Chapter 5

Our Family Begins

    Obviously, my first order of business was to get a job and a place to live. We had finished moving on a Thursday and I started looking for a job on Friday. The first place I tried was a wholesale electrical distributor and they hired me that day to work in their warehouse. The ONLY thing I knew about electricity was that you plugged a light into the wall, turned on the switch, and the light came on. Anyway, the next Monday morning I started my new job, never dreaming that this would become my career. Over the weekend the four of us had gone apartment hunting and found a cute little house we could rent. A couple of weeks later we moved in. Four or five months later the Lord allowed us to move into our first brand new home. We had put the Lord first and He supplied all of our needs, abundantly!

    The years passed quickly and in 1975 our first child, Benjamin Michael was born. Before Ben was born we had committed the child to the Lord and since it was the first born, (and the first born is the Lord's) we asked that God name it. We waited and waited and none of the names that came to our minds seemed right. Then, one evening after church, we were sitting in the car and there had been heavy dew on the windows. As we sat there a finger appeared outside the car and wrote on the windshield (backwards so we could read it from the inside) Benjamin. That was our first indication that our child would be a son. Needless to say, we rejoiced that the Lord had so visibly answered our prayers. A couple of weeks after that Linda went into labor. This was just the beginning of hospitals letting dads into the delivery room.

    As the doctor and I were suiting up outside the room he asked, "What do you want to have, a boy or a girl?"
    I told him, " It's going to be a boy."  
    He kind of smiled and asked me, "How do you know?"  So I proceeded to tell him of the incident in the car. I could tell that I really shocked him. We went into the delivery room and after the usual goings on, he started to deliver the baby.
    As my son made his entrance the doctor looked up over my wife and said, "It’s a boy!"
    Grinning, I looked at him and said, "I know"

Numbers 3:13
Because all the firstborn are mine; for on the day that I smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt I hallowed unto me all the firstborn in Israel, both man and beast: mine shall they be: I am the LORD.

   About a year and a half later our second son, Brian Robert, was born. Our parents were always after us to come to California to visit them and on one of our many trips, we again saw the Hand of the Lord again intervening on our behalf.  We were in the middle of Nevada, in the middle of nowhere. (If you have ever been to Nevada you know you are in the middle of nowhere with literally nothing or no one around you) I had been driving most of the night and we had just changed drivers - Linda was now driving. Ben was asleep on the back seat and Brian, still an infant, was asleep between us on the front seat. I remember once telling Linda to let me take care of Brian and for her to concentrate on driving.  I then promptly drifted off to sleep, slumped down in the seat. Apparently, she looked down momentarily to tend to Brian.
    The next thing I remember is Linda yelling, "Oh no!"
    I woke up to see one of those little road side reflectors (you know the ones on the right side of the road?) Well, this one was coming at the left-hand side of the car! As I struggled to sit up, Linda slammed on the brakes, we wiped out the marker and began a sideways skid across the road to the left.
    I tried to lean over to grab the wheel and turn into the skid yelling, "Turn into the skid".  
    Before I could get the wheel she turned the wheel, but turned it too far. We spun around and started skidding partly sideways and partly backwards to the right.      As we went off of the road and down the embankment Linda yelled, "Jesus help us!"

    We skidded to a stop backwards and just sat there, about 30 yards off of the road. Linda started crying and I finally got sat up straight and had to get out of the car because I was shaking so badly. As I walked around to settle myself down a couple of cars passed us but no one stopped to see if we were hurt. After a while, I walked back to the car to see what damage had occurred. From a cursory examination, in the middle of a bunch of sagebrush, it appeared that all we had was just a flat rear tire. Well, the ground was too soft to attempt to change the tire there so I carefully drove the car back up the embankment unto the side of the road to change the tire. After unloading our carefully packed trunk,  I changed the tire (which was on the bottom of the trunk, of course). We reloaded the car and drove slowly into the closest town . The mechanic was amazed when he dismounted the tire and looked inside. Inside the tire were two big handfuls of dirt and some pretty big rocks. The mechanic had never seen anything like that. This debris had been forced up inside of the tire, between the tire and the rim, because we had been skidding so hard sideways. I cannot help but believe that we were being protected against turning over. There is no logical reason why that car didn’t roll  -  only spiritual, supernatural reasons.

Joel 2:32
And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered:

    As the years passed Aaron, our third son, and Carin, our daughter were born. I cannot tell you how many times the Lord stepped in and dealt with us so very directly. You know, the times when a bill comes in and you don’t know how to pay it. Then miraculously a check from the IRS comes in for an overpayment that is within $10.00 of the unexpected bill. I don’t believe in those things being coincidences. As a matter of fact, I don’t believe in coincidences.

    One of the forms of entertainment I and many of the men in our church enjoyed was playing slow-pitch softball. Many of our fond remembrances were at the softball field before and after games. The kids always had plenty of toys to play on and usually had lots of their friends to play with. The women had other womenfolk to gab with while watching the games. One incident, however, was not so pleasant.

