Career, Family And Living For The Lord
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A Twenty-Five Year History

When Linda and I had moved to Fredericksburg in October 1989, we believed that the Lord had a special reason for moving us there. We never saw the end of my consulting business in either April or November as a freak happening or even as bad luck. We knew that a God Who involves Himself in the lives of His people does not let crisis happen without cause. Therefore, from the very start of our ordeal of unemployment, we tried to understand the spiritual message behind what was happening. What was the Lord trying to say to us? What did He want us to be doing? Despite our efforts to ask the right questions, though, we still were not very successful at getting the right answers. When I was out of work for the second and final time after having already moved to Fredericksburg, I was especially bothered by what seemed to be a very obvious contradiction. Why would the Lord lead us to an area and then not give us a way to take care of ourselves? For several months during that time, Linda and I were both trying to understand what the Lord was wanting to accomplish in our life as a couple. In my case, I prayed almost without ceasing trying to get some answers.

As it turned out, my answer finally came in February. I had been trying to fill some of my empty hours by cleaning up around our property. I had been cutting down some unwanted small pine trees, picking up garbage, and as a result of both of those chores, making a lot of trips to the local junk yard to dispose of all the trash. It was on one of those trips to the junk yard that I again began praying and meditating about our situation, about being in a new area, about being unable to find work, and also about that of wanting to serve the Lord. Then, all of a sudden, my answer came! Just as I turned my truck into the junk yard, a thought was instantly placed in my mind which made me think to myself that "now is the time!" When that thought came to me, I knew immediately what it meant!

I had become a Christian on December 14, 1967. My conversion had been very emotional because I had thought at the time that my life was destroyed. My conversion had also been very unusual because I was not in or involved with a church. I was driving along Interstate-64 in Hampton, Virginia, sobbing about my hurt, broken life and doing my very best to make peace with my Lord. I asked Him to please forgive me for all the bad that I had done, and I pledged my lifelong devotion to Him if He would get me out of my bind. As I closed that prayer, driving along that dark highway, I told the Lord that if He would get me out of my mess then I would do my very best to tell the world what He had done for me.

For me, with my particular personality, interests, and skills, my pledge to Him was intended to mean that I would "write" about what had happened. Consequently, as a young Christian in the late sixties and seventies, I had tried many times to write about my life-changing experience on the Interstate. But I had never had the confidence to see any of my writings through. I had always been afraid that I would be writing about my experience, say something which was theologically stupid, and then do more harm than good. Pastor Dale Burden had been a very good influence on me during the seventies. But because of my spiritual immaturity, I had been more concerned than I should have been about what he might think about my story and writings. During the eighties, after I had read and studied the Bible in depth, I handwrote a commentary on the Book of James, plus I also tried once again to write about my Interstate experience. But like before, I backed away from both because my confidence level began to diminish.

In February 1990, while turning into a junk yard in Fredericksburg, Virginia, I felt a sensation in my heart which I believed to be from the Lord, and that sensation was telling me that the time had finally come for me to put into writing all the wonderful things that the Lord has done for me. On that day, I felt the Lord telling me to stop leaning on my own lack of confidence and to start relying on Him so that I could do what He really wanted me to do. Since then, I have tried to do precisely that. Today, when I write, I do not concern myself with gaining the approval of others. Instead, I write from a heart which has known and loved the Lord for almost thirty years, and I write from a heart which truly wants others to know Him, too.

Over the past seven-and-a-half years, I have written four books, which really have been reduced down to three books. The first book, entitled That Ye May Know The Truth, was a monsterous work. It was over five hundred pages long and over one hundred and sixty-six thousand words. I have often told others that I wrote everything which I knew in one book and that That Ye May Know The Truth is the result. I found a publisher in Utah who was willing to publish my book, but when I was asked to help in the publishing costs, I declined.

In 1996, I began to think that my book was too long and very hard to read, so I split it into three shorter, easier to read works. The first is Rediscovering The Truth About Creation, and it presented the lies which are being taught in our society and public schools about the Theory of Evolution and the Big Bang theory. I found a publisher for that book, too, but that publisher also wanted me to subsidize their costs. So, once again, I chose to not have my works put into print. The second book which came out of that first monsterously large work is The Story Of My Difficult Years, and it presented the events of my life leading up to and including my Interstate experience. This second book is my personal testimony of how I became a Christian and also of how the Lord has blessed me since that first day when I trusted Him. The third book is The Truth About Right Living, and I wrote that book to share what the Lord has taught me over these past thirty years about having a personal relationship with Him.

I do not concern myself with being published or even with trying to impress others. I am much more concerned about doing the Lord's will in my life. Now, seven-and-a-half years after my memorable drive to the junk yard, I am very glad that I acted on the simple sensation which I felt as I turned into that yard.

After moving to Fredericksburg, Linda and I have seen our family grow even more. I already mentioned the additional grandchildren who have been born, but I have not mentioned our two most recent son-in-laws. In June 1995, Crystal and Bobby were married, and in March 1997, Debbie and Harvey were married. Both Bobby and Harvey are auto mechanics, and both have tried without much luck to fix our troubled Toyota Cressida. My guess is that that problem is much more than anyone can handle. Nevertheless, all of us have had some fun trying to argue different solutions. Martin is a trained aircraft mechanic, and a few weeks ago, all three of them were in our living room spouting their theories about how to fix the problem. But I do not think that any of their solutions were correct.

