One day in response to an application for employment I received an airmail letter from a school in Honolulu offering me a contract for the coming year and instructing me to reply at once. This letter had been forwarded to me from my former address, and upon receiving it, to my momentary dismay, I saw from the dates that it had been held for two weeks prior to being forwarded. The question arose in my thought as to why the individual receiving the letter had held an airmail letter two weeks before readdressing it. But immediately came the loving correction. I knew that man, God's idea, has no mean intent, and I knew this individual to be loving and kind and that there was nothing malicious about the thought or act. I was very clear on this point.
As instructed by the school, I replied at once by airmail, writing that I would be happy to receive and sign the year's contract. Within three days I received another letter from the school in Honolulu telling me that because of the delay in hearing from me the position had been given to someone else. In other words, my reply was too late.
As we are taught in Christian Science, I knew that God places man. My thought went again to the individual who had held the original letter for two weeks; but again I rejected resentment, and I continued to reject it for the next several day. On the third day I received another letter from the school asking me to accept the position as originally outlined and enclosing contracts for my signature. How grateful I was to accept and to spend a beautiful year in the Hawaiian Islands! But it was obedience to Mrs. Eddy's instruction in Science and Health (p. 392), "Stand porter at the door of thought," that enabled me to refuse to admit resentment into my thought and therefore to receive the blessing. I realized too that as the situation worked out I had in a measure denied self and let God guide me into a larger and richer understanding of my brother man through this lovely experience.
