Thanksgiving Story-2009
Heavenly Father, our Father which art in heaven, hallowed
would be thy name, I approach you this day in the grace of my savior Jesus
Christ, and give thanks to you for all my wonderful blessings that you have
given to my family and my self. It is fitting that I should take this time to
write a thanksgiving story and share it with my family and friends and tell
them how you have blessed me so wonderfully. I count my blessings every day and
give thanks to my lord every day and I share them sometimes to my neighbors but
since we are approaching the national holiday thanksgiving, I have a desire to
write it and share it with others.
Dear
God I feel so unworthy of receiving these blessings but dear God, how I love
them and appreciate them and I praise you for them. This reminds me of the song
count your many blessings and counts them and names them one by one. Well time
or space will not allow me to name all of my blessings here but I will recite a
few of some of my large ones just for my story.
Heavenly
Father, where should I start you know dear God that I have been a Christian
since early teenage years, but you know that I swayed away from you for few
years and was not trusting you whole heartily and was not obediently to your will
for me. Sort like the prodigal son, I came back into your folds and joined the
Goodwater Baptist church and served with them there for forty eight years and
function in many positions, I could not preach like Peter, and I could not pray
like Paul, I just took my sins to Jesus because he died for us all, I just did
the best that I could under long stressful hard working years. O I was a
Christian I had complete faith in God, I praised the name of Jesus that he died
for my sins, I trusted him to forgive me of my sins, but I did not read and
study his word the way that I should have as a born again Christian should have
done.
You
know dear God that I have had many, many trials and tribulations thru life,
especially thru the eighties and nineties and you blessed me and give me
sufficient grace to endure them. It probably was over in the eighties that I
really felt like that I had become born again Christian. Thru the eighties and
ninnies with so many heartaches and adversities, I seamed to grow more in faith
with God with each episode. I know that I have grown more ever year since then,
in faith and have trusted my savior and studied his word, I thirst and hunger
to learn more about his word and the life of Jesus Christ.
After
retiring from the corporate world I changed my life style of living. I let my
hair down, the meaning of letting you hair down means; you behave in a free
uninhibited manner, I did not feel that it was no longer necessary for me to
present my self in a dignified sophisticated manner, so I started presenting my
self as my true self, I started doing things that give me joy, and doing things
that I never had time to do, like helping my friends and neighbors, working in
the town and community. I had helped with many project and details before but
it was all in the form of business.
After the death of my parents I turned in their house in to a wood shop
and I made all kind of articles and give them to friends, my specialty was
birdhouses, especially blue bird houses, I made many different designs.
A few of my
blessing
1-
1- First blessing was being born as a premature baby
and only weighed about two pounds and no one thought that I would live. I have
always considered myself to be a miracle child. Now I do not remember all of
that but my Mother related that to me.
2-
2- I have been truly blessed all thru my long life even
thru the years of trials tribulations and hardships, because God has given me
suffiiencent grace to help me endure them, and I walked with God and he walked
with me and he walked beside me, what a blessing.
3-
3- Next was having God fearing parents that loved me
enough to teach me right from wrong, and taught me love of God. That was a
wonderful blessing
4-
4- I lived thru the big depression years and it was
really hard but with the grace of God we survived it. Our family suffered the
most was in the years of 1930’s 31st, when my father had no work at
all. Then my father got hired in a sawmill town and at least we had food, but
there was never enough money to do any thing else but have food, the depression
lasted until the beginning of world war two. I grew up in that sawmill town
until I entered in to the service. It was in that sawmill town that I surrender
my life to God and accepted Jesus as my savior. That all was a wonderful
blessing.
5-
5- I was privileged to serve our country during the
world war two as well as my two brothers and all three of us was blessed to
return back home without being injured.
6-
6- After returning home from the war I was given my old
job back, which was store clerk, I felt very blessed to have been given my old
job back, and my boss promoted me to assistant manger.
7-
7- In the same year 1946, a Chicago firm came down and
purchased all of the assets of our previous company and the new company
promoted me to be their purchasing agent to buy all of the mill supplies.
