Some time back I was talking to my friend Tom Hoeffner, a psychologist.  He’d been on a men’s retreat where he had heard a wonderful and true story.  Tom helped me track down Jim, the storyteller.  I called, and Jim recounted the following:

I was twelve years old when my father and older brother were murdered.  Not a single person, to my recollection, reached out to me with comfort and understanding.  My friends and teachers at school acted as though nothing had changed.  Over the next few years I became more and more of a trouble-maker.  Most folks figured I was going nowhere.

I managed to get into college, but not much about my attitude or behavior changed.  I made marginal grades and my constant pranks earned me blame for most of what went wrong on campus.  School officials could always find someone to say I was close by when mischief occurred.  I was treading water and had no idea what to do with myself.

One day Dr. Thomas C. Carter, Dean of Men, stopped me in the hall.  “Would you come to my office?”  Dr. Carter asked, “I want to talk to you.”  I couldn’t think of anything I had done wrong recently, so I wondered what had happened as I waited to see him.  

When we sat down, Dr. Carter said, “You know, it occurs to me that you haven’t quite found yourself yet.” (I thought, “What an understatement!”) He continued, “I’ve been thinking about you lately, and it seems to me you’d be a wonderful doctor.” (I almost fainted.)

To make a long story short, my grades shot to straight A’s for my last two years of college.  I went to medical school and became a surgeon.  Now I’m retired after thirty-one enjoyable years of practice in the Hill Country.

Isn’t it amazing how a single conversation can give person a future?  An incredibly wise man incarnates God’s intentions for a confused boy, and the impact ripples through a generation of friends, colleagues and patients.

Jim said something else to me on the phone, “If an older man is not encouraging a young man everyday, then he is not doing his job.”  I don’t know if Jim is familiar with Jeremiah 29:11, but he’s living it.

Grace and Peace,

Wes Eades