OULD YOU ALLOW US TO PLACE your name in the pool of individuals to be considered for the editorship of Guide magazine?" asked an unfamiliar baritone voice at the other end of the telephone line. This request, coming out of the blue, made absolutely no sense to me. After all, hadn't God just led me to new teaching responsibilities in Oregon?

Only four weeks into the new school year, I was just getting a feel for where I fit in with my new team of colleagues. And how exciting it was to work for an innovative principal and with a group of Christian educators so dedicated to running every aspect of a school program on biblical principles. "Doing it His way" was the motto. And my new students . . . they were the frosting on this wonderful cake.

Why Would I Want to Leave?
As if my cup weren't already filled to overflowing, I found mountainous southern Oregon, the setting for Grants Pass Seventh-day Adventist School, an outdoor lover's dream come true. The school was a scant 20 minutes from Rogue River rafting and only 45 minutes away from the nearest ski resort, the closest wild cave, and the Pacific Crest Trail.

"Lord," I had prayed during my first week there, "if You need someone to teach language arts here until You come, I'm Your woman."

So, not only did the timing of this telephone contact make no sense to me, I felt no calling outside the classroom and certainly wasn't interested in moving again. Quickly explaining all of the above (well, except for the skiing, rafting, hiking, and caving parts) to the gentleman from the Review and Herald, I did promise--reluctantly--to pray about the question and send a résumé, with my superiors being apprised of the situation.

The bustle and excitement of a new school definitely took precedence over my intermittent prayers concerning the Guide contact. In fact, the phone contact had drifted toward the back of my mind when, a month later, the same gentleman called not only informing me that my name had been selected but also inviting me to fly East to "look over the post."

Stunned and troubled, I asked him for time to counsel with my principal and do some hard thinking and serious praying. Several hours later, we again spoke by phone. I honestly confessed that, in the light of my commitment to education, coming to look over the job would seem like visiting under false pretenses. After two more days of ongoing telephone exchanges, I agreed to fly to Maryland to "see what I was saying 'no' to."

In Hagerstown, Review and Herald personnel dialogued and prayed with me. While there, I began to grasp the scope of the magazine's ministry to the 10- to 14-year-olds of our church. Yet nothing during my visit gave me a strong indication of God's desires for me in this matter--even though the publishing house was willing for me to finish out the first semester in Oregon.

As the United Airlines jet flew me out of Dulles Airport at the end of my visit, I felt the weight of perhaps the heaviest decision I'd ever had to make in my lifetime--and all on my own. I prayed fervently for divine guidance.

Decision Time
Near midnight--looking down on the moonlit, snowcapped Rocky Mountains and feeling as if the weight of this decision would crush me--I once again pleaded for direction.

Instantaneously my principal's modus operandi motto sprung to mind: "doing it His way." This thought immediately led me to the simple question: "What would Jesus do with this decision?"

I remembered Jesus healing the woman with the flow of blood before continuing on a journey to raise a dead girl to life. I remembered Jesus interrupting an important pilgrimage in order to have lunch with Zacchaeus, the ostracized tax agent. I remembered Jesus taking the little children in His arms, giving them comfort and blessing, before addressing the concerns of a rich, influential ruler. I remembered Jesus simply taking care of those closest to Him before even thinking of moving on.

Who are those closest to me? I wondered. Obviously, my students in Grants Pass.

"Lord," I prayed, "I'm going to assume--based on Your Son's example--that You want me to stay with my students. But . . ." (I really didn't want to say anything more because I didn't want my life to change.) "But . . . if You were to make some other arrangement whereby my students wouldn't be impacted in the middle of a school year by a teacher leaving, I would accept that as Your leading me in another direction."

Early the next morning I phoned the person at the Review with whom I had been in contact the most and shared my decision. Although respectful and accepting of it, he asked, just before hanging up, "Would your decision have been any different if you wouldn't be leaving your students in the middle of a school year?"

When I telephoned the editorial vice president the following morning to relay my "official" decision, he asked, "If we hold the editorship open for you until after the school year is over so you don't have to leave your students, will you come?"

God's direction could not have been more clear, considering what I had prayed during my return flight--that my students not be impacted by a teacher's departure during a school year. For just a moment I shared perhaps the same uneasiness that Abraham felt when God asked him to go into a far country, "not knowing whither he went." Then, slowly, I gave the answer that would change everything about my life as I had known it up to then: "I will come."

Our Heart's Desire
God has promised to give us the desires of our heart if we delight ourselves in Him (Ps. 37:4). During traumatic personal times in recent years, I had come to the realization that I really didn't know the true desires of my heart anymore. But God knew what they were. And He gave them to me, although my only year of teaching in Oregon passed much too quickly; although, on moving day, I shed tears all the way to the state line.

I was as happy working at Guide magazine as I have ever been working anywhere. Surely the God of Abraham, the great Arranger of real-life puzzle pieces, makes the path toward divinely appointed decisions more visible--and the aftermath sweeter--when we prayerfully consider biblical principles in an effort to "do it His way."

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After leaving Guide, Carolyn Rathbun married Jim Sutton. She spends her time writing (Write It on Your Heart and Staying Vertical are her latest books), speaking at retreats, and traveling with her husband to raise church-building funds through their ministry, Building for Christ. Carolyn and Jim live in Dayton, Tennessee.