Now what? (Produce to People part 2)

So I had this incredible God moment. Clearly something happened that was beyond my own power. I made a promise, silly and shallow as it was. So with my new found “faith”, I did as promised and started going to church. The church of choice at that time was Newton Presbyterian Church, pastored by Don MacCleoud. Don was sent from God. I needed someone that wasn’t some wierd religious freak. God sent Don. Don and I went out to eat at a place called Ohara’s in Newton, MA. The one thing I remember is that he ordered a beer. I so appreciated that. Not becasue I was big drinker at the time (earlier years is another story), but it broke my mold of what I thought a pastor would do. I don’t think he even knows how crucial that was for me at that time. My time at Newton Pres was great, but God had something more for me. We moved to Hudson, MA and the commute to Newton was just too much. We had heard about a great new church that was building a new building in Hudson, MA. So we started to visit (we meaning my wife Roberta first, as always). My first day at their new building was Ground Hog day. The pastor was referring to the Bill Murray movie, Ground Hog Day, and mentioned, “Wouldn’t it be great if God would send us a Bill Murray type of guy here at Grace?”. Roberta went up to him after and said “You may regret what you wished for, wait til you meet my husband.” It was close to that time that I began one of the most significant relationships of my life with Mark Acuff. Mark was the type of pastor that had a clue what life is like outside of the church. He was highly relational, very funny, sometimes innapropriate (which I liked a lot) and mostly he was tolerant of me as I began my journey with Christ. My language was straight from the produce business. He never openly flinched from my comments and questions. It was at Grace that I began to wonder what God had in store for me. Was it really just going to chuch each Sunday? I got to meet such incredible people like the Hales, Canales, Hutts, and Whitesels to name just a few. This church was filled with broken people, discovering who they were in Christ for the first time. New believers are easily God’s worst nightmare. We just want everyone to know what we just found out, yet we really don’t know enough to help them and instead, we turn them away. Or at least that is likely what I was like.

It was on a Promise Keepers weekend that I really discovered just how messed up I was. Although I knew God, I had yet to allow him to overhaul my life. I was still in control. It was that weekend that I promised to my wife that I would be a better husband and father. I sensed God clearly had a call on my life and needed to start there. At that time, she was skeptical. All I could do was keep growing and praying that she would have enough Grace to wait out my growth. These were not great years for our marriage, but we survived.

Being the adventurous type, always looking for the biggest challenges to conquer, I volunteered in the Student Ministry. I can’t believe they would even let me hang with the students. The students knew more about God that I did, yet I was leading them. Little did I know how God would use that experience to change my life forever.

As I grew I became more aware of areas of my life that needed adjusting. I was sensing that God wanted me to run my business on the up and up. I also sensed that if I did, I would likely go out of business. I remember asking Mark what I should do, hoping he would say “Don’t sweat it, everyone does it”. Instead his answer was “Do you trust God or not”. Boy I hated that answer. He was right. If God was giving this to me, I needed to trust him. I made the decision that if God really was behind this then I would trust Him for the results. I didn’t take any shortcuts, i made it hard for Him to succeed. A short time after making the “adjustments” I got a call from one of my accounts. They were giving me all their business. He literally said “I don’t care what you charge me, I need a produce company that can make my problems go away”. Well, we were perfect for him, and he was perfect for us. They paid well (which is not the case for a lot of restaraunts) and they used a ton of produce. This one accont literally made up for the operating decisions I had just made. God showed me just how powerful he was. Coincidence, maybe, but as I have learned over the years, no one has that much coincidence in their life.

Amazing Grace (Produce to People part 1)

So there I was some 17 years ago pushing produce and trying to figure out life. I was 27 and not sure what in the world my problem was, I could not control my thoughts and fears. I would constantly allow myself to freak out and that would only freak me out more. It was a very scary, dark time. I became so desperate that I puchased a book called The Power Of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. I knew that all I needed to do was control my thinking and the book hit the nail on the head for what I was sure I needed. Nothing like that self-help stuff. One problem, it was a “religious” book. What in the world was I thinking when I bought that? Like that book could really help me…

Well I was desperate, even desperate enough to read a “religious” book. As I read I discovered the feelings that were crippling me were actually not so rare. In fact many of the stories I read could have easily been me. After a few days reading and skipping over the prayer part at the end of each story or chapter, I finally lost all my senses and prayed (or maybe I got so desperate). It was a deep prayer, really filled with all my life’s understanding of God. The prayer went something like this, “Dear God, I am a mess. I so desperately need your help. If you could please relieve me of these aweful feelings I will go to Church every Sunday (that was the deep part).” After the prayer…nothing happened. No just kidding. Literally after that prayer I felt like my body and all the built up stress was being vented out like air through a pressure relief valve. To this day, some 17 years later, I can still remember the feeling and my exact location, like it was yesterday. And there it was the hour that I first believed. Amazing Grace, that someone who could spend his life ignoring and discrediting God, could so easily be forgiven by Him.