"Precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little." Isaiah 28:10
"Precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little." Isaiah 28:10
Two recent experiences have really inspired me to think more deeply about the nothing-ness of anything that seems inharmonious, painful, frightening, etc.
The first occurred when my wife and I were working on our budget. I am a teacher and my employment changes every semester, which means we have to re-do our budget every few months. It is always a tight budget, where every dollar is important. On this particular occasion, we discovered that in the time since we had set up our previous budget we had somehow ‘lost’ $3,000. We didn’t know where it had gone; and more seriously, we didn’t know how we could possibly make up the loss in our new budget. I cannot express how frustrating and upsetting this was for us. We both went to bed at the end of the evening feeling crushed and beaten.
The next morning while I was still lying in bed, I suddenly realized that we had made a mistake. We had forgotten to include the pay I would be receiving for that month! I always get paid on the 10th of the month. The night before had been the 9th, and we had forgotten to anticipate the additional pay. I got out of bed, checked our bank statement on the computer, and sure enough ~ $4,000 had been added to our account that very morning through automatic deposit from my employer. Not only was the ‘missing’ $3,000 accounted for, we were actually $1,000 above where we had expected to be! At that moment, I felt very, very humbled ~ but also loved and blessed beyond description.
The second experience happened only a couple of weeks later. My wife is taking classes online towards a college degree, and this particular class required her to write a substantial paper each week, to be submitted by midnight on Sunday night. She had developed an effective system whereby she would do reading and research during the week, and then write the paper on Sunday. She loves writing, and the system had been working well for her. However, on this particular Sunday, things were not going well. As the day progressed, I could see she was getting more and more frustrated. I had been silently asserting through prayer that Mind was providing her with every useful idea, and that she could not be cut off from that. As the evening wore on and she had been quietly working for some time, I was concluding that my prayers had been effective, when at 11:30 she collapsed onto her desk, crying out in despair and frustration that she couldn’t do it, the ideas would not come, and the paper was terrible. She had no choice but to submit it, but she went to bed exhausted and feeling defeated.
The next day she checked in with her class, and discovered ~ to her speechless amazement ~ that the instructor had given her 100% on the paper! To fully appreciate this, I have to point out that, although Ali had received perfect scores on her papers for other classes, this particular instructor had always been unusually strict in her grading. Ali had already had one class with her before, and based on what we had seen we had both concluded that she probably never gave perfect scores, simply as a matter of policy. We were both absolutely astounded!
Both of these situations really struck me, as they reminded me so pointedly of the “blundering despatch” that Mrs. Eddy refers to on p. 386 of Science & Health. In both cases, despite all of the fear and frustration, nothing was ever wrong. The money was already accounted for, even as we struggled to balance our budget; and Ali’s paper was in fact the best paper she had ever written for that class, although she had not recognized it at the time. I have thought of this on several occasions since, when there seems to be some inharmony in our lives. Nothing is wrong! It is perfect right now, and always has been! I am so grateful for these spurs to our spiritual progress!