Surrounded by Miracles

Introduction -- Surrounded by Miracles My life is surrounded by miracles. When I was born my mother Hazel says that the umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck, wrapped around my leg and tied in a knot. They had to call in a special substitute physician three times to help in my birth. Perhaps those three loops could have deprived me of oxygen–my wife would say that explains my strange behavior. But maybe it was a miracle that I was even here at all and God watched over me so I could have the privilege of life here in this wonderful place. The number three seems to be significant in my life. I was the third child. My wife Susan was the third child. I have three sons. I graduated third in my high school class. In I Corinthians 12:49 Paul says God set some in the church first Apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers. My parents met as teachers. Two of my sisters were teachers. And I am a teacher. My sister Nancy dropped me on my head on the concrete floor when I was about six months old. That also helps explain why I’m so strange – you see it’s not really all my fault after all! Perhaps it was when I fell off the scaffold backwards at work and landed on my head on the concrete floor, or maybe in second grade when I fell on top of the slide and broke my two front teeth off and replaced them with gold, or got gassed working at a construction site – any of those things would make a normal person strange. But I like to think it’s because I am surrounded by Angels that watch over me and protect me and when the adversary brings harm my way God protects me. Truly I am surrounded by miracles and so are my friends and family. I felt led to write this little book to encourage you that common people all around you are being watched over by Almighty God and His Holy Angels who cares for us and protects us. He provides for our needs and wants you to know that He is interested in the smallest detail of your life as well as in the concerns of “important” people. Some of these stories are miracles that I have experienced or have heard about in my friends’ lives. Some are just funny stories that help make up the fabric of our lives (See Sue and Donna and the chickens). 1 – Finding Work Working at a job is one of the most important activities for a modern man. It helps each of us to provide for the necessities of life and the needs of our family. In this time of high unemployment in the inner cities of America lack of work is destroying the family structure. Men in particular must work – the Bible puts it so strong in the New Testament that it states if any man not work – let him not eat. Personally I believe the wide availability of unemployment benefits though temporarily of great benefit in the long term are of great destructive power. We must work or we as men lose a part of our necessary male character. I come from a background where I saw my Dad go to work every day. He sold trailers or “mobile homes” for the Isemann Corporation in Bismarck, ND; Rapid City, SD; and Sioux Falls, SD. It was not a forty hour a week job. He usually was at work by seven in the morning and left at eight at night Monday through Saturday. On Sundays the lot was open in the afternoon. The theory was that if the sales lot wasn’t open people couldn’t buy trailers and he couldn’t sell them to those people. You might think this is horrible for hours. But this is not that much different from your normal small business man. They put in very long hours so they can have their own piece of the American Dream. There is an equation you might want to know: (Long Hours) X (lots of effort) = Financial Success The converse is also true: (Short Hours) X (little effort) = Financial Failure In the fall of 1976 I was out of work. I had two small children and my wife was pregnant with our third. We had no insurance. I was looking for work. It was December and the economy was not very good. In September I had been fired from a very good job after I had an accident where my milk truck rolled over. I made it through October and part of November working on an asphalt paving crew but was laid off for the winter around Thanksgiving. Our child was due by the end of December and I was getting desperate. Every day I would go out and apply for jobs, check back at places I had been before and pray for work. I was driving down Mount Rushmore road in Rapid City and reached the stop light on Omaha street. When I was at the light a Voice spoke to me and told me to go to the civic center. It was the same Voice that spoke to Elijah as a still small voice, not as an audible voice, but a voice in my heart or head – I don’t remember which. I went to the civic center job site. I had applied there a week or so before for a laborer’s job. That morning by “coincidence” one of the men didn’t show up and I was hired in his place. I became a night watchman. Now there are a lot of strange details that go along with this strange coincidence. First of all – it wasn’t at the civic center. Somehow I was confused and this job site was actually for the new Rapid City Central High School. God spoke to me and told me to go to the wrong place knowing that I had the job site confused. I didn’t really enjoy this job much. I would work for twelve hours – 7:00 pm to 7:00 am Monday through Friday and another watchman and I split shifts on the weekend where one of us went 7:00 am to 7:00 pm and the other went 7:00 pm to 7:00 am. It totally messed up my sleep habits. My wife used to have to hush up my two little boys during the day because that’s when I slept so I could work all night. We also split the days Monday through Friday so it seemed like we only worked about 48 hours a week. It was kind of scary working at night with the wind blowing the plastic at a lonely construction site. BUT GOD GAVE ME THAT JOB AND BOY WAS I THANKFUL!!!