Having a bachelor’s degree made the process of getting a teaching certificate easy at that time. When I started this process there was a shortage of teachers and going back for the need classes was a simple process. At that time the colleges would help with setting up these needed classes and helping you would get all the material you needed to pass the Teaching Certification test.  My bachelor’s degree from Temple was in Bible and History. My grades however were not the best. My class ranking was one hundred and seventy-seven out of one hundred and seventy-nine students. However, Temple did let me enter their master program after I finished college and I was able to add on one year of educational classes to my course of studies before I left school and went into management with Kroger. It amazing how that extra year of taking graduate classes in education save me from taking those classes to get my teaching certificate. In seven months, I had taken all the needed classes.

However, I also had to pass the Middle School Certification test given at that time to get the needed teacher certification needed for a career as an educator. This test was made easy by having as my last class a teacher who walked his class through every aspect that the test would cover. I also had a great teacher as a mentor as I did my student teaching at a local middle school. These two teachers really make me work hard in both the classwork, and the student teaching required classroom setting, but the information I gained made the Middle School Certification test easy. Passed with great scores.

Up to this time in my life school was just a hurdle that I had get pass to move to the next stage. But the process of getting my Middle School Certification to become an educator made the desire learn and enjoy the process of education take on a greater meaning in my live. I had said with my college degree that at least I knew more than two more students in my class and the problem with that was I accepted and was content with just getting a degree. However, that view point change by this time in my life. In the following years I added two master’s degrees and a specialist degree to my list of certifications. I graduated with honors with all these degrees and had one B to go along with the rest A’s with the specialist degree.

As we age, we must not stop learning. We must continue to grow mental, spiritual, emotional and as for the physical aging process we learn to deal with the physical limitations placed upon us. We must strive to constantly improve in these areas so that we can set the example for those around us. Staying in God’s Word is the greatest treasure we have to meet the goals of growing mental, emotional, and spirituality.

Monday morning, I realized that I was truly unemployed. With no income coming in I started the task of job hunting. I was lucky and found a few temporary warehouse jobs working with a Temp Agency. Most of these jobs were in warehouse that worked in the printing.  I loved the working conditions  in each of the locations I worked and they reminded me of the warehouses I use to visit when I worked at Kroger. One of the first jobs was at a warehouse that printed and put together training manuals for the Federal Government. This job only lasted for a few weeks, but I did learn a lot about the printing business.

The second job only lasted a few weeks also, as it too was in the printing business. However, this one was different in that it printed the stand-up characters for in store merchandising displays like the race car drivers of football players next to drink displays. This was a very interesting job because I was always working on a different project. I stayed very busy and loved learning all the new skills. However, like the previous job they were really looking at this position as the probational period  stage for someone seeking full-time employment. After they realize that I was not looking for a permanent position I was let go so that they find someone else who could meet their future needs.

I worked a few more jobs, but as soon as the employer realized that I was only looking for short term employment the job request started drying up. I would get calls for job opportunities that only needed someone for a few days. One of the last one I took was helping a contractor build cabinets in the photo centers in a drug store. The two months of working at temporary jobs was exciting since I was about to learn and pickup new skill sets. However I need a job that could provide a steady income.

However, my luck changed when I was able to get a job at Home Depot. Since I had already started taking the classes I needed to get my teaching certificate this job was wonderful. They worked around my schedule and I was able to work twelve hour shifts on the weekend to get extra hours in and still have time for classwork school. Finally, a steady paycheck.

It was a tough year after I left Kroger, however looking back it was this change that put me on the path of a wonderful career. Sometimes we look back on events in our life and wonder if I could change the path, would I? The realization is that we cannot change the past, but we can look to God to lead us to a greater future. He did that for me.   The future career in education that I was about to embark  lead to the wonderful path that I have enjoyed for these past twenty-eight years.

After nine months I was excited that the Vice President of Ingles was going to visit the store. We make sure that we were in Grand Opening condition and that every department was manned by the department head for his visit. Upon arrival I had my notebook in hand and was ready to take notes. First note was to get rid of the kid shopping carts that I had purchase for the children shoppers (this had been a big hit for parents with children). Next note was the remove the big Coke display from the front of the store (over two thousand dollars a week sale from this display). We continue the walk for several aisles until I was called to the front for a check approval. I handed the notebook to the zone manager and hurry up front.

