“Fearing for their
lives, the desperate sailors shouted to their gods for help and threw the cargo
overboard to lighten the ship” (Jonah
1:5). Storm stories are fascinating to hear, but not so nice to experience. I
still recall a series of sermons called “storm stories” preached by the then
pastor of Central Assembly of God Church in Great Falls, Montana. The pastor
was also a rancher and had driven cattle to find better grazing lands. He
described brutal storms causing the drivers to find safety. He told of elk
hunting in the Rockies when early fall blizzards came up and stopped their
ways, as the skies grew so dark they could not see their hands in front of
their faces like midnight. The rains come down, turning to hail. Can you
imagine such circumstances, as your raingear seems to be useless in the wind?
The summer warmth disappears as you begin to shiver, drenched to the core.
These are the Bible stories of Jonah and the Apostle Paul in Acts 27. In each
case it was God who brought them through safely, but not until they feared for
their lives. It was this kind of storm that brought John Newton, a slave-ship
captain, to go to his knees and pray to God for deliverance. It was such a
storm that brought me to my knees in a blinding blizzard in the middle of the
night along the shores of Lake Superior.
I was driving home from a far north hospital where I was the
CEO assigned to turnaround a disastrous situation. The hospital had been loosing money and about
to close when the Board of Directors called a hospital management firm in a
last ditch effort to save the only hospital for 100 miles. I addressed the Board at a special meeting
with my company owner. We had spent just three days analyzing this hapless
hospital. Even though several other companies had unsuccessfully tried to save
them, we told them we could.
I packed for a weekend, but ended up with a two year long
tumultuous voyage of my life. This once prosperous hospital serving the UP of
Michigan was losing millions as every contract, including union contracts for
all employees were bleeding the hospital to death. The turnaround included
laying off one-third of the overstaffed facility and renegotiating every
contract. Midnight oil was burned and we were reminded of how the union
employees, including nurses had burned the Catholic nuns cars to the ground in
protest over negotiations. This was a very frightening time. I hired a big-city
labor attorney to help. There were actual threats on my life and protests in
this city that started the union movement in our country. Only when we began
meeting with employees around the clock and sharing the details of our hopeful
plan did our fortunes begin to change. Cooperation began slowly, climaxing
after a year with the decertification of the unions and a new cooperative
employee group. We turned the ship around from a multi-million dollar loss to
an equal profit in two years. The ship was upright even though the sails were
torn and the keel retarred. The rudder was rebuilt and it was pointing into the
wind, making for safe harbor. Like the story in Acts 27, no one had drown,
although, many had suffered through the high seas and low supplies. But we were
safe and secure. Now in fact a new hospital has been built that is a testament
to the toughness of the region. It had a better ending than the infamous tanker
SS Edmund Fitzgerald that sank in 1975, losing all crew, in a storm on Lake
Superior just a few miles from this hospital.
As I drove home after weeks without sleep from the waves and
the spray, I was a broken man. I was exhausted physically and emotionally from
the work. I had lost my baring in the storm. It took intense counseling, but
more so the grace of God to bring me to safe harbor again. Lots of strife and
struggles with the Lord brought me like Jacob to a new place of integrity and
faith. Like John Newton, I was now a former wretch saved by the love of the
Father. You know the words to the hymn, they are mine as well.
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts.