Papa Dave

From Chapter 2, The Job

I stopped digging. "God, you know me and how much I want to work with fish and wildlife, but maybe this is not what you have in mind for me." Just one more plea seemed to be in order. "Although I have really worked for this, considering my time in school- and what I really want to do- well, maybe this is not what you have in mind for me. So God, I give this all to you. Whatever you have in mind for me is OK with me." I sincerely meant it. I was actually turning my job future over to God. "God just show me what you want me to do and I will do it. I want to do what you have for me to do."

At that moment all my anxiety was released. All my fear about the future left me. My anger and foolish pride was relieved, and a warmth came over me like I had never before experienced. It was as though I was enveloped in God's embrace and absolutely everything was going to be OK. The miraculous transformation from being at my wits end to being completely at peace defied my understanding. I was just so glad that the internal struggles were over and I could relax. I simply renewed post hole digging with acceptance and vigor. This was what I was to do now, so just do it.

Well now, I had lived in this peace of God, which defies human understanding, for only two or three minutes, when the second extraordinary event of that morning happened. My Mother-in-Law, Nettie, walked out onto her back steps and hollered "Dave, there's someone on the phone from Florida and they want to know if you can come for a job interview." I was definitely Olympic material the way I ran across the field to the house telephone.