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 31^st, 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