Scott - A Solid Foundation

“Every decision that I make as a parent involves asking myself if what I’m deciding is laying the right foundation for my children. Whether it is spending extra time working on multiplication tables with my seven year old son or emphasizing the importance of saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ with my three year old daughter, I try as much as possible to focus on the big picture of how they are raised today will impact them for the rest of their lives. I couldn’t count how may times that I have looked at my children and thought, what would I be like today if my parents had focused half as much on my foundation growing up, as my wife and I spend with Nicholas and Hannah? I have spent far too much time of my adult life feeling sorry for myself for having had a rotten childhood. It has taken nearly twenty years since graduating from The Fold for me to have allowed many of the truths that I had learned at The Fold to travel from my head to my heart.
I entered The Fold at the age of fifteen coming from a shattered family and the end of my third year repeating the eighth grade. My entire fourteen months were an extreme contrast to the lack of structure and few positive role models previously experienced in my life. I processed everything that was taught to me about God’s limitless love and His desire to have a personal relationship with me, but it was almost twenty years later until I had finally understood and embraced the truth that God allows things that I perceive as negative not to happen to me but rather for me (Romans 8:28).
One of the things that I was consistently taught at The Fold was how to let go of the negatives, the bad situations, and sometimes even painful abuse, in order to search for how those instances may be used to draw me closer to God. It took a very long time to look to God about using any situation as an opportunity to build His kingdom instead of my own.
After leaving to The Fold I didn’t appreciate how blessed I was and how God’s hand was over every situation. Since I had no solid home to return to, I was taken in and raised throughout high school by a member of The Fold board of directors. Before I knew it I was graduating high school and was entering an expensive four year private university with very little financial resources. Year after year I stressed and worried about where the money would come from, but between a grant here and a student loan there, the money just always seemed to appear at the right moment. After every instance of worrying I felt foolish for wasting so much energy in trying to make things happen within my own strength and not simply letting go.
The next ten years involved working in South Korea, traveling throughout Asia, marrying someone way out of my league, having two awesome kids, working for a company called Sylvan Learning Center at an entry level position to owning my own franchise. For many of those ten years I was more concerned with losing what I had instead of being thankful for having it in the first place and realizing that none of it was ever really mine to begin with.
After leaving The Fold in 1988, I continued to struggle with letting go of the negatives and the inferiorities that had been ingrained in me as a child, but I also knew how to face and deal with them. Yet, at times, I worried so much that I would never amount to anything and for some time I did not see how God was weaving everything together for my benefit and His glory. Finally, although it seemed to take almost two decades, I am now enjoying a day-to-day walk with The Lord. In reflection, I see that it was just a matter of time before God would so patiently show me the level of impact my time at The Fold had or would have throughout my life.
Matthew 7:25 says, ‘The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.’"