Heathen

God Takes Control

In chapters one and two of this book I explain how my childhood unfolded and gave various examples of how God had looked out for me when I was growing up. This chapter will show how God guided me from my early adult years to where I am now.

I worked at Pamida from age 16 to age 19. I had found my niche in life in retail, and I was able to move from stock boy to group
manager in those three years. Then on December 30, 1980, I went to work at Walmart as a management trainee. Walmart really did not pay me much more than I made at Pamida but I had noticed that whenever Walmart moved into a town lots of other places closed. So I decided to jump over to Walmart before the same thing happened to my Pamida.

I worked my way from management trainee to Assistant Manager then finally after four and a half years I was promoted to Store Manager of the Walmart in Russellville, Kentucky. I now know that this was part of God's plan for me and was the beginning of my search for peace and happiness. I was totally alone in Kentucky. I knew no one. I was lonelier there than I had ever been in my life. I was a young man, 24 years old put in a position where I knew that I would have to rely on myself to begin a new life. I had just been named manager of my first store, so I decided to put everything into my work. I spent every waking hour trying to make myself and my store a success. I learned a lot the first six months about being a store manager and about myself. I learned that I could to do whatever I had to do. It is amazing that when you have no other choice than to succeed what you can push yourself to do. As I said earlier this was the loneliest times of my life. For even though I spent all my time at work, when I came home to my one room studio apartment, I had to face me, myself, for I had no one else. I was searching for the reason I was there. Nothing else made any sense. I never really had anyone very close to me to talk to, so I tried to work these things out for myself (guess what). I never figured out anything. At the time I couldn't even tell you why I was alive or what life was all about.

As I write this book in 2021 I have found God or really God found me, but in 1985 I did not know God. Growing up we were a family that did not talk about God and went to church only a handful of times when my stepdad was painting that church. I remember a couple of times when my stepdad slammed the door in the face of people who came from the local church to tell us about Jesus. I thank God that my stepdad accepted the Lord on his death bed when he died of cancer on February 18, 1980, which was my youngest sister's 12th birthday.

While I was in the darkest period of my life there was someone who was asking God to send her a Godly man. This person was Ramona. Who would one day become my wife. I previously said Ramona had been praying for a Godly man. At the time we met Iwas not a Godly man. I think I was a normal person who was doing the best that I could without God. It was after Ramona and I had married that I began to feel that I had been sent to Russellville, Kentucky for a reason. After I married Ramona, I began to see how differently she had been raised. Her parents were Christians and had brought up their children in church. What a difference that makes!!!!!! I could see that their family was very close and were grounded in their faith. Soon after we were married Ramona and I began going to some different churches in the Russellville area, something I was not used to. Over the next several years I began to make a new life with Ramona. We had two boys already between us Richard Baud, Jr. and Joshua Owen Thomas. And soon we had children of our own. Samuel Baud was born 9-17-87 and Katie Baud was born 12-5-89. I had been given bigger Walmart stores to manage and we had moved several times. Each time we moved we went to new churches. I seemed to fit in alright at each of these churches. I listened to the music and to the preacher and left the same as I came in, unsaved. We didn't go to church regularly. Just every once in a while. I don't know what would bring us to church. Ramona would request that we go sometimes, and it just seemed to me like we needed to go on occasion. I remember saying to people that it really doesn't matter if you go to church. God is everywhere and all you have to do is be a good person and you will be fine.