A veteran of the U.S. Navy, this fellow showed up with a greased-back pompadour atop a long and lean body as thin as a fence post. He had managed a PX in Florida during the Korean War and had parlayed that into a job in the purchasing office of the local Swift’s Meat Packing plant.
He knew nothing about hospital supplies, but Jim Dack and the young man hit it off in that interview. Like Dack, the young man had a young family. He knew from experience how caring for his own wife and pre-school sons and daughters motivated him to work hard, and suspected this young father would be equally driven to provide for his children: three boys under five, including a newborn.
The job was offered and accepted. As Jim Dack and Gale Robertson, my father, shook hands that day, the path of my life was forever changed.
Mr. Dack, as I knew him, left Sioux City for another administration job at a larger hospital in Columbia, Missouri. A year or so later, in late 1964, he found himself in need of a purchasing agent at that hospital, and called the young man who had become his good friend.
Dad moved us all to Missouri in 1965.
Have you ever thought about the decision points that forever changed the direction of your life, even before you were ever born?
I suspect I might still be a writer if I had grown up in Sioux City, Iowa. Like most writers, it seems to be something that comes from deep within me, not a choice I made consciously.
I would have grown up in the Morningside Church of Christ in Sioux City, rather than Westside Christian Church in Columbia. The Sunday School teachers and preachers who influenced me would have been different people, but would have taught me to believe similar doctrines.
Given the family in which I grew up, I would likely have chosen to go to Bible college after graduating from an Iowa high school, just as I did in Missouri. But in Missouri my family was heavily involved with Central Christian College in Moberly, Missouri. In Sioux City, the church had a close relationship with Nebraska Christian College, in Norfolk.
And that different choice of where I would go to college is where the change in my life would really accelerate. It was at Central Christian College that I was greatly influenced by one professor in particular, Wayne Kessler, who introduced me to an entirely different perspective on scripture. And I was taught by Dan Schantz, who encouraged my interest in being a writer.
And, more importantly, it was at Central that I met – and married – Karen Ward, who has been my wife ever since.
Because of her cousin, Lora Hobbs, we decided to become foster parents, a decision which would come to dominate our lives for decades. Because of my experience with the Christian Campus House at Mizzou, we quickly became involved there after we moved to Columbia. And because of that connection, we eventually wound up leading the CCH prison ministry.
None of which would ever have happened if Jim Dack and my dad had not hit it off during that job interview.
Every day we make decisions. Every decision affects our journey on the one road.
How can a young man keep his way pure?
By living according to your word.
I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands.
I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
Praise be to you, O LORD; teach me your decrees.
With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth.
I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches.
I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways.
I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word.
Psalm 119:9-16
No comments:
Post a Comment