My miraculous move

I figured I was going to live out the rest of my natural life in Ohio. After growing up in Michigan and then living in Indiana for five years, my lovely wife and I moved to Northeast Ohio for a new job. That was where Jesus kicked down the door to my heart and rescued me from depression, suicide and meaninglessness.

We loved our neighborhood, the park system, and the church that adopted us as two of its own. I moved up in responsibility at my employer and was good at what I did. Sometime around 2000, burnout began to set in and I felt a need to redeem the time by doing something significant with my life. I read a lot of books and prayed through a lot of nights.

God responded and gave me a destination and a deadline: The Carter Center in Atlanta and May 2005.

I resigned from my supervisory position in May 2005 and took a lower role. This allowed me time to teach a class at a local college. In April 2006 I offered my students extra credit for attending a national conference that was occurring nearby, and attended myself just to verify their attendance. There I met a guy who works at a large company in my field in Georgia, and we hit it off.

That summer my company hit hard times, was sold twice and started laying people off and offering buyouts to more experienced employees. I called my acquaintance in Georgia to see if he knew of any openings anywhere, and he ended up hiring me. So in November 2006 I pocketed the buyout money and we headed to Georgia, within shouting distance of the Carter Center.

God had brought me to the doorstep of my goal, and made someone else pay my way. He's clever that way.