Gratitude,  Divine Intervention, and Lessons Learned: Looking back over my life, this experience was a pivotal part of the motivation throughout my life. I can see God’s hand in setting up this opportunity for me. I got this job when I was 15 even before I could drive.  I remember having to ride my bike to work for the first few months. Before this I was making money mowing lawns. I and my brother Mike had put out some fliers and, through word of mouth, had picked up a few lawn mowing jobs. However, we were not inspired to push that any further.  Since then I have heard several stories and known people that have made a career out of yardwork and landscaping.  That was not to be our path.
There was a guy in our church that reached out to me. He reached out to me and said he could pick me up Saturday mornings, and I could help him clean and fix up houses to get them ready to rent. I didn’t feel good about it and turned him down.  My father was not happy with this and was angry for turning down the opportunity to work.  So, I called him back and told him I would take the job. I didn’t mind the work, but I hated that at the end of the day we would end up at these small apartments, maybe 8 or 10 units.  They were all the way across town, and instead of taking the time to take me home and then drive to the apartments, he would take me with him and have me sweep and wash the parking area while he did whatever he had to do there.  I would have rather not gotten paid and just gone to sleep.  I felt like he just wanted me doing something because he didn’t want to pay me for doing nothing.  I hated the end-of-the-day routine, so I started looking for another job that would help me get out of this job. I can see God was helping me to learn to be empathetic for the plight of a worker who feels stuck in a situation.  I also learned that If I feel like I did when he called me the first time, God is letting me know things will not go well and that I should avoid those situations. Interestingly, in my life I have had to learn that lesson over and over.  When I feel a certain type of anxiety before I do something and push forward, it always goes bad for me.  Then one day I was talking with a fiend at church was was about my same again, he was only four months older than me but in a grade ahead of me.  He said he was looking for someone to help him at his job.  He explained to me he cleaned a butcher shop.  I think he told me at first he wanted someone to be a substitute for him while he went to a basketball camp or something.  It was a long time ago and I am probably making up the basketball camp.  So I came in a couple of days and he trained me.  He may not even have paid me.