My daughter gave me a most unique gift for Christmas last year. It’s called Storyworth. It’s a writing prompt. They send you a weekly question. You answer the question and after a year they compile the answers as a book. It’s designed to capture family stories and family history for your children and future generations.

I was challenged by the question posed this week: “How is your life different than you imagined?” I thought I’d share the answer with you, too.

My life is, at one and the same time, both different than what I imagined and not different than what I imagined.

It is different in that I never imagined spending years in full-time vocational ministry. That was never anything that was on my radar, but it is what was on the Lord’s radar for 28 years.

Filling in the Blank

What did I imagine? Maybe too many things to list. I was always a dreamer (day-dreamer). I would sit around and imagine what life would be like if I did __________. I would fill in the blank and that would be a day-dreaming topic.

There were actually a few things I filled in the blanks with that actually had an opportunity to become reality. First, was my desire to be Bob Barker. Not literally Bob Barker, but on television and in radio. I took steps in that direction. I went to work at KTOC- AM & FM radio is Jonesboro, LA. I thought that was the way to get started. I did that for a year and moved to KXKZ-FM in Ruston, LA. I only worked there a few months when Vanessa and I started dating. Working got in the way of dating, so I quite that job and went back to the grocery/hardware business of my grandfather’s, where the options for dating were more flexible.

I also pursued an education while in high school in the communications field. The Vo-Tech school offered classes in Radio-Television Technology. I spent my high school week-day afternoons as a student of that program.

Those classes opened the door to many opportunities in the radio/television field. It eventually led to a job opportunity in Lake Charles, LA with a local TV station there. The News Director from KNOE-TV in Monroe had recently transferred to Lake Charles. He knew me from my time hanging around KNOE as part of the Vo-Tech classes. He called and offered me a job as a cameraman/videographer (that was the real entry level job in television in those days). I was young. Vanessa and I were planning to get married, so I declined the opportunity. Honestly, I was just scared. I didn’t want to leave Chatham, LA. Ironic that I did leave Chatham some years later pursuing a path that I had never imagined.

Another time the blank was filled in was in pursuing a career in the military. I was a recently married young man and my childhood experiences of visiting Barksdale Air Force Base on yearly trips to the air show fueled my love for the military (well, the Air Force, actually). One day, Vanessa and I were in Monroe and we just stopped by the Air Force recruiting office. I walked in and told them I wanted to join. They started the process right then and there. I guess they didn’t want to let a live one get away.

I took their battery of tests. I actually aced their ASVAB test. The recruiter said he’d never had a recruit to ace that test. He seemed really excited to have me joining up. We then moved to the physical aspect of their requirements. They took me in a back room, measured me and weighed me, and determined that I was 22 pounds overweight for the Air Force.

He said I had two options: one, go over to the Army recruiter. The Army would take me in my overweight condition. Or two, go home and go on a diet and come back in a couple of months. I chose the second option primarily because I never imagined life in the Army. I didn’t want to go in the Army. I wanted to go in the Air Force and learn how to fly jets. I came home and thought about trying to lose the weight, but I really think the fear of leaving Chatham kept me from pursuing the weight loss whole-heartedly, so I never went back to the recruiter.

I’ve often wondered how life would have been different if I had joined the Air Force that day. I suppose we’ll never know.

A New Twist

After the Air Force debacle, I had resigned myself to spending a life-time in the hardware business. I had worked for my grandfather throughout high school and had continued on after marriage. It was a comfortable life. It had afforded my grandfather and grandmother a comfortable living, and I didn’t see much else on the horizon. I imagined that I would eventually take over the hardware business when my grandfather passed away, but alas, that was never to be.

It wasn’t too long before my uncle came to work at the hardware store. My grandfather, who had been in the grocery business for 40 years, built a new building to house the grocery business. When he built it, he brought my uncle and my dad into the family business and gave them an ownership interest in the grocery store. He kept the hardware business in the old grocery store and kept it as a separate company with himself as sole owner.

Well, my dad and my uncle couldn’t work together. They didn’t get along, so my dad chose to leave the business to pursue other interests. My uncle ended up the sole operator of the grocery business. It wasn’t too long until he found himself going through a divorce. Long story short, the grocery business was eventually sold and my uncle was working in the hardware business. It soon became apparent to me that I would not be the inheritor of the hardware store. I thought it best to pursue other opportunities for the good of my family.

My experience working in that business did give me the dream of owning my own business. Even as a young 19 – 20 year-old, I would read Inc. magazine, peruse the classified ads that were found in the back, and look for franchises that I might buy into and open in or around Chatham, LA. Funny thing is, I had no money and getting financing as a guy in his late-teens, early twenties wasn’t likely to happen (or I was too dumb to know how to make it happen), so they remained only dreams.

I eventually was offered an opportunity to go to work for the local sheriff as a deputy. I never imagined that in all my imagining, so I suppose there is some irony in that, as well. The position offered health insurance and retirement and we were pregnant with our first, so we decided it was the right step for us. I went to work for the sheriff in February of 1983.

Working for the local sheriff gave me an itching to go into politics. I thought I might parlay that job into an elected position within Jackson Parish, and I somewhat began working toward that end. 

A New Calling

Let me try to make a long story short. It was 1989, and a young, charismatic pastor was appointed to our church. I had (sort of) drifted away from church attendance at that point. After all, I worked most Sundays, and attendance was not a priority on the Sundays I was off, but this new young pastor started visiting me, and riding around with me when I was on patrol.

We spent a lot of time talking about life and church and meaning and purpose. I became more active, even attending revivals. The pastor held a tent revival on the back lot of the church parsonage, and there I was in attendance. It was at that revival that I first began to sense a call to ministry…probably as a result of all the conversations the pastor and I had on those long, late-night rides around the country-side.

That eventually led to my solo late-night experience in September of 1990 along May Road at Hickory Springs Church when I heard the audible voice of the Lord say, “Lynn, I’ve more than this for you.”

When I arrived home that evening (around 1 a.m.), trying to reflect on what happened, I turned on the TV thinking that would take my mind off of it. There were only three channels in those days (well, only three channels you could pick up on the TV in the country without cable). The ONLY channel that was still airing programming at 1 a.m., had on a TV evangelist (Robert Tilton). He looked straight into the camera and said, “There is someone listening to the this program right now, and the Lord has called you to ministry. You need to accept that calling.” True story

The next day, I was visiting with my pastor informing him that I thought God was calling me to ministry. Before I knew what happened, I was sitting in the District Superintendent’s office answering questions and beginning a journey towards vocational ministry. The rest, as they say, is history. There are a lot of good stories along the way, but suffice it to say, this was never anything I ever imagined. I guess God is funny that way.

After leaving vocational ministry, Vanessa and I eventually become small-business owners. I don’t know if that is life coming full circle and me ending up where I used to dream about ending up, or if the Lord was being gracious after 28 years of service in ministry.

All I know is that being a business owner was once a dream. Now it’s a reality. When I tell people that I’m living the dream, I actually mean it. Some days, though, that dream is a nightmare! Most days, it’s blessing, so I’ll try to be as grateful as possible.

So, I suppose that explains the answer to the question, “How has your life been different than you imagined?” can be answered in a both/and sort of way.

Until next time, keep looking up…