Remember when you were young and misbehaving and your Mom gave you “that look?” You know the one. I can remember when I was little, there were five of us and Mom had her hands full. Sunday morning she would get us all ready for Church and we would all have to sit on the couch as to not get messed up before we had to leave. Once in Church, the benches were hard and it was so difficult to sit still and of course, I would start to wiggle. My Mom would reach over and squeeze my knee, or my ear, or if I was too far away she would tug my hair, just enough to hurt but not enough to make me cry out, because w e were in Church of course.
Well, this still happens in my life today. Only it’s not Mom pulling my hair its God and it doesn’t just happen in Church it happens in life…. It has been about seven years ago that something happened that radically changed my life. My husband all of his life from the time he was 9 years old wanted to live on and run a kids summer camp. He got the desire after attending a summer camp in Montana. Through a whole series of “God winks,” we landed at Four Corners Christian Camp in South West Colorado. My husband was on cloud nine, me not so much. I happened to be at the top of my career having worked my way up the ladder into an executive position. I share with people that I was actually a little ticked off at God because here my husband had gotten what he had prayed for – for so long and I did not feel like I had a place in it. And then one day God pulled my hair.
It happened in my office. My secretary was away from her desk and this cowboy wandered into my office unannounced. I was more than a little annoyed and inquired what I could help him with as I had a “very busy schedule.” He said he was there to talk about a medical procedure he was scheduled to have and he wanted to figure out whether it was worth having because of his age. He looked to be in his eighties.
So I asked him a question. “Tell me about your Mom and Dad, how long did they live and what was their health like?” As soon as the words left my mouth I thought, “don’t ask opened ended questions silly – you’re stretched for time and who knows where this will lead?” But the words had already crossed my lips.
He said “that’s interesting that you ask me that because I really want to tell you about my Mother – she was a school teacher. (I am thinking – take a chair this is going to take a while.) He goes on, she was a teacher back in the day when all the kids where in the same room. You’re probably too young to know about those days. (Actually I am not; I went to my first two years of school in a one-room school in S.D.) In those days the kids had to go to the outhouse to go to the bathroom. Well, my Mom during her student teaching landed what she thought was a great position under an awesome headmaster. On her first day she comes into the classroom and to her shock, there was a little boy named Bobbie tied with a rope to his desk. ” He chuckled a little bit and said, “Back in those days you could do that kinda thing.”
Now God had my attention……
The cowboy, who I knew not his name continued, “My Mom said every day she would come and this little boy was tied up. And then one day she got up enough courage to ask why. The headmaster told her that if she did not tie Bobbie up she would never get anything done.” He went on, “ And then the next year when the headmaster retired, my Mom got the job with the school as Bobbie's teacher. On the first day of school, she told Bobbie, ‘Bobbie, if you need to get up from your desk, just raise your hand because I will not be tying you up.’”
So every hour on the hour Bobby would raise his hand and ask to go to the outhouse. It did not take long before his Mom figured out the rhythm and looked out the schoolhouse window to see what was going on. There was Bobbie, not going to the outhouse, but running laps around the schoolhouse to get rid up his pent-up energy.
Now the cowboy tells me, “You have to fast forward to my Mom’s seventy-fifth class reunion. She is in her ninety’s and no one is left living from her graduating class. The school is honoring her and allowing individuals to get up and talk about their memories of her.”
Cowboys voice starts to crack a little and by this time we had both taken a chair. I reached over and touched his knee as he tells me a man gets up on the stage to take the microphone and said……
“You probably don’t remember me, but my name is Bobbie. I am the little boy that you untied from his desk. I went on to become a doctor. I don’t know what I would have done without you in my life and I just want to say thank you.”
And at that moment in my life, I understood “my purpose.” I left my executive job and now when people ask me what I do for a living I tell them I untie people from all of the situations in life that get them tangled up and I do it under the blood of Jesus Christ.
If you’ve hung with me through this entire story, then consider your hair pulled and listen up. If you need to be untied from something simply ask God to untangle you and without doubt accept his love and grace and it will be done.
Well, this still happens in my life today. Only it’s not Mom pulling my hair its God and it doesn’t just happen in Church it happens in life…. It has been about seven years ago that something happened that radically changed my life. My husband all of his life from the time he was 9 years old wanted to live on and run a kids summer camp. He got the desire after attending a summer camp in Montana. Through a whole series of “God winks,” we landed at Four Corners Christian Camp in South West Colorado. My husband was on cloud nine, me not so much. I happened to be at the top of my career having worked my way up the ladder into an executive position. I share with people that I was actually a little ticked off at God because here my husband had gotten what he had prayed for – for so long and I did not feel like I had a place in it. And then one day God pulled my hair.
It happened in my office. My secretary was away from her desk and this cowboy wandered into my office unannounced. I was more than a little annoyed and inquired what I could help him with as I had a “very busy schedule.” He said he was there to talk about a medical procedure he was scheduled to have and he wanted to figure out whether it was worth having because of his age. He looked to be in his eighties.
So I asked him a question. “Tell me about your Mom and Dad, how long did they live and what was their health like?” As soon as the words left my mouth I thought, “don’t ask opened ended questions silly – you’re stretched for time and who knows where this will lead?” But the words had already crossed my lips.
He said “that’s interesting that you ask me that because I really want to tell you about my Mother – she was a school teacher. (I am thinking – take a chair this is going to take a while.) He goes on, she was a teacher back in the day when all the kids where in the same room. You’re probably too young to know about those days. (Actually I am not; I went to my first two years of school in a one-room school in S.D.) In those days the kids had to go to the outhouse to go to the bathroom. Well, my Mom during her student teaching landed what she thought was a great position under an awesome headmaster. On her first day she comes into the classroom and to her shock, there was a little boy named Bobbie tied with a rope to his desk. ” He chuckled a little bit and said, “Back in those days you could do that kinda thing.”
Now God had my attention……
The cowboy, who I knew not his name continued, “My Mom said every day she would come and this little boy was tied up. And then one day she got up enough courage to ask why. The headmaster told her that if she did not tie Bobbie up she would never get anything done.” He went on, “ And then the next year when the headmaster retired, my Mom got the job with the school as Bobbie's teacher. On the first day of school, she told Bobbie, ‘Bobbie, if you need to get up from your desk, just raise your hand because I will not be tying you up.’”
So every hour on the hour Bobby would raise his hand and ask to go to the outhouse. It did not take long before his Mom figured out the rhythm and looked out the schoolhouse window to see what was going on. There was Bobbie, not going to the outhouse, but running laps around the schoolhouse to get rid up his pent-up energy.
Now the cowboy tells me, “You have to fast forward to my Mom’s seventy-fifth class reunion. She is in her ninety’s and no one is left living from her graduating class. The school is honoring her and allowing individuals to get up and talk about their memories of her.”
Cowboys voice starts to crack a little and by this time we had both taken a chair. I reached over and touched his knee as he tells me a man gets up on the stage to take the microphone and said……
“You probably don’t remember me, but my name is Bobbie. I am the little boy that you untied from his desk. I went on to become a doctor. I don’t know what I would have done without you in my life and I just want to say thank you.”
And at that moment in my life, I understood “my purpose.” I left my executive job and now when people ask me what I do for a living I tell them I untie people from all of the situations in life that get them tangled up and I do it under the blood of Jesus Christ.
If you’ve hung with me through this entire story, then consider your hair pulled and listen up. If you need to be untied from something simply ask God to untangle you and without doubt accept his love and grace and it will be done.
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