More Life Changing Events

I was driving to Dallas every workday. Forty-five minutes each way. My tape player didn't work, I was sick of the liberal slant of NPR and I hate to listen to mindless music that someone else has chosen. I've never had the patience for talk radio, so that wasn't an option.

I decided to start to memorize scripture. Not being a 'system' guy (I try not to look at the manual), I bought the Navigator's Topical Memory System (TMS). I figured, if it's important, I should use the system. So I did, after a fashion.

I started to memorize two passages a week. One on Monday, one on Wednesday. On Thursday and Friday, I would go over all the verses I had memorized to that date.

It was cool! I started to see and think about verses differently. Verses I had heard my whole life started to take on new meaning to me when I would mediate on them. The best example I can think of is John 14:21. I was memorizing it and thinking about the part that says, '...and show myself to them.' So I prayed and asked Jesus to show himself to me that day. All I can tell you is that I saw more homeless people in Dallas that day than I did for the entire 3+ years I worked downtown. I'll write some other time about my favorite verses...Psalm 143:8, II Corinthians 12:9, Lamentations 3:22 - 23, Numbers 23:19.

All the while, I'm still praying that prayer - God, please make a change in my life.

The Web Group at DART was in Finance. We worked for the same AVP that was in charge of Budget, so much of the work we did was budget related.

I had known for months that DART was going to be doing some massive layoffs. I talked to the Boss and got him to promise that if I was going to get laid off, he would tell me asap so I could get a teaching job (I used to teach with his ex, so I knew he understood). He promised me that none of the web people would get laid off, but I still made him swear to tell me. I believed he meant it, but thought that events might get out of his control.

I knew that of the five people in the web group, I was the logical choice to get rid of. I had had some low evaluations and some conflicts with my manager. It was two years past, but I don't think that anyone had really forgotten. Also, they were all better programmers than I was. Given the choices available, I would have canned me.

So, on Friday, 8/9/03, Carla and I went to a marriage retreat with our Sunday school class. We actually had time in the car to talk. You know, communicate. It was so radical.

She said that she didn't understand why she was depressed. We had reached every goal we had ever set; cars paid for, house, two kids, I was making 55k with great insurance, and she was the piano player at our church. What more could you ask?

I agreed with her and said that I had been feeling restless and stressed lately - guys don't ever get depressed. Right?

Carla commented that maybe that was the reason - we had reached all of our goals. She added that maybe we needed to make new goals.

I believe that what I said next was a result of God changing the way I thought about things and the world in general. I said, 'Ok, but we're not going to make those kinds of goals anymore. We're only going to make goals that God can say we have finished.' We went to dinner at Outback and outlined about twenty goals that we thought God would want us to focus on; be a missionary family, know his will, follow his will, serve others, etc. After writing them all out, we realized that they were too complicated to share with our girls (five and seven). We boiled them down to; Serve God and Serve Others. Sound familiar?

We felt like we had reached a major milestone, marriage-wise. Four days later, I found out I was going to be laid off.