Me: I remember reading that book in school!
Prodigal: Yes, it is a very good book.
Me: Here is another story about school.
The five men seated at the conference table looked at one another. Then they looked at me. No one said a word, but I could read their minds, and what I read there made my heart sink.
I had used my last funds to hire these men, all experts in business management, to advise me on how to resolve the financial difficulties I was facing. For two hours we had been going over my books and records. They had asked searching questions, and I had attempted to answer them honestly.
Finally one of the lawyers–three of the men were lawyers and two were certified public accountants–cleared his throat. “George,” he said, “would you mind stepping outside for a few minutes? We’d like to discuss all aspects of your situation frankly among ourselves.”
Feeling like a condemned man, I waited outside. The minutes passed slowly. Finally the door opened and I was asked to rejoin the group. The lawyer spoke again. “I’m sorry to tell you this, George, but we can see only one solution for you. We feel you should give up and close your business schools.” Give up! Here I was at age 28 with my own buisness–and now I was facing bankruptcy.
One of the lawyers accompanied me to the elevator. I guess he meant to be kind, but his parting words went through me like a knife. “George,” he said, “why don’t you go to work for someone else? You don’t have a prayer, not a prayer!”
I went out of the building like a man in a daze. Give up. That was all the experts could suggest. Well, I thought with sudden grim determination, I wasn’t going to take that way out. There had to be a better way, there had to be. But still I could hear that lawyer’s voice with its mocking echoes: “You haven’t got a prayer, not a prayer!”
The whole thing had come as such a shock that it almost seemed unreal. In the first place, I never expected to have a business of my own. When I finished high school in Kannapolis, North Carolina, my goal was to make $100 a week and to buy a new car every three or four years.
My first full-time job was an unskilled laborer in a factory. After a couple of years I developed trouble with my back. X rays showed an injury to my spine, probably from playing football in high school. The doctor told me I could do no more heavy work.
My mother recommended college.
I knew I needed more education, but there wasn’t any money for it. My father had died when I was eight, leaving a lot of debts, and my mother had gone to work, sometimes holding down two jobs at once, to keep us going.
College seemed out of the question, but in nearby Concord was a small business college. I registered there for a two-year course.
Six months later, my savings ran out. I asked the school manager if there was any way I could earn my tuition, and he took me on as the school’s janitor. For pocket money, I found a part-time job in a bakery.
One Saturday morning, I had just finished my janitorial chores and changed into my street clothes when two high-school girls came in. One of them asked, “Do you work here?”
“Yes, I said. But I didn’t tell them the distinguished position that I held!
She said, “We’re thinking of going to college after we finish high school. Can you tell us something about this school?”
That was easy. I liked the school. I felt I was learning important things about business administration, and I knew the school was providing a valuable community service in training young people who still were too inexperienced to get a good job in business. As I gave the girls a tour of the rooms I had just cleaned, I also told them what a great school it was. Before they left, they enrolled for the fall semester.
Monday morning, when I gave the applications to the school director, he was delighted. “George,” he said, “in addition to your job as janitor, if you want to do some recruiting for the school, I’ll pay you ten dollars for each student you bring in.”
When you believe in something and are enthusiastic about it, you can’t help but be successful. Eventually I was earning enough from recruiting to quit the bakery job. Then, when I finished the two-year course myself, the director hired me as a full-time recruiter.
I really enjoyed my work. I looked upon recruiting as more than a job. Not only was I helping the school, but I was also helping young people to improve themselves and their futures. Even, so, I wasn’t satisfied. I wanted to become more involved in the school and feel more like a part of it. I was looking for a future myself.
One day I asked one of the owners if there was any chance that I might buy into the school as a partner. To my surprise, he said yes. We agreed on the price and that he would make deductions in my salary each week until I paid him off.
They owned three other business colleges in the state. I visited those and met the staff members and liked them. Soon I heard that the owners were ready to get out of the school business and move into other fields. With an audacity that was beyond my years and experience, I offered to buy them out.
