What I Know

Fifteen years ago, I was the CEO of a software company that I ran with my husband, Chuck.  We had a developer named Jim, who was one of our 50 employees.  Jim was 25, and had worked with us from the day he graduated from college.   One weekend, Jim went rock climbing with some of his friends.  While he was 40 feet in the air, he fell.  His friends watched him fall, and quickly they formed a circle with their shoulders touching.  Jim landed head first in the midst of them, breaking all of their shoulders, and saving his life.

Jim was in a coma for two months.  When he came out, he had brain damage, and had to re-learn how to eat, talk, walk – all of the things that we take for granted.  He worked incredibly hard each day at his physical therapy and amazed his doctors with his focus on recovery.  However, whenever the counselors would come in to discuss with him his need to “retrain” to be able to someday get a job, he flat out refused.  They wanted him to train to be a janitor or a food service worker, as the extent of his brain damage was still unknown, and he struggled to see, walk, and communicate.  “No,” Jim would refuse.  “I am a software developer.  I work for Intuitive.”

As time went on, Jim continued to improve, slowly but surely.  And he continued to refuse to retrain into a new job.  The counselors pleaded with him, saying that no one would ever hire him as a developer with his limitations.  “I don’t need to be hired,” he would reply.  “I have a job.  I work for Intuitive.”  The weeks turned into months.  Finally, Jim came back to work – about half an hour a few days a week was all he could do.  Just getting to his desk exhausted him.  He could barely see the keyboard; it took him minutes to type a single line of code.  But he was at his job.  For months he worked a little more each day, and things got a little easier for him.  He started writing code again, and for a year, we quietly threw away every line of code he wrote as unusable.  But months turned into years, and over time, Jim once again became a fabulous developer and an integral member of our team.

Years later, I asked him about that time.  He told me that there were days when he had absolutely no idea HOW he was ever going to be a developer again—how he could physically do it, how he could mentally do it.  But he knew, with conviction, two things:  He was a developer, and he worked for Intuitive.  He knew that as long as those two things were true, the “how” didn’t matter; in time, it would work out.  He had faith – not in how it would work out, but that it would.

This has become a cornerstone of my faith.  I know two things:  I know God is here, and I know I have found the right church for me and my family.  How it all fits together, now and in the future, I honestly have no idea – How will things be with the new pastor?  How will I do my new job effectively?  How will I have time to fit in all the pieces?  The “how” questions can make me crazy.  But then I remember what I know:  God is here, and I am a member of this wonderful church.  Everything else will happen, and will be okay.  I don’t need to know it all – I just need to know two things.  God is here, and this is my church. 

This is what I know.