Destiny by Grace:
This must be the reason I’m here
In retrospect it is easy to see how events changed your life, and it would be easy to congratulate yourself for changing your own destiny. But I know how differently it might have turned out, but for the grace of God/
When I told the doctors I was discharging my wife from the hospital against advice
Kathy had been admitted to the hospital with dizziness and exhaustion three days earlier. She had been diagnosed with medicine-induced dehydration and taken off all her medications. I told the attending physician on the first day that Kathy had been on Xanax for several years and withdrawal would be a problem I wanted to avoid. She was not impressed. On the second day, Kathy was hallucinating, telling imaginative stories about her brother, who was six hundred miles away and alienated from her. I mentioned this to the nurse on duty and registered my concern. She promised to pass it on to the doctor. On the third day Kathy was non-responsive. Her dehydration had been corrected, but she stared helplessly at me, unable to answer my questions. I knew these as withdrawal symptoms and reported to the nurse that I wanted Kathy back on her Xanax until she could be withdrawn from it gradually. I said I was ready to get her discharged from the hospital against advice.
Grace: At that point my friend Julia arrived. She was doing her residency as a hospital chaplain and had come to visit Kathy. We stepped away from the room, and I told her my story complete with the dilemma I felt about the discharge. Julia told me I should act on my feelings, making sure I understood that she was not advising me to discharge Kathy. We had an understanding.
I told the nurses I wanted Kathy discharged into my care. Kathy went home and restored to her critical medicines and later admitted for a supervised stabilization of her medication.
It was not the end of Kathy’s medical tribulations, but the last time we would accept doctor’s advice without considering what we thought was best for her. It was a moment when I realized that I was ultimately responsible for Kathy’s health, and by the grace of God I would make the right decisions with her and for her.
When I grieved the school board’s decision to reject my sabbatical application.
I had begun the long road to a Ph.D. as a full-time high school teacher. Despite prevailing opinion that the district was not granting sabbaticals I applied for an 80% sabbatical, which required four years’ service following the sabbatical, The problem was teachers had been taking sabbaticals without fulfilling their service, and the schools could not afford the legal expenses needed to make them fulfill the contract. When the inevitable rejection came down, my union rep suggested I grieve the decision, since sabbaticals were a contractual benefit. I had a grievance hearing and thought my case was strong, but the arbitrator ruled in favor of the school district. The day following the ruling was one of the darkest of my life, as I
was reconsidering my life as a teacher. I had felt I was on a true path, and God would help me reach my goals, but now , , ,
Grace: That day the superintendent called with the story about how the district had been burned by teachers not fulfilling their contract, and I felt this was condolence call. Then he
said, “Bill I think you are kind of teacher who will honor his obligations. I want to grant this sabbatical if you will promise to do that.” Of course I would, and I did.I took this reversal
as God’s grace through Superintendent George. At a time when my faith was faltering for many reasons, I believed God had moved to change my life. From this view in the rearview mirror it was exactly that: I graduated with my Ph.D., and took at job at Eastern Michigan University, a job I loved for 24 years. I am about to retire from the most satisfying job I have ever held.
When I made the choice to be vulnerable.
Eighteen months after Kathy died, I decided to go on Match. com, because I did not want to live alone. Kathy had always wished this for me, because she did not expect to outlive me. I made the choice very intentionally