A call to write
When I was young I was always fascinated with recording things on paper, but I never dreamed of being a writer. Homework always seemed tedious. My writing assignments always seemed to do well, and I think a sense of pride partly fueled writing as a hobby. Still, engineering remained my number one passion.
This began to change, however, as I grew older. I began to sense a desire to influence others and my passion for writing grew. In the 1970s, I wrote an article and submitted it to the Overflowing Cup Christian Coffeehouse in Beloit, which they then published in their monthly newsletter. The article received good feedback, and Dave Fogderud asked if I could write more. Still, my long work hours and poor sleep left me feeling so burned out that I am ashamed to say I declined. It seems God had other plans, for me but about a decade would pass before I would take the next step.
After five years in Minneapolis we returned to Illinois. In our new church, one church service in particular was especially meaningful. A visiting evangelist was speaking to a full house about the importance of every Christian finding a ministry that God was calling them to.
He stressed that most Christians are not called to preach, but that God has a plan for each and every person. As he spoke, I silently asked God, “What ministry do you have for me –
do you want me to write?" At that instant, the evangelist looked directly at me and said, "God is calling some of you to be writers!" He then looked around the room and named other professions such as doctors and lawyers in a similar fashion. But now God had my attention. I was startled! It was as if God himself had answered my question saying, “I want you to write!”
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So this began a process in which I began to wrestle with all of my excuses for not pursuing writing, which primarily centered around my dream of being an engineer.
Yet writing did seem to be in sync with what I had been hearing from God through the years. I had always logged musings, events, and ideas in journals, as well as poems and theories about many things. The stack of journals had grown.
So now it seemed logical that God would clarify my calling, telling me to focus on writing.
But before I could pour myself into writing I needed to earn a living. Brenda and I also needed to experience other aspects of God's plan for us. So writing had to wait.
For three years I was self-employed designing automated machines. For our family these were times of feast and famine. Large checks were usually followed by long periods without pay, and the more routine computer services I was providing weren't bringing in enough to pay bills during lean times.
In hindsight, I was not in the center of God's will when I ignored the obvious need to get a job as I pursued the dream of self-employment, and if I had it to do over again common sense would suggest I develop my dream on the side. At some point, my partner accepted a real job and I worked on my own for a while. Then, eventually, Brenda and I agreed it was time for me to find a real job, so I launched a job search.
Miracle job search
One day, in order to obtain a list of prospective employers, I went to the library and looked up businesses in the local Chamber of Commerce directory. There were hundreds to choose from. Most of which had nothing to do with my experience. After writing down addresses of a few large companies that seemed like possibilities, I decided to give God a chance by picking two more at random.
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I was pleasantly surprised that both of the random picks were machine shops, and I was even more surprised that one of them already knew me, because I and my partner Dave had done design work for them in the past, and they also made parts for me when I was on my own. More specifically, the two companies were United Tool, and Blackhawk Machine. It was Blackhawk that already knew me.
I didn't have much faith in random picks, so at first I applied at the bigger companies. But the economy was slow, and none offered even an interview. Finally, I had only two random picks left, and both of them gave interviews! And then, a second little miracle – Blackhawk offered me a job!
Since then, I have told this story a number of times to Sunday school classes as a testimony of God's guidance and provision. What seemed random at the time was apparently not random from God's perspective. But that is not the end of the story.
After beginning work at Blackhawk, they allowed me to continue work on a design for a machine that my partner and I had started before he left. And then, in addition, I designed a machine similar to the one Dave and I had installed in Canada. So for awhile the work was both interesting and stressful, until eventually the market for tractor-feed paper products dwindled, and the machines became obsolete.
And even that is not the end of the story. When this book was almost complete there was another little miracle twist. About fourteen years after I started at Blackhawk, a father and son team who worked for my first random pick started their own company on the side and called it Seraph Industries. They used United Tool's facilities to begin making pellet stoves for homes, then expanded to build bigger machines that make the pellets. And then, about nine years later, Seraph bought Blackhawk because they had been hiring us to machine many of their parts.