8-
8- The new company did not feel feasible to continue
operations there because it was twenty-three miles to the nearest railroad and
about seventeen miles to the neatest pave road. The biggest reason why the
Sterling Company purchased the previous company was the previous company had a
large inventory of hardwood lumber and the Sterling had a fabrication plant in
Chicago and they needed the lumber to be transported to their Chicago plant,
and they thought that would give them adequate lumber for the Chicago plant
needs.
9-
9- The Sterling Company selected me to inventory the
mill supplies and store contents so that they could put them up for sale, I
knew that it was going to be a tedious job and I suggested to the company
attorney that if they would give me a secretary it would speed up the detail
tremendously and he agreed. He then assigned me a beautiful young lady who was
very smart and we got along real good together and were making much progress.
In the Friday evening I thought that I would ask her for a date and I ask her
if she had a special boy friend and she said that she had a boy friend but they
were not in a serious relationship, that they were just good friends. So then I
ask her would she like to go with me to a movie and have a nice dinner
somewhere, and she refuse me and stated that her boy friend may come this week
end, so I said that’s fine. So we did not mention that again but we had a good
week and had fun talking together and I thought that she was being more
friendlier then the previous week. Then Friday came again and I approached her
again for a date and again she declined, so I more of less wrote her off my
list. Then we started our final week of work and we enjoyed the final
week and got along very good and I enjoyed her company but nothing was
mentioned about dating again. Then Friday came again and we were completing our
job and I was thanking her for her help and how I enjoyed knowing her, that was
her last day of her employment with the company and I would go on over to
Goodwater work of the extensions and have it be typed up. She then volunteered
to take some of the work to take it home with her and help run the extensions
for me, and I told her that I can not
let you do that because I could not pay her for her work, and she said
that she did not want to be paid that she just wanted to help me. She really
insisted that I let her take some work home, so I let her take some with her,
you see I was not a complete fool, I could read the writing on the wall. I told
her that I would come over Sunday afternoon and pick up the papers and I arrive
there around three or four in the afternoon and I notice that she was dressed
more for like going out then just like at home, so I picked up the work pages
and noticed that she has not done much work on them, but I picked up the papers
and I told her that I was going to a movie and have a nice dinner and I ask her
if her boy friend was coming over this evening and she stated that she had told
him good-bye two weeks ago, then I ask her if she would like to go to a movie
with me. After that night we had a standard date every weekend until I married
her about two years later. What a blessing that the Lord give her to me.
10-
10-
The Sterling
company moved on over to the town of Goodwater, Ala. And purchased another
lumber company and they started making wooden pallets, skids, boxes, Shipping
crates, and other lumber commodities, and sold wholesale lumber. I had gotten
acquainted with the Chicago attorney and he wrote a letter to the new president
of the southern division and suggested that I be transferred to the Goodwater
office and be a general office clerk, and on the recommendation of that letter
I was transferred to Goodwater. That was another tremendous blessing.
11-
11-
About three or
four months working in the office and I was enjoying that kind of work very
much and I went in to the new southern president and he was marine captain
veteran and had been discharged about the same time that I had been discharge.
This new president would hire every veteran came and ask for a job whether he
was needed or not, anyway I ask the president what was my potential with the
company for advancement and he stated that it should be up to you, and he ask
me what would you like to do I stated to him that I would like to become the
chief accountant for the southern division. I knew that our chief accountant
was getting to retirement age and the president stated to me why don’t you go
for it. To close this episode I did become the Chief accountant when the chief
accountant retired in about year of 1954 and I stayed with the company till
1989 when I retired as their executive vice president and we had 3 vice
presidents under me that answered to me. I do not write this to brag I write
this to tell people that you can accomplish most any thing in life if you will
work hard for it and trust in the Lord.
This
is just a few of my wonderful blessings in my life you will have to catch my
next episode to read many more of my blessings.
Here's wishing every one a happy Thanksgiving ever day.
GOD BLESS AMERICA---IN GOD WE TRUST
John
Davidson
