From a Sunday School superintendent: At one time I was feeling discouraged about church members' involvement in the Sunday School. The teacher of one class had decided to withdraw from teaching, and I still had not found anyone to be assistant superintendent. In fact my efforts to find someone to fill these positions had left me feeling like a door-to-door salesman of very shoddy goods. I felt a great number of doors had been slammed in my face. Frustrated, I looked up at a quotation from Mary Baker Eddy that had been placed on the wall of our Sunday School. "Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need" (Science and Health). I asked myself, "Do I really believe that?" This statement is a great challenge to the human perception of lack—in this case the seeming lack of support for church. It stands as a spiritual fact that calls upon every Christian Scientist to prove it daily. That truth began to work on me as I opened my thought to it. It rebuked the false sense of overwhelming responsibility that I had been feeling as superintendent. It stated firmly that I was not going to meet this human need; divine Love was. My responsibility was to trust divine Love and listen for divine guidance. This meant letting go of the panicky desire to phone up practically anyone and everyone to fill the teaching position.
Even though time was getting short, I vowed not to phone anyone until I felt a clear leading from God. This commitment to "wait on God" did open my thought up to divine guidance. Soon after, one woman's name kept coming to mind to call about teaching the class. At first, however, it didn't make any sense. She was already working as a Christian Science nurse, and she was expecting a child as well. She already seemed to have quite a full agenda, but the idea kept coming back to me to call her. I did call, and, to my surprise, she was enthusiastic about teaching in the Sunday School. She started two weeks later, and, during her time teaching the class, brought that same enthusiasm to her teaching every week. About a year later she had to leave teaching regularly in the Sunday School to fulfill other commitments, but unlike the previous occasion, this time I did not panic. I had already gained a deeper sense of the truth that divine Love does meet every human need, and I began to affirm this. I soon found another person to teach the class—a person as rightly suited to the responsibility as she had been.
I'm grateful to be in the Sunday School. It is a place where everyone who participates, superintendents included, gets to learn valuable lessons about the power of God's love.
