The date of my exam was drawing near. I had to find the time to study amid the hours I had to work and attend to my family and house keeping responsibilities, so every moment was precious.

I had planned to keep the whole afternoon free to study a series of questions on constitutional and administrative law in preparation for the exam scheduled for the next day. But, immediately after lunch, one of my son’s friends called to say they would be coming over that evening. This meant I needed to put the house in order. I thought to myself, “What should I do? Should I just pretend that everything is fine? Anyway, the boys wouldn’t notice…” Then I remembered the words:

“Seek first the kingdom of God … and all these things will be given you besides” (Mt 6:33)

I knew what I had to do. As I dusted the bookcase, I noticed a book leaning awkwardly on the shelf crammed in with a lot of other books. I took it out and saw that it dealt with the exact question in the law that was just what I needed. I had forgotten that I had it. I finished cleaning and late in the afternoon, I began studying.

The next day was the exam and as I joined the others, I noticed that the anxiety was high. So as we waited for it to begin, I started telling some of the jokes that my son and his friends had told the night before. It really eased the tension. The exam questions included some of the ones I had worked on the evening before from the book I had found by chance. “It’s really true,” I thought. “All we need to do is to seek the kingdom of God and he will look after all the rest.”

T. E.

Published with permission from Living City April 2010, the Focolare Movement's monthly magazine of religion, dialogue and culture | www.livingcitymagazine.com