It’s all downhill from here!

Wait a minute that’s not how it’s going at all.  I know that men of my generation assess their value based on their capacity to work and the size of their paychecks.  My life has certainly been easier than my father’s which I would categorize as treading water and always being aware that you could go under at any moment.  I made it look so easy that Zeb (the middle child) famously wrote in a 5th-grade essay assigned to tell, what kind of job do you want when you grow up? : “When I grow up, I want a job like my father.  He doesn’t have to work very hard and makes a lot of money”.

The fact is that since my graduation from college most of my focus was on working to provide for myself and later for Jaci and the Boyz (Zach, Zeb, and Zetham).  My career, as I was promised by a college professor, was a series of multiple tracks.

First, management at a not-for-profit serving developmentally disabled adults.  To call me a manager at that point is really a joke since I had no idea what I was doing.  It was only because of my bosses Dewey, Bob, and Peggy who believed in me before I believed in myself that I ever had that opportunity.  Non the less I learned much of what enabled me to be in supervisory positions throughout my work life from this path.

Second, I spent my next career time as the Chief Financial Officer of a printing company, which was affiliated with the Christian Publishing Industry.  Of course, this was another gag since I knew nothing about finance or the printing industry.   Once again, the whole thing was only because Ken, a good friend, was convinced that despite my lack of experience I was a perfect fit.  And as an added bonus I met Jaci, my lovely wife of 33 years at the front door on my first day at the company.

Finally, I spent my last 23 years working in the Credit Union Industry.  Once again, that was only because of  Greg and Paul both of whom opened doors for me because they had confidence and saw the value that I could bring to their businesses.  It came to an end abruptly before I planned but it certainly wasn’t outside of God’s watchful eye and proved what I learned decades ago, once I stopped doubting myself and accepted God’s words as a promise for my life.

Those words are found in Jeremiah 29:11-13 NIV For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Who Am I?

Once my job was gone I had to take a deep breath and reassess what my main focus in life was going to be.  Now like many men my age I have business cards that say I’m a consultant. My title is “Credit Union Expert”.  But that was not really where my life was heading.  It was a mere temporary salve on the open wound of life without purpose.  You see Jaci and I had met someone earlier that same year that set our lives in a whole new direction. We first set our eyes on Alivia and held her the first week of 2019.

She was six weeks old and what we didn’t understand is that being a grandparent is nothing that parenthood prepares you for.  This is a new emotion and a different kind of Love than what I have experienced before.  And considering her circumstances it wasn’t hard to know that our involvement would be needed on more than the edges as her grandparents. Her life was going to need a major commitment and require a significant investment of time and resources in order to set things right and provide the needed protection for her life.  It would be complicated and hard but it must be done.

What developed over the next 6 months culminated with us having her stay in our home every other week during the summer months.  Well, there’s a new purpose for life.  This little one needs someone to protect her and be her rock in a world that is full of obstacles and boulders that could do great harm.   And then it got worse in the early days of that fall when she was taken by the Illinois Department of Family Services.

Now she was in a foster home and those in power would not even listen to our pleas or return our calls.  This is going to require a whole new approach.  Can we do more than pray?  Can we claim my verse for her… “For I know the plans I have for you, “declares the Lord”, plans to prosper you and not to harm you. I don’t know if it is because she is a girl and my other children are boys but there was something different about what I feel for her.  It is a tender care and a clear sense that I would take a bullet for her without even a moment of hesitation. My life is less cluttered now and I believe it gives me better clarity about how to give focus to her needs.

For such a time as this

She would not come to live with us for another 9 months and by the time we went to pick her up she didn’t even remember who we were.  I had not forgotten and I had never lost hope but the day that she moved was hard for her.  She was where she should be for sure but the joy was mixed with what we knew was her pain and the brokenness of a family that had provided her a loving home during this transition.

And the danger was not over.  She was in our home but she was still in a system that was not standing up for what was best for her.  That was obvious to me and I would give my all to make sure that she never had to move away from us.  She was developing a sense of security that Homie and Mac, as she calls Jaci and me, would be there for the long term.  There were days when only hope in God’s protection could give us any light at the end of the tunnel because there were days when there was no hope.  We will never forget the day that our lawyer brought us in a conference room after a court hearing and said, “I can’t sugarcoat this because I don’t like the direction this is going.  She may very well be placed in the worst possible home among all the possibilities in her life.”  But we did not stop hoping and did not stop praying.  We can’t take credit but the impossible happened on August 4, 2022 when we adopted her.  She will forever be Vivia Zion Grace McNeil.  Vivia to mark new life, Zion because all our children have “Z” names and to commemorate God’s refuge given to her, Grace to remember the grace of God that protected her, and McNeil to forever mark her as a member of our family.

This is the story of my first 3 years of retirement.  Certainly not what I planned for and not what I expected.  It’s a Retirement Surprise but it’s really a culmination of what God has prepared me to do with whatever time I have less.  May it be a long and healthy life indeed.

I shared the verse that set my life on a correct path earlier (Jeremiah 29:11) but I have a new one that I found recently in a Facebook post by a young mother who is on her journey to be the best parent to her 3 children.  That verse is Philippians 2:3 NIV  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,  not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. I’m adopting it as my Parental Redo verse and striving to live by it as I continue fulfilling my new calling as Vivia’s Father and a representation of God’s Love during these important years. As she develops into the person who was made in the image of God and whom God has protected I have no doubt He has plans to prosper her throughout life.