Upon returning he commented on how clean the store looked and the freshness of the perishables ask why so many displays in these departments. I answer that was my way of cross merchandising high mark product to help increase sales. We then hurried through the rest of the store without any more questions. After the walk he went to the zone manager’s office to make some calls. A little later he left.

I felt like the walk must have went well. We had great customer service in all departments and the store conditions I believed were great. However, my zone manager had a short meeting with me after the store walk. He said the only comment he got from the vice president was that this was not a Kroger store and for me to turn it back into a store that follow all of Ingle’s guidelines. It was late so he decided that he would walk it with me tomorrow to get the store back on track. This was a Friday night. That night I discussed it with my wife who as a teacher had a better salary than I did as a store manager. We decided it would be best to go back to school and pick up the needed classes to teach. So, Saturday the decision was made to leave the world of retail. I had spent twenty plus years in this world. What was next.

That Sunday I turned in the store keys and felt a wonderful comfort and a new found relieve. Working seven days a week ten to twelve hours a day and then being told your work did not measure up to the company’s standards made me realized I was in the wrong career. However, the feeling that a new career was on the horizon gave me new hope for the future.

When I left Kroger I was given three months pay, and a three-week training class to help develop me for a new career. Well after two weeks I was ready to work again and places my applications at both Publix and Ingles.  Remember this was before the days of the internet and on-line job searches.  After twenty years in the grocery retail business I knew I had the experience to succeed.  A few days later the zone manager from Ingles called me in and after a short interview hired me as a store manager. I took the job and reported the next day to my training store. As always, I can in early and stayed late and after three weeks was given a store. The store I was assigned to reminded me of the first store  I managed with Kroger just a little larger. Sales were down and it was losing money. A simple store walk told me why! Dirty, empty shelves and out of date product on the shelves. As I was walking the store, I also noticed that the customer service could be greatly improved.

Time to take notes and roll up the sleeves and work. The store’s last store manager was not a working manager and stayed up front most of the day. My style of management was a change for the store staff.  Within a few weeks the store floors were cleaned and wax, shelves started to be fully stocked, and the perishable departments were freshened up. This required me working seven days a week, losing a few employees because of not liking their new assignments, and having to fire one for stealing. Sales started going up with the better store conditions and improved customer relations. They went up so much that the store manager from the Kroger up the street came and visited me just to see the improvement. For the next nine months the hard work was paying off and I even started to receive a few small bonus checks for improved sales and profits. Yes, the store was making a profit again after six months.

My paycheck was not as good as what I made at Kroger and my wife who had to go back to teaching, but we now had a good income to live on. Once again, I was building another career. Same position but with a different team and all new players and coaches. However, the one loss I felt was having to give up my past time hobby of golf.  Could no longer afford it.

Managing a new store in a great location with a great staff was a store manager’s dream. We excessed both our sale budgets and profit budget during the first year of the store’s opening. As far as the first-year results of a new store opening, we had one of the best in the entire division. Sales were great but the profit from these sales were even greater. Our inventories always came back great and our hourly usage to sales percentage was one of the best in the division. I was put on the company’s shrink team and would visit and conduct store walks to help other stores solve their bad inventories issue. I had several members of my staff promoted to other stores as department heads and one assistance became a store manager of another store. My yearly evaluation was not outstanding but excellent, which was almost impossible to achieve.

After the great results of the first year our sales started to level off. Profits were still great, but the sale growth was not as great as it was during the first year. We kept the store conditions as great as we always had in the past and our customer service was still the best in the area. However, at that time on the new housing was being developed on the other side of town and the now older store was seeing the store sale growth. During this period, I also had remarried and had my sons living with us as well as our new daughter. I had even started back in church and even though I did could not teach a Sunday School class I would usually have a lot of input in the discussions. I had finally achieved the goals I had been going after these last few years.

Then I received the unexpected call to come to the Central Office to met with my zone manager for a short meeting.  The short meeting ended up being over three hours long.  I was told I was going to be relocated to a different store and a reduced position. I ask why and they stated that it was best for the company and me. After twenty years with the company, working in four different states and eighteen different stores I refused this relocation because I had the store of my dreams. However, the store of my dreams was not my store, but the company’s store and I had no chose in the matter. Pride kicked in and I refused to give up my dream store, so I found my self without a job for the first time in sixteen years.  Afterward I went back to clean out my office and informed my staff that I was leaving they were speechless. As one department head stated that you would bleed the Kroger’s True-Blue color.

However,  I had a peace that everything would be OK.  I knew I was great and would bounce back again.

