As years passed, I gained experience in the field of gear manufacturing, rather than writing. The call to write wasn't forgotten, it is just that I continued to be haunted by the feeling that I lacked the depth of education. Even when re-reading the Nostradamus manuscript, I felt the flow was choppy and amateurish.
At some point I had an epiphany that one of the most effective writers of old was Paul the Apostle, and he was educated. He had been trained by Gamaliel who is respected by Jews even today. Of course, once educated, Paul went on to write many of the books of the New Testament, and became influential even to the point of surpassing the fame of his teacher. Thus it seems the value of Paul's education was great, and one could argue that the impact of his writing far exceeded the impact of his preaching.
Of course, I already had some education that even included writing classes, but I hadn't paid enough attention because my passion had been refocused to engineering. But now things were different. The passion was back, and I began to feel that if God was calling me I had better do something to get back on track.
Therefore, in the year 2000 I began praying about completing a college degree, and decided to check into a number of schools, My brother-in-law suggested Cardinal Stritch – a Catholic school where he had gone. I also did some research, and there were two other Christian schools with Rockford area extensions that seemed appealing. The result was that I had not reached a decision. Furthermore, I wanted to be led by God, and I wasn't even sure that God was calling me to go back to school.
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One evening, when I attended a board meeting at Riverside Assembly, a board member looked out the window and spotted a cardinal. Pastor Moore became excited and ran to the window, but the bird had already flown away. Then he explained that he had lived in Rockford for more than ten years and had never yet seen a cardinal. He added that it seemed like everyone else was seeing them, but not him. I thought to myself, "I wish I had prayed for a sign that very day, for then I would be able to claim this as a sign to attend Cardinal Stritch!" But such was not the case, and I couldn't bring myself to make such a life-changing decision on such scanty evidence.
However, the episode did cause me to begin to pray more earnestly for a sign. Several weeks went by. Then one day at work everything seemed to come to a head. While working I specifically asked God if he would give me three signs before midnight to reveal which school he might want me to attend, if any. I felt that one sign could be just a coincidence, but three would give me confidence that God was speaking.
And then, just to prove I was serious, I decided that if I did not receive three signs that day, I would interpret that in itself to be a sign that it was not God’s will for me to go back to school, and I would no longer seek a sign. The truth is, I was becoming frustrated not knowing my future and wanted some kind of closure to the decision-making process.
A few hours later as I drove home, there was a Christian song on the radio. Suddenly, inexplicably I felt certain the next line of the song would contain a sign from God. So I listened intently. The line in the song mentioned two things
– fire and blood. As I pondered their meanings, I was able to almost immediately connect the word “blood” with Cardinal Stritch University, since the word “cardinal” and “cardiac”
have the same root, and also relate to the color of blood. But I had no clue how the word “fire” might apply. After I got home, I went on the Internet and began checking out each college on my list. But only Cardinal Stritch seemed to connect with fire, for I then saw that the school logo 106
was an oil lamp with a flame! So I decided both the words
“blood” and “fire” could point to Cardinal Stritch, and there seemed to be no such connection to any of the other schools.
But that still left one more sign unfulfilled.
As luck would have it, this day was a Tuesday, and there was again a board meeting at our church. During the course of the meeting, our pastor once again looked out the window. Only this time he announced that he was actually looking at the very first Cardinal he had ever seen since moving to Rockford! So this became my third sign. I bit my tongue and said nothing, but when I returned home I announced rather excitedly that I was enrolling at Cardinal Stritch University.
My new resolve caused me to promptly contact the school and sign up for its Business Administration program.
The coursework emphasized writing. Even though the school was Catholic based, I found that its professors claimed many different philosophies. Paul Leisure was their writing instructor, and I took several of his classes by the time I graduated. He also did the Community Calendar episodes for WGSL, our local Christian radio station, and he shared my worldview.
He also took a personal interest in my writing, critiqued a rough draft of my book “Amazing Evidence,”
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and helped me improve it. So I was beginning to see why God had led me to Cardinal Stritch.
It took a lot of hard work, but after four years of classes, a wannabe writer graduated with more writing experience thanks to the creativity of an amazing God who was able to connect a school's identity with fire, blood, and a little red bird.
Gifts received
While I was attending Cardinal Stritch, we received a brand new 2003 Dodge Caravan as a gift from Brenda's aunt.
It was an answer to prayer that took a long time to materialize. It was not the only gift that Aunt Betty gave us.
For years we had used a 13-inch television that was actually a vintage computer monitor from the days of Atari and Commodore. By connecting it to a VCR's output, it became a color television. I was okay with that, because I have always had a love-hate relationship with television anyway.
But Brenda had been hoping for something better.
One day, as we shopped at Walmart, some large TVs were on display in the main aisle. Brenda mentioned that we could buy one on credit, since money was tight. I suggested that we pray for one, and avoid the debt. Brenda agreed, and we both silently agreed in prayer for a new television.
Within a week or so, Aunt Betty also saw the same display and was apparently led by God to buy one for us –
the same exact one that we had been looking at! It had an extra large screen by the standards of the day, and was more importantly a welcome answer to prayer – at least for Brenda! Maybe God does actually approve of television?? •
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