On history and orchestration...

I said in that last post that I went to live with my Uncle during my junior year of high school. I want to give you some backstory to that. Before that move took place, I lived in Orlando, FL with my mom and stepdad. I was attending Winter Park High. The school had over 3,500 students. I was supposed to be a Christian but I had walked away from that and had begun partying...a lot. I even had one of my non-Christian friends at one point tell me he thought I had a drinking problem (he was right).

My grades were worse than bad. My mom and stepdad were at their wits end with knowing what to do with me. So two weeks before Christmas during my junior year, my mom took the extreme measure of having me go and live with her brother (who was/is a preacher) in southern Ohio (just about 45 miles from Cincinnati in a little town called Jackson.

I went from a high school with over 3,500 to a school which included K thru 12 that only had about 200 students total. It was culture shock to say the least. Jackson, OH is not Orlando, FL.

That Christmas I spent with my Uncle was one of the lowest points of my life at the time. I had been removed from all of my family and friends. My Uncle and his wife felt sincerely bad for me.

But I made this decision that since no one knew me there at all, it gave me an opportunity to start over with a clean slate. So I decided to live for the faith that I had once professed to live for. I actually started reading God's Word.

I wasn't perfect, mind you. I still struggled with smoking from time to time. I had other issues that were struggles for me, but all in all, I was on track in my walk with Jesus again.

And it wasn't too long into my move to Jackson that I was introduced to another preacher in the same town who had a son that worked as the maintenance supervisor for a Bible Camp in northeast Ohio called Round Lake Christian Assembly. The preacher's name was Hoyt Allen, his son was Denny Allen. Hoyt asked me if I would be interested in a summer life guard position at the camp. I thought it sounded like a great idea.

So I made the drive up there with my Uncle and interviewed for the position. They told me I could have the job on one condition...that I got my hair cut. That was kind of a big deal to me. I had grown my hair at that time down past my shoulders. (Do me a favor and don't share that with my sons.)

So after finishing my junior year (and actually passing) I went to work as a life guard at the camp. While I was there, I noticed this pretty cook that was also there working her summer job. Her name was Shannon Curry. She had just finished her freshman year at Bible College and was working as a cook that summer.

Shannon and I struck up a sincere friendship (that was really nothing more than that). And then we both came back the next summer as well. It was that summer, the summer of 1989 that we both fell head-over-heels in love with each other.

And now, because I experienced discipline and was living my life away from God, I was taken far away (which I perceived to be the worst thing that could have ever happened to me) and it turned out to be the BEST thing that ever happened to me.

It is so easy for me to do that with my life backwards. I can look back and see the wonderful orchestration of my heavenly Father as He "meddles" with my life and puts me in circumstances where I will be drawn closer to Him. He truly is the great "Orchestrator" with our lives. The problem with us, though, is that we don't listen to the music.