02/02/26 THE HIDDEN BLESSINGS

02/02/26 THE HIDDEN BLESSINGS

When I was a Bible college student, I paid my own way. In my senior year, Martha's mom came to JWC as Dean of Women. During that year, my future mother-in-law gave me a financial gift toward my education. She lovingly gave from her meager income. That may be the only money I got from any of my family. My home church also gave me a gift one time.

I certainly appreciate those two occasions. But I also appreciate God's provision and the opportunity to pay for my own college experience. I worked hard aboard fishing boats during my summer vacations (usually around 16 hours a day [preparation, fishing, assisting the Captain, tending to the fishing party, cleaning the boat, working on tackle and baits, trying to line up other charters in the evening]), and I found a wide variety of jobs during my four years at JWC (funeral home worker, ambulance attendant, Dairy Queen [soda jerk], Greensboro News and Record [circulation department], Sears loading dock worker, door to door salesman (home fire alarm system, Swipe household cleaning product, Rainbow Vacuum Cleaner, independent yard and garden work), not to mention the ministry opportunities I had on weekends and days off.

I faced the possibility of not continuing at JWC because I lacked the finances for school, and I knew what it was to go without meals, and I knew what it was to scrape a few coins together to buy fuel for my car in order to get to work and to get to school.

This is not a complaint. It is a praise. I needed God, and God was always there. Not only was He always there, but He taught me, led me, and built me up in the faith, through the trials I faced.

Before I went to JWC, I worked in restaurants, I did landscape jobs with an uncle, and I worked on fishing boats; I helped Daddy with projects. I was learning to grow up and be responsible before I went to college, but the four years away from home, finding jobs, supporting myself, paying my bills, sacrificing, disciplining myself, and motivating myself were part of my education.

My classes and studies and school activities took up a major part of my daytime, work schedules took up evening and long nighttime hours, and ministry opportunities (organized and freelance) took up my free time. It was physically demanding, mentally draining, emotionally challenging, not to mention the time I spent developing and learning from relationships, but I would not change any of it.

I pity the young people and young adults today who are spinning their wheels, chasing illusive dreams, stuffing their time with empty activity and mindless amusement. Relaxation, fun, amusement has its place (its limited place) in our lives, but real pleasures and real treasures come from the pursuit of the important, the useful, the eternal.

I am always amazed when I see young people who have set their minds on the things of God and are relentless in taking a new mountain for God.

I have always said that children and young people are not the church of the future; they are the church of today.