I would get up and pray for hours.

Christian Science has taught me that no matter what the problem is, no matter how big it appeared, God is bigger and there is always an answer. What came to me many times as I prayed was Joseph’s reply to Pharaoh: “God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace” (Gen. 41:16).

These prayerful, nightly vigils were a time of separating difficult material circumstances from the spiritual facts. A spiritual fact is that there is no delay between demand and supply, because God supplies all good. But what we were facing seemed wild with fear and pressure, time and money concerns. We could have called up a moving and storage company, but that option was excessively expensive. In those nightly prayers I knew that supply, in whatever form was needed, is omnipresent because God is omnipresent.

Supply is the natural outpouring of God’s love for His child, but its form is idea, not matter. So no, I wasn’t praying for a million dollars or a hot lottery ticket to rescue us, but to see more clearly the fact that our supply, not just money but what was needed to help this situation, was an idea already at hand. The true idea of supply couldn’t be delayed. It is always part of our identity because it comes from God, divine Mind. So I prayed until I absolutely knew we did have supply, and we did have the certainty and confidence to see that the right idea from God was at hand to meet this need.

Dick: As I sat in my office one morning before the start of the workday, the most ridiculous idea came to me: Why not give the business away? At first this idea seemed insane. Who in his right mind would give away an operating business? I needed the money from the sale of the business to help sustain us. At first I thought this couldn’t be God’s answer! But, as I listened, the idea of giving the business away grew in energy in my thought until I felt more and more certain that it did come from God. I called Manya and told her about my idea. Our discussion didn’t go as you might expect. In essence, Manya said to me, “If that’s what came to you from God, then go for it.” And so I did.

Manya: When Dick called and told me about this idea to give the business away, I didn’t hesitate. I could hear in his voice first incredulity and amazement, but then conviction and certainty. He was happy and free of fear. God had given him his answer of peace. In prayer, I had been holding to the fact that since God is All and all good, it is a divine law that man has all good by reflection, right now. I knew this with certainty, and I knew he knew it, too.

Dick: It came to me to call the one customer who’d never called me back about buying the business. Before I could say anything, he went into apology mode for never calling me back and then began telling me all the reasons why he couldn’t afford to buy my business. When he finished I said, “That’s not a problem because I’ve decided to give you my business.” There was a long pause in our conversation, and he said, “You can’t do that.” I said, “Sure I can. I own the business, have no debts, and this is what I’ve decided to do.” We talked for a while, and he finally agreed to take my business.

Later that afternoon he called me back. He said he’d given the situation some further thought and talked with his dad, who was his business partner. They had decided the right thing to do was to pay me for the business. He named a price and terms which of course were acceptable to me. As part of the agreement, he moved the heavy equipment out of my space on the last Friday of the month. He didn’t take everything and left behind some office furniture that I said I would take care of by recycling it at a used furniture store.

Manya: On that last weekend, Dick and I did the final cleaning on the space. We moved all the remaining furniture to the back of the warehouse. As Dick was sweeping, one of the new tenants in the complex walked by and asked if we were moving. Dick told him he’d sold the business and we were just cleaning up. This fellow asked what we were going to do with all the office equipment. He had just started his business, spent all his money on manufacturing equipment, and couldn’t afford to buy the office equipment he needed. Dick told him to take what he needed. He ended up taking everything. He and his friend moved all the remaining office furniture to his space a few doors down.

Dick: All that remained was an old refrigerator with a broken door handle that we had used to store soda pop and snacks. My plan was to take it to the dump. A few minutes later the tenant’s friend came walking back and asked us if he could have the refrigerator. I said sure. So we loaded it into his truck.

When we left at the end of the day, everything I had planned to haul away had been given away, useful to someone else. We locked the doors and simply loaded our cleaning supplies and equipment in the car and drove home.

This was such a complete demonstration of God’s supply blessing everyone.

• The landlord was happy because he not only leased my space, but also the space next to mine at the increased rate for five years.

• His new tenant was happy because leasing adjacent spaces made his operations easier.

• The man who bought the business was happy because he was able to expand his business in a new direction at a cost and with terms he felt he could afford. He also gained access to several new customers who could benefit from his current services.

• I was happy because I was paid for a business I was willing to give away.

• My customers were happy because they saw little or no delay in the delivery of our product.

• The neighboring tenant was happy with the needed office furniture he couldn’t afford to buy.

• And my neighbor’s friend was happy with the antique refrigerator!

This demonstration was far beyond what I could have planned humanly and involved people I didn’t even know and had never met. When I yielded and recognized that God had the answer, that I didn’t have to do it myself, and I frankly couldn’t do it myself, everything about this situation just dovetailed. We certainly proved Mary Baker Eddy’s statement “whatever blesses one blesses all” The entire quote is: “In the scientific relation of God to man, we find that whatever blesses one blesses all, as Jesus showed with the loaves and the fishes,–Spirit, not matter, being the source of supply” (Science and Health, p. 206).

Manya: We look back now and marvel at how completely God’s law provided not only for us, but for those around us, down to the smallest detail. The sale of the business provided income for that year, during which my Christian Science practice grew and Dick transitioned into his new career as a commodities technical analyst.

It was truly remarkable. It was a watershed experience for us, and we are both very grateful.