    We were playing the first game of the evening, about 6:30PM and I had gotten onto first base. The next batter up hit a grounder to the shortstop who passed it to the 2^nd baseman. He turned and threw it . . . right into my left eye. He was throwing it to the first baseman, but I was in the way. I had never experienced slow-motion time before, but I sure did then. I was about twenty feet away from the second baseman when he threw the ball. I saw him throw it and it took forever to get to me. Time slowed down incredibly but still, I couldn’t get out of the way. When it hit me the crash was tremendous.  Before I fell to my knees there was no sight in my left eye. When I fell to my knees I was holding the left side of my face with both hands and both hands were immediately covered with blood. Curiously, there was very little pain. When the other players got to me they had me lay down. I can remember looking up with my good eye and seeing all of these guys standing around me staring at me.

    I was kind of embarrassed so I joked, "Well I guess you’re wondering why I called you all here?" They seemed to take the hint and most of them moved away. Apparently from a spectator's point of view this accident was pretty spectacular. Our team was on the first base side so I was running away from the dugout toward second base. The sun was also going down so I was kind of running toward the setting sun. When the ball hit me it shattered my unbreakable glasses so all they saw was the ball hitting me and this halo of shattering glass all around my head. Immediately I fell to my knees and the front of me was covered in blood.

    After everything settled down they helped my to my van and laid me on the floor. Linda left the kids with some friends then she drove me to the hospital. I remember that the hospital was undergoing some reconstruction, so the usual emergency room entrance was closed. I was able to walk by then so here we come traipsing through the door. I was still holding my left eye and by then I was covered with blood. I’m sure I looked like the victim of an axe murder! Anyway, they took me into a room and laid me down. My face was starting to hurt quite a bit, but for whatever reason it took about ½ an hour for anyone to really look at me. Linda and Ken Scheibe were in the waiting room, unable to get any information on my condition, By this time my pastor, Brother Steen, arrived and stayed with me. Throughout this whole episode he stayed by my side, holding my hand. (I can’t tell you how much that meant to me)

    For some reason they wouldn’t let Linda in to see me and she was pretty hot about that. Finally they took some x-rays of me and determined that the orbit of my eye and my cheek bone had been fractured. After about an hour an ophthalmologist came in to check out my eye. All this time I was pretty scared, thinking that I had lost my left eye. What other reason could there have been for my instantaneous loss of vision in the eye? Well anyway, he pried open my severely swollen eyelid (what a treat that was!) and determined that I hadn’t lost the sight in the eye (praise God), but he couldn’t tell exactly what damage had been done to it. About an hour after that a plastic surgeon showed up and told me that to prevent severe scarring he would have to use lots of little stitches to sew up all of glass cuts on my face and eyelids. (Let the games begin!)

    As I said, fortunately Brother Steen was there with me throughout this ordeal. Actually,  the worst part was their giving me the anethestic directly into the open wounds. It burned pretty badly and about lifted me off of the table. Anyway, about 11:00PM they finished and said I could go home. Now I need to explain something here. When I came into the hospital the whole front of my baseball uniform was covered in blood. When I had been laying down a lot of blood got into my hair. When they started sewing me up they cleaned up the area with betadyne (a kind of brownish-colored antiseptic) and after the plastic surgeon finished they didn’t clean me up. Well, when I walked through the door into our home Linda about lost it. She said there were no words to describe how terrible I looked. That’s okay because I felt pretty bad also. Anyway, by God’s grace I healed up with little visible scarring and only a slight sensitivity in my left eye. It could have been much worse.

    The years quickly passed and I continued to work for the electrical distributor and became an outside salesman selling industrial products. About 1980 we started getting indications there was significant building going on in northern Nevada, so I made trip down there. There was a tremendous amount of new construction going on, what with the gold mines and such, and the company decided they wanted a part of that business. Because of the long distances involved,  I presented them with the idea of having me fly down to these mines and make my sales calls via airplane. Remarkably, they accepted the idea, paid for me to become current, and I was off and flying again after about 10 years. Oh, I can’t describe the feeling of flying. To me,  it’s one of the most precious and wonderful things I could ever do. I was so happy - here I was flying all over the western United States and someone else was picking up the tab. Because of the uniqueness of my method of making sales calls I believe it brought me increased business and,  therefore, increased income.

    The years rolled on and my mom and dad, Jackie and Bob, were considering having a house built in Idaho close to us. Because of my experience in the building trade they asked Linda and I to help them design and build this home. Well, we worked on the plans for about 6 months and then tragedy struck.  My dad Bob,  died. He had been involved in an accident at work and had his left leg severely broken. His healing seemed to be progressing normally,  although one day he complained of being short of breath. He called the doctor and the doctor said, "Well,   you have an appointment in a couple of days,  we’ll check it out when you come in." It appears Dad had thrown a blood clot from his broken leg which occluded his pulmonary artery and he quietly died in his sleep that night.

