Gods sovereign will in my life

Gods sovereign will in my life

Stephen Yulish

I have a lot of time on my hands (some would say too much) so I spend a great deal of time thinking about things. Hey, I dont drink or smoke or chew tobacco or do drugs. I dont hunt or fish or camp or race cars or play golf or make furniture. There is nothing wrong with any of those pastimes but they arent me. Sue me. I am an overeducated, know it all Jewboy from the city who has been transformed by the loving grace of God.
Thank you Jesus. But I still like to recollect how God took this city boy from Cleveland, Ohio who wanted to find the missing link in Africa and brought him to the desert of Arizona to find Him. It is a fascinating story. Let me take you along on this ride through memory lane one more time and show you Gods plan for my life as you have never heard it before. I will then show you how He took Paula from a wealthy hedonistic lifestyle in Edmond, Oklahoma to the same desert as He did me and how He put us together. Truth is stranger than fiction and I could not have made up this story in any novel that I could have written. Strap on your seatbelts and enjoy this roller coaster ride.
I was born at Mount Sinai Hospital in Cleveland Ohio in 1947 and was a nice Jewish boy. I graduated from Clevelands own Case Western University in 1969 with a degree in Physical Anthropology (Human paleontology-evolution). I wanted to go on to grad school to continue my education in paleontology. I wanted to eventually go to Africa and find the missing link between man and apes (really-trust me!). But God had a plan. The Vietnam War was raging and I could not get a deferment for grad school as I had for undergrad. I thought about moving to Canada or joining the Navy but decided to teach in the inner city of Cleveland which was looking for liberal arts educated, white males who did not want to go to Vietnam and would rather try and make a difference with inner city black kids. They would give me a 2A deferment. I jumped at it. I became a part of Bill Clintons brigade (Ha). In the fall of 1970 the draft lottery came out and I pulled 359 out of 365! No more worries about Vietnam. I had a plan but so did God. I decided to go back to grad school and become an Indiana Jones and save the world for Darwin. I applied to Yale, the University of Illinois, and other top schools because my senior paper had just been published in a Japanese Primatological Journal. My old Prof. at CWRU said I should have no problem getting into Grad school. I aced my GREs. He told me I could always come back there to grad school. I quit teaching and went to work at Huron Road Hospital in Cleveland on the 3-11 P.M. graveyard shift mopping floors on the janitorial shift. I let my hair grow to my shoulders. I audited classes at CWRU during the day to get back in the swing of things, but God had other plans for me.
My major Prof. Milford Wolpoff (a Jew who looked like a Neanderthal man) decided to leave CWRU and the department fell apart. I was not accepted to Yale or the other schools. I was put on the waiting list for Illinois. My then wife Debis (I got married in 1970) parents lived in Champaign Illinois where the University was, so we went to check on the status of my application. I was told it was still pending. While there, I decided to also apply for a grad program in Philosophy of Education because of my "experience" with inner city teaching (what chutzpah-nerve). Being a good liberal person, I knew I could change the world. I had to take the Millers Analogy Test on the spot and aced it. Well needless to say, I was accepted and decided to forgo Anthropology. God had a plan.
I later found out that my new department of Educational Policy Studies was ranked second in the country behind Stanford and ahead of Harvard. I never would even thought of applying if I had known that. My undergrad studies were all science and I had little background in philosophy or history. The philosophy of logic Prof. took me under his wing but I was attracted to another history Prof that was a Freudian Marxist. I became his research assistant for three years and a teaching assistant for one year. I graduated in 1975 with my MA and PhD. I could tell you myriad of stories about that four year experience but the point of even mentioning him, Clarence Karier, is that when I graduated in 1975, he made a phone call to his friend Prof.. Henry Butler at the University of Arizona in Tucson and lo and behold, I got a job and moved to Tucson, AZ. I had never been west of the Mississippi. God had a plan all along. Cant you see?