Bobby has not been able to fix our Cressida even though he has tried a lot of different things, and Martin has also tried a few things which ultimately did not work. Both have put forth some effort, and Linda and I appreciate it. However, Bobby has been especially helpful in keeping up the maintenance on both of our vehicles. He has always been willing to change the oil, the spark plugs, or whatever else that needed to be done, and that has been very helpful to me. I told him a while back that we can pay off our house in just a few years if we do not have to buy another vehicle, and he has gone beyond the call to help us meet that objective.

In April 1998, we expect Pam to present us with another grandchild. That will be their fifth, and while I am excited about the addition of another family member, I do not envy them having to raise another child. Linda and I raised five, and I have to admit that child rearing wore me out! I feel like I can suffer through a few more grandchildren or even great-grandchildren, however.

As I come to the final section of this book, someone might ask why I have written this one book and tried to talk about my career, my family, and my Christian walk all in one. My answer is that I have done so for a variety of reasons, and most of those reasons are completely unrelated. One of my initial objectives was to document my twenty-six year career as a mathematician and computer specialist. I have had a fairly good, yet also very unique career, and I wanted to record some of my more exciting work. I also wanted to write about and document some of the mathematical equations which have come from that work. A second, very important goal of this book has been to get down in writing the incredible story of our family. I believe that the Lord brought Linda and me together almost thirty years ago, and even though she and I made some mistakes during the early part of our relationship, I also believe that He has greatly blessed our union and the family which has resulted from that union.

A third reason for writing about our years together has been to share with others exactly how the Lord has carried us, and especially me, from those early days as a Christian until these days. My Christian life began on a dark Interstate highway on December 14, 1967. As a confused, frightened, terribly messed-up teenager, I turned to the Lord and asked Him to forgive me for all the terrible things which I had done. From that simple prayer of genuine sorrow and repentance, He took me from a place of absolute helplessness and hopelessness to a position of great hope in Him. I never envisioned what He would have in store for me as an individual or even for Linda and me as a couple, but now I am thrilled about the life which He has let us share together.

With five emotionally healthy and stable children and with thirteen thriving grandchildren, soon to be fourteen, we have a family which cannot be matched by many. Linda and I see much good that has come from our being together, and we owe all of it to the Lord. In many ways, this book has been intended to be a history of our family, and I have tried to carefully and accurately present many of our more interesting happenings. As with all such books, I know that I have probably left out much, but I have still tried in these few pages to capture the essence of our family over these past twenty-five years.

A fourth reason for writing this book has been to talk about some of my investment principles. I have tried to write about my approach to investing from the standpoint that I may not be around to personally share these ideas with our various family members at the moment in their life when investing becomes important to them. I also wanted to formally record the key equations which I have used for over ten years to guide my own financial planning. Few people can comprehend how financially strapped Linda and I actually were during the first seven-to-ten years of our marriage, but the Lord brought us through a great deal and has actually blessed us with a measure of financial security. These facts about our life needed to be written because of the vow which I made to the Lord on the night that I turned to Him.

A fifth reason for writing this book has been based on the fact that the Lord showed me about this nation's future retirement crisis in the early eighties, while it seems that many in this country did not wake up to the real risk of Social Security until the nineties. The Lord revealed to Linda and me the housing crisis of the early nineties in the late eighties and allowed us to get out of our home in Dale City while we could still get most of our equity. Plus, the Lord let us experience a severe bout of unemployment just before the Recession and the really bad unemployment crisis of the early nineties. These things have shaped much of our later years together, and they needed to be shared with those who might still be in the early years of their Christian walk. The Lord is faithful, and He has certainly been faithful to us.

My sixth and final reason for writing this book has been to share what I consider to be the great religious fallacy of our times. Linda and I have spent about twenty years in the Baptist church, and during that time, we have been greatly aware of a very strong focus on good works. As Christians, we should live right, but much more importantly, we should try to live by the simple, straightforward teachings of Matthew 22:37-39. These verses tell us to love the Lord with all our heart, mind, and soul. They also tell us to love our neighbor as ourselves. In my Christian experience, I have noted that we are often very quick to tell others "how" they should satisfy these three verses. My opinion is that we would do well if we just tried to demonstrate this kind of biblical love for ourselves. Christian living is not about battling with all your might to keep sin from entering your life. It is about love. It is about loving God supremely and then about loving others with a pure, godly love.

In my older age, I have taken myself out of the meddling business. I would much rather lift people up by telling them about a God Who loves them, and then, I would like to show others how important it is for us to love one another. Life is not easy, and for some of us, it is very difficult. May we always be guilty of helping one another, of loving one another, and of lifting up one another instead of ever being guilty of tearing each other apart. As I close out this final section of this final chapter, my desire is that at least a few of the words in this book have provided some amusement and some insight into what living for Christ has meant to me.