    This was a real shock. My mother Jackie had been diagnosed with lymphoma (a type of cancer) a couple of years previously and hadn’t been doing very well so I was kind of prepared for that phone call - but not my dad!  We made the melancholy trip to California and, boy,  was I in for a shock. I had never experienced the funeral of a loved one. The relatives that crawled out of the woodwork hinting and sniveling about how they would like a little something to remember my dad by sickened me. These people wanted just a little something, like a valuable diamond ring or his antique car. I was flabbergasted at their coldness and lack of feeling. My dad was my best friend, although I didn’t realize this until shortly before he died. I still think of him often and miss him terribly. I love you,   Dad.

    After my dad died we went ahead and built the house that he and my mom wanted, but my mom decided to stay in California and so gave us the house. It was a wonderful home and we so enjoyed living in this, our dream home. We had a large pond in front with plenty of trees to climb in. We had 10 acres so there was plenty of room for the kids to run off their boundless energy. We have many fond memories of this house and our family growing up in it.

Other Voices - Linda Low     

    The move to Idaho was a wonderful change.  We grew closer together, but especially close to the Lord.  We had a wonderful feast on the word, fellowship with very dear friends and a lovely safe place to raise children.  After living there only six months the Lord blessed us with our first home.  Over the next six years He would bless our home with four children, which certainly changed our lifestyle!  Since I had quit working it was a heavy struggle to meet their growing physical needs, but I will always be grateful to God that He allowed me to be a stay-at-home mom.

    It was also a time of growth for me as the Lord slowly molded me and filled me from the inside out.  It was quite a challenge to have so many children so close in age, and I felt the task just got too overwhelming for John.  He had become quite successful in his career and gained many opportunities for travel, etc.  I fear I became so wrapped up in motherhood that I jeopardized our relationship, forcing John to seek companionship elsewhere.  I was not, of course, aware of this at the time.  I'm not sure why the Lord allowed this but since ALL THINGS work together for good I'm sure it was a necessary path in our walk to Him.

    Over the years we built a large house on 10 acres where we finished raising our brood until our move to Phoenix.  There were many things learned and wonderful memories made there, for which I thank the Lord.

    The years continued to pass and the kids were growing up fast. Ben and Brian were pretty heavily involved in baseball and we attended most of the games. Speaking of baseball, let me digress just a moment. After the accident involving my eye, my enjoyment of baseball took a decided downturn. About a year later we had a company picnic. After eating, everyone decided to play a game of softball, wives and children included. We tried to make it as safe as possible by keeping the wives and children in the outfield. My youngest son,  Aaron,  was only about 7 or 8 years old so he was playing on the third base side of the field to go retrieve the foul balls. Well, yours truly gets up to bat and hits a screamer . . . right at Aaron. Again, time slowed to a crawl and I can remember distinctly the ball heading directly for Aaron’s face. I can remember being so scared because if it would have hit him in the face it would have seriously, possibly fatally, injured him. The ball seemed to take forever to get to him and I couldn’t breath,  I was so scared. At the last moment the ball floated up and he caught it! It was traveling so fast it ripped the glove off of his hand and landed about 50 feet behind him. I ran to him and hugged him so tightly. I have never played organized ball again,  and rarely do I play at all. God spared my son from serious injury and I never again want to be the instrument of someone possibly getting hurt.

    As I started to say, Ben and Brian both were pretty heavily involved in baseball and Ben, my oldest, decided to play Babe Ruth ball. Well, we signed him up and he started going to practices. I remember Ben complaining about his coach, although I didn’t think much about it because his prior coach was exceptional. Anyway, we attended the first game and we were in for a shock. His coach was terrible. Besides making some stupid decisions (of course,  no one knows baseball better than the spectators) he was swearing at the kids and berating them right on the field with all of the spectators listening. After a couple of games of this I could see this was really affecting Ben so I went and talked to the coach. I just wasted my breath. Not only didn’t he stopped publicly picking on the kids, purposely now he played Ben even less than before. Unfortunately, the league was pretty strict about kids changing assigned teams so I advised Ben to just hang in there and put up with this sorry excuse of a coach. I can’t tell you what a tragic mistake this was. By the end of the season Ben had no desire to play sports and he started becoming a loner. If I had to pin-point when my son started having problems, I can trace most of it directly back to this incident. This is the kind of thing that comes from a Dad not praying about the right course of action to take, and my son paid the price.

    For some time we had felt ourselves being distanced from our church. We felt like we were black sheep, never quite being part of the group. I’m not sure what was taking place,  but after some things went on that I didn’t agree with, I decided to leave the church. Linda stayed for awhile, but I had to leave. Concurrent with that some changes were taking place in my personal life.