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The Blackhawk Collator and Continuous Forms Attachment with a printing press were shown at trade shows.
So while I continued to work for Blackhawk in the same building, I then reported to people who have a close association with United Tool, but operate their own company under the name Seraph Industries – a name which was not even in existence when I applied at United.
So the incredible result is that I ended up working for both random picks as part of God's plan for my life! It seems that sometimes God has amazing ways of letting us know he is the master planner and is even in control of the tiny details!
Roof on the lawn
When I first began work at Blackhawk, Brenda and I bought a house from my father. It was the house I grew up in from fifth grade on. One Saturday was quite windy, and my dad was visiting. We were talking about home remodeling, 92
and my dad said, “You know, one of these days you are going to have to fix this leaky roof.” I started to agree, but even before the words left my mouth a loud roar interrupted our conversation. Behind where I was standing, the stovepipe shot up through the ceiling, leaving a gaping hole with blue sky above it. We ran outside and found the pipe and roofing from the back two-thirds of the house had blown over the house and landed on the front lawn. It was a real mess.
In the end, insurance bought a professionally installed new roof for the flatter back two-thirds of the house. I still wound up shingling the front one-third myself, but friends from church came out, and together we completed it on a Saturday morning. At the time of this revision, my dad has passed away, but even when he was in his 90s he still remembered this story fondly. That roof worked great for the next twenty years, and then was destroyed in another amazing twist when trees fell on it a day after we moved out
– but more about that later.
Nostradamus
During these years, I did not forget that God had called me to write. But in order to write one must choose a topic. The early years of writing were exploratory, and I experimented with various topics. All along I felt inexperienced and out of my league. Keeping a journal helped, and I had been doing that for decades, but now I became more consistent.
About this time, I developed an interest in Nostradamus, the French astrologer. Thus was the start of a book that I thought was a Christian perspective on the writings of Nostradamus. Gradually, I wrote enough pages to make a book – thirteen chapters in all. Now I can just hear some of you mumbling, so let me assure you that I am not particularly proud of this excursion into the occult. However, I rationalized that because Nostradamus claimed allegiance 93
to Christ I could do this with a clear conscience. I actually think that God was letting me try out my new directive in a virtual sandbox where I was free to make mistakes before kicking me out into the real world.
After three years of hard work I carefully printed the best chapters and submitted them to seven publishing houses. Gradually, one by one, I received rejections. After six rejections, only one response had not been received. It was only then, on a Saturday morning, that I thought I heard clearly from God that I was not supposed to publish the book. And then, with much prayer during the next few hours it seemed I had confirmations. God was telling me not to publish the book. I even literally heard Scooby Doo on a Saturday morning cartoon say, “Don't publish that book!”
Finally, feeling somewhat defeated, I approached Brenda and told her the news. Her response was, “How can you think of giving up on this when you have invested so much time and effort?” But I was so confident that it was God speaking to me that I made a deal with her. I said that if she could pick a random verse out of any Bible in the house that had nothing to do with the evils of astrology, I would go ahead and publish the book. She seemed to think such a deal was good, since there are only a couple verses in the Bible that even deal with astrology. So she quickly grabbed a Bible and put her finger down on a page. Then she began to read aloud. After only two words she looked up in disbelief and said simply, "You're not supposed to publish the book."
A few minutes later I went out to the mailbox. In it was a letter from the seventh publisher, saying that they would like to publish the book if I was willing to put in some hard work. It was with some sadness that I responded saying I no longer wanted to publish it. Since then, I have not stopped writing, and have gone on to self-publish several other books on topics which are less controversial than Nostradamus from a Christian perspective, of which this is the fourth. I also was paid to ghost write for an evangelist, and edited and published a book for a Baptist pastor.
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With the Nostradamus book, God allowed me to learn important lessons over a span of several years. And then, in the final moments on a Saturday before receiving approval from a publisher, God pulled the plug. In the midst of great disappointment, we were in awe of his split-second timing. •
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