The Plan

He’s not done with me yet…

My folks taught me a lot about life.

Obey your parents and teachers. Go to church. Love the Lord. Be kind. Talk less and listen more. How to throw a baseball. How to cash a check for a lollipop.  How to make the best M&M cookies on Earth (while enjoying eating the dough).  They didn’t know what I would become but they both gave me the foundation of the man I would eventually become.

When I was in boot camp, in the summer of 1982 in San Diego, I met a new recruit, Adam. Adam was from Alaska and being a Texan, he struck it off…you know, “his state is bigger than mine” kind-of thing. We both graduated from boot camp and headed off to hospital corps school at the Balboa Naval Hospital (now it’s called, Naval Medical Center – San Diego).

We were working on the neuro-trauma ward at the hospital in preparation of attending pharmacy tech school that would start in a few months.

One evening, Adam asked me to go to 32^nd Street with him to the club…back in those days, the drinking age was 18 and we actually had a beer machine (25 cents) outside out barrack’s room door! I decided not to go with him for some reason…I don’t remember.

The next morning when I returned to work, our head nurse asked me if I had heard about Adam. I told him no, that I saw him last night at the barracks.

Apparently, Adam left the hospital grounds on his motorcycle and lost control. He hit a curb not 100 yards from leaving the gate and crashed…his neck was broken.

I could have been on that motorcycle with him…God had another plan for me.

Before we had the kids, I was in the reserves and drilled at the NAS Dallas. Sheri had gotten a call from a reporter from the Dallas Morning News asking to write an obituary about me. I had just talked with her the night before so she was immediately thinking something had happened…Come to find out, we lived in Oklahoma City and it was the weekend after the bombing at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building Federal Building there.

There was a Steven Curry who was killed while he worked at the building. So he was thinking she was related…wrong Curry. I was in Dallas.

Mistaken identity…God had another plan for me.

On 9-11, I was standing in Rear Adm. Stephen Pietropaoli’s office with Cmdr. Beci Brenton and Capt. Joe Gradisher as we watched the news unfold in New York City.

Then the plane hit.

Joe and I ran to the window and all we saw was the fireball…the plane had punched a hole in the wall between the C and B rings of the Pentagon. Our offices were on the 4^th floor, B-ring. The CHINFO offices are still located in the same spaces.

It was a long day dealing with everything going on, making new office spaces the Chief of Naval Personnel’s office and trying to contact Sheri, Mom and Dad. There’s more to the story but that’s the gist for now. I don’t remember hearing the plane or the explosion that day and I pray I will never remember that. By far, it was the longest day of my life…I finally got home around 10 or so that night and went to bed only to get up early to go back to work.

I was in the right place on that day…God had another plan for me.

I have made a lot of mistakes in my life and I still life with those regrets and decisions. I’ve missed a lot of opportunities especially with my kids. Now, I believe they know that I love them. Care for them. Cherish them. And I will never stop being their Dad…they are two of my blessings in life that God has graced me with.

In Ephesians 4, Paul wrote that we should “be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven us.”

So to all those family members, Shipmates, friends, and others, I ask your forgiveness. Life is too short to hold onto bitterness and anger. So I ask you…please accept my apology. 

 

Also in Ephesians, Paul declares, “I pray that your eyes of your heart be enlightened, so that you will know what is hope of His calling…”

I am called to be a servant of Him. A father. A son. A brother. A friend. This spring I will be called to be a husband. 

God has a plan for me.

I don’t know the ultimate plan that He has for me but I have faith in Him that He’ll provide me the way ahead in my life. He is in control. He has blessed me again by putting Marti in my life. I feel loved, cherished, and more…it’s actually pretty nice feeling like that. All because I have faith and I believe in His plan.

So, when you think you don’t know what life has to offer, you only have to fall on your knees…pray…and ask Him. He’ll open doors. He’ll close doors. He’ll say yes. But sometimes He’ll say no. He’s in control…it’s His plan…you just have to live it.

Thankfully, He’s not done with His plan for me!