After I took over, I soon discovered I was facing trouble. There were unpaid bills totaling thousands of dollars. On the horizon were creditors with lawyers. Some staff members hadn’t been paid for weeks, some for months. Properties were mortgaged to the hilt. I tried to get a loan at practically every bank in North Carolina, but my applications were rejected. I didn’t know any people I could borrow money from. That was when I decided to have a meeting with the lawyers and accountants.
For days the words I had heard there haunted me: not a prayer, not a prayer, not a prayer. Then late one day, as I was driving home, deep in despair, I suddenly realized, “But I do have a prayer! It’s all I have left.” As a small boy I had been active in the church, but when I became a little older I drifted away from it all. My faith had not diminished; I just hadn’t called upon it lately.
I stopped the car along the road, and I let the words pour out of me: “Lord, You know what a mess I’m in. Everybody says I’m sunk. I don’t believe you feel that way. Help me, Lord. I’m turning the company over to You. You do the guiding and I’ll do the work. And anything that comes to me, Lord, I’ll share with You.”
A sense of great relief shot through me. I felt as though I had just been lifted out of a nightmare. I still had my problems and I still had no money. But even so, it seemed that a huge burden had been lifted.
That night I had my first good sleep in weeks. When I awoke in the morning, I felt so exhilarated that I bounded out of bed and said aloud, “Good morning, Lord!”
When I go to the office, the secretary was on the phone. She placed a hand over the mouthpiece and whispered, “It’s that textbook publisher in New York. He’s having a fit.”
“I’ll talk to him,” I said. She was surprised. For weeks I had been dodging creditors on the phone and not even reading their threatening letters. I took the phone. “Good morning, Mr. Johnson,” I said. “I hope you’re in good health.”
“Not financially,” he said. “Mr. Shinn, what are you going to do about this bill of yours?”
“I’m going to pay it,” I said. “In fact, I’ll send you a check today. I don’t know how much, but I’ll send you something.”
“Good, ” he said. “I look forward to it.”
I didn’t even have to open the checkbook to know that the most I could send him was one dollar, so I sent a check for that amount. A few days later, he called again and said, “Mr. Shinn, I got your check this morning. It’s only for one dollar. Did you make a mistake?”
“No, I didn’t” I said.
“Then are you trying to be cute?”
“I’ve never been more serious,” I said. “I’m going to pay that bill, but you’ll have to let me do it in weekly amounts I can afford. Will you go along with that?”
He thought about it, then said, “For the time being.”
The next week, I was able to send him seven dollars. Gradually the bill was paid off. So were other bills, as creditors agreed to give us more time.
At first, I didn’t want to tell others about my experience with the Lord on the highway, fearing that they would think I had gone off the deep end. But then I figured that if the Lord was guiding me He was probably guiding others on our team, and I decided it would be a good idea if they knew about it.
At a staff conference one morning, I said, “I think we ought to open this meeting with a prayer.” Puzzled looks went around the table,followed by bowed heads. Knowing that I was going to have trouble with my first public prayer, I had written it out beforehand. And then I told them what had happened to me.
This was the turn in the road for us; as a company and as individuals, a turn to the Lord. And the answers started coming, sometimes even popping into my mind in the middle of the night. We began to reorganize the schools, expanding curriculums, increasing facilities and trying new ideas, such as offering valuable programs for veterans returning from Vietnam. We did our best to offer first-class training in many business skills at moderate tuition costs, preparing students for successful careers in the business world.
Enrollment grew to over 5,000 students; new schools were added to our chain of colleges. As our expertise increased, other schools throughout the country started coming to us for consultation services. Today the once nearly bankrupt organization has a staff of over 800, and serves as a management consultant to colleges in over 28 states.
When I look back through the years, I’m amazed by the difference that simply turning to God and letting Him direct things had made for me. Every morning when I wake up and get out of bed, I still say, “Good morning, Lord!” because, thanks to Him, that’s just what it is.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:9
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalipig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