I knew the Grand Opening was going to be great. For the past six months I had been working seven days a week from 5:00 in the morning until the last contractor went home for the day or night (some times it was early the next morning). Because of the commitment of a great staff by the opening day our punch list of construction issues were down to just a page and half. Opening in December, three weeks before Christmas was tricky, but I had a great staff who could handle the task. This was the staff that was responsible that I had at the old store.  The excitement of opening a new store with a great staff and a community that was eagerly waiting for the newly designed store of the future (almost four times bigger than the old store) to showcase was an overwhelming physical task.

A few days before opening I pulled my back muscle and could not bend over. Pain was extremely great and all I could do was walk upright and hold a cup of coffee on my hand. After seeing the doctor and was told to stay on bed rest I decided just to tough out the pain. Nothing was going to stop me from being at the store and getting it ready.   Two days later and a day before opening I was 100 percent again.  Yes, toughing it out worked. I soon realized that obstacles that might stop others do not have to stop you. One way to make the day go better is to make yourself get up and start the day early. A good hot shower, and coffee has always been and will be my way of starting off the day.

Also following the Lord wholeheartedly as Caleb did will give you the strength the face your daily challenges.  I have always use Caleb from the book of Joshua as my guide for my physical strength and health. For I would tell others that I have the same God as Caleb did and He will be with us today as He was in the time of Caleb.

As Caleb told Joshua in Joshua 14:6-12 Now the people of Judah approached Joshua at Gilgal, and Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, “You know what the Lord said to Moses the man of God at Kadesh Barnea about you and me.  I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh Barnea to explore the land. And I brought him back a report according to my convictions, but my fellow Israelites who went up with me made the hearts of the people melt in fear. I, however, followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly.  So on that day Moses swore to me, ‘The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever, because you have followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly.’^[ “Now then, just as the Lord promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the wilderness. So here I am today, eighty-five years old!  I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then.  Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as he said.”

So even to this day I look first to the Lord for healing. Yes, sometimes I need some rest and my personal belief might not be shared by many, however after sixty-seven years on this earth I have witness God’s blessing of health on my life. My prayer to God is to have the physical strength like John Wesley who was still preaching at age eighty-eight, just a few days before he died. He met death signing hymns and quoting the Bible. His last words were “The best of all is, God is with us.” For me it is to say like Paul “to live is Christ and to die is Gain”. However, to live I must have a purpose and that purpose is to reflect Christ in my life.

With the new store opening our store was blessed to be included in the Grand Opening ads. This help us stay competitive with the other stores in the area. Our sales dropped the first two weeks of the opening of the new store, however by the third week we saw a rebound in our sales. A lot of our customers went to the new store, but after two weeks they were coming back, most hated to fight the traffic to get to the new store. After a few more weeks our sales were greater than the new store. Not only had we kept a large portion of our customers we also picked up a new customer base from existing stores from the special that were ran in the Grand Opening ads. The extra hard work we had put into the making of our store sparkle during the Grand Opening of the new store had paid huge dividends.

I was amazing how great the surveys taken during the opening of the new store had reflected a positive review on our store. These surveys were taken at both stores and the customers praise the new store on all the extras it provided: a seafood department, a floral department, a complete nonfood department, a seat down deli restaurant and a pharmacy. However, two areas the new store could not match us on were customer service and the freshness of our perishable departments. And this was the reason why most of our customers returned. A few months later the President of the company came out to visit both of the stores and was very impressed with the results we had in retaining our customers.

Our President was a former store manager and zone manager that pushed for store manager involvement in the community. He saw this in our store. He also saw the need to replace our store. The lease was almost up for the stores in our store’s shopping center, so the timing was right for the planning of the new replacement store for both us and the drug store beside us.  I became involved in the planning of this store and would be the new Unit Manager.  A year later I was very busy for several months, working between two stores, closing one down and getting the other ready for a Grand Opening.  So, God did provide a greater opportunity for me and the employees at this store. Looking back on the past is a great reminder that waiting on God to work things out is always the best path.

My study of the Psalms has given me a great insight to David’s personnel life. His use of the Psalms to portray his feeling without revealing the events in his life is a trait that I wish I could master. For reading the Psalms has made me look closer at David’s life as portrayed in the Old Testament.  David had many disappointments in his life both career and personal.  The dreams of my youth of serving the Lord on the mission field were given up early in my studies at Temple. These dreams turned working with the youth ministry in the church, but these dreams also had to be given up. Attending church without your spouse makes it hard to serve in the ministry of the local church. I realized that not matter how hard one works to keep a marriage together, it will fail if a couple cannot find common grounds. Sometimes it best to part ways.

