YEARS AGO, my wife and I returned to California after working overseas. Both of us wanted to continue teaching in public schools, but there was a severe shortage of jobs. We drove all over in our car visiting school districts but rarely got an opportunity to even fill out an employment application. We were repeatedly told that there was a glut of teachers. But the inspiration we were getting from our daily spiritual study and from the Christian Science periodicals reinforced our reliance on God's unfailing direction. We were both convinced that He had a place for us. It was not to be found—it was already established in Mind. Our real employment was to maintain uncompromising joy and expectation of good. In fact, we treated the experience like an adventure.
At one point we were led to stop at a school district we weren't even aware existed, and had a friendly, if passing, conversation with a woman. It was a couple of days later that I learned she was actually the secretary for the district's superintendent. I felt that this was clearly God's provision in action. Though I hadn't submitted an application, the secretary telephoned an invitation to come in. I interviewed with the principal of a new school and was offered a job on the spot. Five minutes later, the principal arranged a teaching position for my wife at an excellent nearby school. To plan something like this would be considered impossible. That same principal later championed me to be the principal of my own school, and I remained in that school district until retiring after 34 years.
Neither my wife nor I were much surprised at how that chapter played out in our lives, because we had seen clear evidence of God's provision five years earlier, when I was teaching at a public elementary school in California. I had the growing desire to teach in a school system abroad and applied for a position with the US Army, Japan being the country of choice. At that same time I also applied to teach at an expatriate school for an American company in Venezuela. My wife (who I was just dating at the time) had already applied to that company before me, though there were close to 400 applicants—and only four teaching positions were available. She was interviewed and hired as one of the four, but since I applied too late and was never interviewed, I received a standard form letter saying that all positions had been filled.
