“Which way?” Denise’s question snaps me back to awareness. She’s coming into town and slowing down to an intersection. I sit up and glance around to figure out where we are. “Nice little town.”
She’s already been noticing that. “Yeah, I like it. You know, if we had more time…”
Time! That’s right. We’re in a hurry. An afternoon stop is not in the plan. We’ve got a long way to go to get back to Provo. I pull out my smart phone and click Google Maps to figure out where we are and which direction to go.
Just kidding! It’s 1987 and the closest thing to Google Maps is a Rand McNally road atlas with all the states. I thumb to Arizona and look at our route.
In her naiveté, Denise sweetly stamps on my toes. “We could stop for a little bit and ask somebody which way.”
I shoot an incredulous look towards Denise. I’m a fairly young man, but I’m still a man. There’s just something fundamentally wrong with asking for directions! I hastily look around until I see a sign for Highway 666 North. “That way!”
Whew! That was a manhood trap! Best to just keep traveling.
She shrugs and soon we’re again heading north. I settle back into my prior thoughts, mentally evaluating the overall the plan, ticking each point off on my fingers.
Serve a mission… Check. Go to college… Check. Get good grades… Check. Get married… Check.
None of which went as smoothly as planned, but so far, so good. Now we’re close to graduating and we’re job hunting. The plan is to finish school, get a good job…
A chuckle from my wife interrupts me. “What so funny?”
She looks surprised. “I didn’t laugh. You laughed!”
I shake my head. “No, not me.” I shrug and continue on my thought train. Let’s see… Get a good job. Get a home. Maybe move up the corporate ladder in a couple of years…
This time it’s more than a chuckle. It’s a hearty laugh! Denise looks over at me. “What are you laughing at?”
I’m confused! “I, uh… Nothing. I’m not laughing. I was just thinking of our plans and then…”
Now it’s a burst-out belly laugh – the kind where your Pepsi comes shooting out of your nose. Now both of us are wondering what is so dang funny.
They say that if you ever want to hear heaven laugh, just tell it your long-range plans.
CLUNK!
Our car comes to a shuddering stop at the side of the road. Great! Now what? We hadn’t really planned on this. (There’s that giggle again.) I step out to assess the situation. Three of the tires are parallel with the highway, but the fourth is pointing awkwardly at 90 degrees. I scratch my head. Maybe if I get some baling wire… Nah, it’s beyond baling wire. So I pull out my cell phone and call for a tow truck.
Just kidding. It was still 1987. Cell phones wouldn’t be a thing until for another ten or fifteen years.
So we started walking back to town. After about a mile, a policeman picked us up and gave us a ride to St. Johns. We arranged for a tow truck and then had the rest of the day to spend. We were eating at Katy’s Kountry Kitchen when a jolly old cowboy scooted over to our table. “What are you kids doing here? Where ya from?” We explained our situation. Charlie Patterson paid for our meal and said, “I’ve got some time. Why don’t you let me show you around.”
So we climbed in his pickup and got our first tour of St. Johns – it actually didn’t take very long. But he talked and told stories the whole way. Denise asked about the school so he took us to the District Office.
The nice receptionist greeted us and asked how she could help us. Denise was a little timid. “I don’t know if you have any job openings, but I wondered if I could pick up an application.”
Joyce Dimbatt leaned forward across the counter, eager to hear our story. “Where are you from? What brings you here?” Denise explained how she was just graduating from BYU with a teaching certificate and we were looking for jobs. Joyce walked around the counter and took Denise’s elbow. “Actually, the superintendent is meeting with the principals there in the boardroom. Why don’t you go right on in there and introduce yourself and visit with them.”
Denise was embarrassed. “Uh… no thank you. I’ll just take an application and…”
“Pshaw!” Sister Dimbatt pulled her towards the board room.
Now Denise became mortified. “I’m in jeans and a T-shirt! My résumé is back in the car! No! I’ll just…”
By then Joyce was knocking on door. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’d like to introduce this young lady to you.”
So began Denise’s interview. They visited with her for about an hour and then toured us around the schools. We had a good feeling about the place and the job, but after that we didn’t really hear much from them.
In the meantime, we finally made it back up to Provo and soon I got an interview with Morton Thiokol in northern Utah. The position was to be an Instrument Tech on the Space Shuttle booster rocket. (After the original Space Shuttle had exploded, the company was doing extensive development and testing to prevent any future disaster.)
The prospect was exciting! The interviewing supervisor took me out to the testing site and showed me around the booster I would be working on. They seemed to like me and everything appeared promising. They said they would call me.
What a lucky break! What a blessing! A kid, fresh out of college with no experience. And the chance to start out on such an exciting project. Those kinds of opportunities don’t come along just every day.
A few days later, Morton Thiokol called me with a nice offer and asked me to respond within three days. “Yes!” Just right, according to the plan! But about thirty minutes later, Denise got a call from St. Johns schools with an offer.
Now we had a dilemma. But not a very big dilemma. We talked about the choices and decided that it made much more sense for me to take the Thiokol job, as Denise could teach anywhere. But we should probably pray about it, just to make sure.
The answer was a strong feeling to go to St. Johns! Uh… that’s the wrong answer! Let’s try praying again. You see, Heavenly Father, I’m the one who needs to get my career started. Denise is planning on being a stay-at-home mom. You’re the one that got me the interview! You helped me do well in it.
Again, the strong feeling to go to St. Johns. “No, I’m going to transplant you to Arizona.” What?! That makes no sense! Are you sure that’s what you want us to do?
Where was the happy burning-of-the-bosom? It was mostly a sickening feeling to turn down such a great job. But even though the heartbreak, there was an assurance.
So, it was a hard thing to call the Supervisor at Morton Thiokol and thank him kindly for the offer, but no thanks. I was grumpy to have to do that. Grumpy and scared!
We moved to St. Johns and I was glad that I found a minimum wage job, but I felt more and more sick that I had turned down the Thiokol job. Surely we must have misread the prompting. A thousand times I questioned and kicked myself.
But then, in late December 1987, there was a terrible accident at Morton Thiokol. A booster rocket explosion had killed five technicians during a test firing. I sat mesmerized at the TV as the news showed footage of the accident. It was exactly where I was shown during my interview.
I became a whole lot less grumpy about the answer I had received! But sparing my life was just the first thing to be thankful for in this transplant. A thousand times I’ve been grateful for Father’s plan over mine. The Lord didn’t give me what I wanted – He gave me something better.
They say we should “bloom where you’re planted.” That sounds nice, but I wonder if it might be a little passive. Elder Gene R. Cook said, “…[The Lord] often chooses to act according to our faith… The Spirit of Christ is in every living thing. I think often the Lord says, ‘Don’t ask me to do it—YOU do it!’ …If you were dependent on the Lord to do all of the work, you would be a puppet on a string. But because of the great love of the Lord, he says, ‘I will give you some of my power until you learn to act independently, just as I do, if you will do my will. And if you will, I will eventually give you all my power.’” We are to bloom hard where we are planted, to blossom!
The Lord has a plan for our lives. He knows the best way to help us – to help us grow! He is pleased when we work and plan and set goals and act and become. But we also need to allow him to adjust our plans. He is the Good Father, the Master Gardener – not the Hard Taskmaster. We can trust that His plan, His planting, will be for our benefit and growth.
Excellent read! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful story! So glad you where directed here!
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