This decision also led me to a different path in my walk with Christ. My walk was no longer a church orientated walk but a personnel walk.   At that time in my career we closed the books and prepared the sales and hour usage reports on Saturday night. Therefore Sunday mornings became a regular work day for me so I could make sure everything was correct before these reports would be send in to the Central Office.  I would also work Saturday night to make sure all of next week’s plans were in place.   My assistant managers loved this schedule since it would give them every other weekend off.  This was rare for a store manager to do, since most took Sunday and Wednesday  as their off days.  I guess this is where I developed the saying of “Never put off today what could have been completed tomorrow.”   So I developed the trait of staying late to make sure the daily task would be a day ahead of schedule.

I also kept up my daily studies in the Bible and continue to go to church as much as I could. However, I started looking at my career as my ministry.  I could use my career as a guide to others on how to be a believer in the workplace. My personal beliefs in Christ were not something I hid but would shared with both employees and customers. I tried to be an example for others to share their faith in the workplace.  I realized that God’s Word is our mirror to make us as Christ-like to the world.

Have you ever believed you worked hard for an opportunity and then not even really be considered for the position? Well this was one of the lessons that the Lord had to teach me in my early career (many times over I am afraid to say). However, during these times that we must stay in God’s Word and look at these times as growth and not disappointments for we can not see the future God is preparing for us.

Yes, my second store assignment was a great store. The store manager before me was promoted to a much larger store. The store had a strong staff that took good care of the customers and keep store conditions good. However, because of the high sale volume for the given square footage of the store the evening conditions of the store were not always great for the late evening shoppers. Sales were still strong however I believed we could make them even stronger. I started working every evening from 3:00 to 7:00 and stayed on the sale floors with two employees to improve our store condition during the evening traffic flow. It was amazing how after a few months our evening sales greatly improved.

After two years we had the store sales as well as profits hit all time highs. Our sales and profit per square footage were the best in the division. This led to the Central Office to make the decision to build a new store in the area. This one would be twice the size of our store and would be a Combo store which include a Pharmacy and a non-food department as well as a sit in deli. This was the store of my dreams, like the one I had been in a few years earlier as an assistant manager. However, the Central Office considered that the sale growth came from the population growth in the community and not our actions at the store level. My dream store went to someone else to manage.

A word of advice to young believers, never let disappointments trap you into giving up or believing that God has forgotten about you. There will be times of disappointments in your careers, and when these events happen it was probably become a greater disappointments each time they happen.  This was the greatest disappointment I had faced in my life up to this time.  I lost most of my key personnel to the new store and had to rebuild a new staff. My store was expected to see at least a forty percent drop in sales to the new store which also meant a loss in profits. But we stayed positive. God has a way of making believers stronger when they learn to wait on Him, instead of making thing happening on their own strength. God was planning a brighter future for me.

Managing a grocery store from a Christian point of view was very rewarding. It opened the doors to countless opportunities. One of the true gifts that a believer can give to the world is that of service. As a store manager I realized that customer service was one of the best ways to build a business. My second store as a manager was a blessing from the Lord.  I was in a great community and had a wonderful staff of employees. It was in this store that I became a role model for my employees. I love being on the sale floor taking care of customers and getting to know them by name.

Meeting the needs of others became one of the greatest activities I did as a store manager. One such activity was support Girl Scout Troop 147. Of course, they would set up and sale their cookies every year at the store, but our store was able to offer them more. For three years our store would help them set up small sidewalk carnivals during different times of the year for their fund-raising activities.  These activities helped pay for their trip to Washington DC, Boston and New York. These events were wonderful because it helped the Girl Scout Troop, but it also generated excitement for the store. They were very creative in the way they ran these carnivals.   As I looked the other day on the wall in my office at home, I could not help but reflect on how special the several plaques  from the Girl Scout Troop 147 that where given to me was such a rewarding time in my life.

After many years our paths have taken us in different directions. I realize that we can not hold on to the past. And yet sometimes the past comes back into our present. When this happens, I hope that what I am remembered the most for, is my reflection of Christ living in me. Yes, we fail in our daily walk in this world and sometimes the pull of earthly things will make us committed to a path that is not pleasing to God.  However, we are given I John 1:6-10 to describes the way a believer’s path in this world should be: “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”