Secrets of the Pink House

I touched base with dozens of business contacts I had made over the years looking for leads a new job. After a few more months of prospecting I went on a number of job interviews. I thought, well here we go, I’ll soon be back on track. Within a few weeks after the vetting process by each, I was recommended by the presidents of three different large manufacturers to become their heir apparent. Meetings were set with the board chairs of each firm. I went for a haircut, changed from shorts, tees and sandals to my best business suit and flew around the country on separate trips from Florida to Austin, Texas to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and to Atlanta, Georgia. On each trip I was met at the airport by limo drivers, stayed in fine hotels, dined in exquisite restaurants with my future employers as they grilled me.
Then I would return to The Pink House. Paula anxiously waited to hear all about my trip. Together we waited for a job offer. Living near Lake Patience Road, I kept telling myself … patience, patience, patience. I expected a call each day but none came. Not even a courtesy call to say thank you for your time, but we selected someone else. Strike 1, Strike 2, Strike 3. Three, strikes all in a row. I struck out.
I kept asking God, “Why?” I had done the right thing ethically, confronted wrongdoing, refused to compromise my ethics and resigned. Why was I being punished? Depressed again, thinking my business career was over, I said to Paula that I was thinking of applying for a job at Walmart as a “Greeter” and that we should begin looking for a double-wide.
One day, months later, the answer came to me, I finally realized I had not truly changed. I kept trying do it my way and not God’s way. I kept trying to go back to Egypt to rejoin my old life. My Way is not self-way. My Way is God’s Way.
I stopped the intermittent complaining and finally gave up my anger. Once again I humbled myself saying, “God I’m truly sorry for how I’ve been complaining these past few months Please accept my apology. I think I am beginning to understand. “My Way” is not Jack’s way. My Way is “Your Way”. When I said this, all stress left from my body like a great weight lifted off my shoulders and a calm, relaxing, comforting, refreshing peace enveloped me.
I prayed intently for forgiveness for having lived my life by the words of the song “My Way” written by Paul Anka and sung by Frank Sinatra, "I did it my way". Now again in total complete surrender, I let go and truly let God. I promised I would no longer “do it My Way, but do it Your Way.” I was and still am in many respects a very stubborn person.
I now felt even more drawn to read the Bible. I continued to read the Bible completely through, cover to cover, three times within six weeks and did so each day before and after my orange grove walks.
The first time through I read it through like a history novel, drawn into the stories, not able to put it down. The words amazingly flowed quickly and easily, resonating deep within me day after day. It was a marvelous time. I was acquiring new knowledge, new understanding, transforming.
I had read short passages in the Bible off and on occasionally over the past 20 years, but the words never had the depth of meaning I was now experiencing. By the third time through the words leaped from the pages into my mind with new understanding. I felt like I was having conversations with God. I would be thinking something and then read a direct reply. My mind freely floated as thoughts would enter and Scripture collaborated. I was given a precious gift … enlightenment … I was growing, maturing in knowledge, understanding and discernment.
As I would read the Bible stories and then go into the orange grove, I would reflect on my past experiences and how closely they resembled those of them who lived in ancient times. They had encountered similar circumstances. I identified with how they must have felt and what their thoughts might have been. History was repeating itself with me. But now as a result was I really learning and changing? I discovered that over and over when the ancient people would turn away from their pleasures and materialistic ways to living God’s way, they would find rest, peace love and happiness.
It seemed to me Bible history was repeating itself in my life. I thought of Moses and the Israelites and wondered what they must have been thinking and what they were saying to each other when they were wandering lost in the desert. Frustrated and angry, full of anxiety, they longed for their former lives, to the point of rebelling, even if it meant returning to a life of Egyptian slavery, or in my case to a world of corporate slavery in the pursuit of endlessly increasing the top and bottom lines.
As I settled into a new daily routine, pondering the Scriptures on my walks through the orange grove, I reflected on the details, over and over, about the “”Angel in the Mist” and the restaurant sign “My Way,”and the street signs: “Lake Patience” and “Lake Destiny”.
Here I was living in a bungalow called The Pink House and walking through the orange grove. Were these all but ordinary coincidences? I came to think of these as "co-incidents", envisioning both heaven and earthly forces simultaneously fusing like a lightning bolt to create a unique, instantaneous occurrence.
Not knowing where Paula and I would go or what do to earn a living. I came to truly trust God completely for my future, no matter what. I mean I truly, completely with absolutely no reservations, doubts or second thoughts understood my future was now and would always be totally in His hands.