AT A CROSSROADS FOR SOME TIME, not able to see what would come next, I found myself tempted by impatience. Many former activities had come to a close, and new opportunities seemed too distant, too indistinct. Sometimes, after I had spent hours in study and prayer and listening for God's messages about my individual mission and purpose, I would take a long walk to appreciate the inspired ideas I had taken into my thought.
In the northeast United States, bare tree limbs silhouetted against a backdrop of gray or blue punctuate winter skies. One day as I walked, the image of these bare trees spoke to my heart of larger realities. They hinted at the solid structure that underlies all we take for granted in sunnier times. And they spoke to me of the gathering of new energy that Mary Baker Eddy referred to in her discussion of the birthing of new ideas (see Science and Health, p. 463). These winter trees encouraged me to patiently persist, to keep pointing thought upward when times seemed barren or unproductive or cold. They reassured me that spring does come—that resurrection from the deadness of winter lies just around the corner.
As I walked among the dark, bare tree trunks with their leafless limbs, these three words came to my heart: "Wait, never doubting." These words appear in an article by Mrs. Eddy in which she described angels as God's spiritual ideas that supply all our needs (see Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, pp. 306–307). She wrote, "Never ask for tomorrow: it is enough that divine Love is an ever-present help; and if you wait, never doubting, you will have all you need every moment." And she added, "This sweet assurance is the 'Peace, be still' to all human fears, to suffering of every sort."