I taught at the University of Arizona in Tucson for seven years. I wrote articles and a book and gave papers at national meetings. One time I even shared the dais with Stephen J. Gould, the leading evolutionist of the time. Who knew? I taught classes on alternate conceptions of reality and led 1000 students to hell. I badmouthed our country and Christians and was a typical screwed up liberal, God hating Prof. before it was even fashionable. My students are probably the Profs. now messing up students minds. But God had a plan. See?
I was denied tenure in 1983 and had to leave. I was broken hearted. I applied to other colleges but was not picked up. I was offered the position of State Director of The Jewish National Fund in Phoenix by a friend. I reluctantly accepted but what did I know of fundraising? Over the next year, I raised so much money ($50,000 for a Gov. Bruce Babbitt forest in Israel) that the Phoenix Jewish Federation noticed and stole me away from JNF and nearly doubled my salary. We brought in Bibi Netanyahu then ambassador to the UN for a fundraiser. I was flying high again but God had a plan. See?
In the winter of 1984, my wife became orthodox and a feminist at the same time (dont ask!) and took a job in New York with a Jewish camp. She wanted me to move to New York but I did not want to. I figured that she would do this for a few months and eventually miss me and our three sons and come home. She never did. The marriage collapsed. When my boss found out that I had gone to New York on our fifteenth anniversary to look
for a job, he fired me. My whole life fell apart but God had a plan (I know He does not like divorce) but I am convinced He knew what would happen. I scrambled around for months trying to find another job. I was finalist for the positions of Director of the Arizona office of The American Jewish Committee and the Anti Defamation league, but God had a plan. I went to work for a computer headhunting company. My heath deteriorated and when I went to Barrows Neurological Center in Phoenix in the spring of 1987 and was diagnosed with MS my boss called me into her office and told me that she would kill herself if she had MS. The next day she fired me. Nice lady?
No family, no health, no job. I was losing everything, but God had a plan.
See?
In the fall of 1987 I found myself working for a Christian company. I was relentlessly witnessed to everyday by a crusty, tough old Marine from Texas. I would not listen to him. I said that I wanted to see the burning bush for myself.One year later on October 2, 1988, God revealed Himself to me through visions and a dream, and I got saved. About eighteen months after that, I married the most wonderful Christian woman in the world, Paula, who also found herself working at that same company as me.
God took me from Cleveland, Ohio, to Illinois, to Tucson, AZ to Phoenix, AZ to Him. In retrospect it seems perfectly clear but while going through it I did not have a clue. Can you not see the hand of God working in this worthless sinners life?
My wife Paula was living in Edmond, Oklahoma (she also lived in Borger and Houston, TX) married to a well to do geologist for Shell Oil in the early eighties. She had a big house with a swimming pool (I found an old picture of her sitting by her pool with her girlfriends in a bikini, drinking scotch, smoking and playing cards). Who knew? How in the world would we ever get together? Paula was a ski bunny who went to all the major slopes and skied her life away. She went to Acapulco and Mazatlan and partied.
She could afford to and loved it.
Even though she had been raised by a godly mother in Shawnie, OK who took her to church (her father was a famous jazz musician), she had obviously backslidden. The woman in the house behind hers in Edmond was a Christian and used to watch Paula partying and prayed for her. God had a plan. In
1983 Paula picked up a copy of a book by Charles Capps and was born again.
She stopped drinking and partying and threw away all her rock albums. No more Janice Joplin singing Lord wont you buy me a Mercedes Benz.
She was on fire for the Lord. Her husband and family thought she had gone crazy as did her liberal Pastor. Her husband moved out and the marriage fell apart also. God had a plan for her life as well. But how did she get to Arizona?
Paulas sister,Darla, and her husband, Chuck, were living in Phoenix (thats a story in itself). For those of you who know Paula now it is hard to imagine her as a jetsetter. partying, ski bunny, since now she is such a God fearing, spirit filled woman but Darla and Chuck were the same way back then also. They thought Paula had gone off the deep end when she got filled with the Holy Spirit. Paula led Darla and Chuck back to their Christian roots in around 1984. In 1986, Paula moved to Phoenix to get away from her overbearing ex and began attending Tommy Barnetts Phoenix First Assembly where her sister and Chuck went. Paula then became the secretary to Tommys associate Pastor Jack Wallace. Okay, she too now was in Phoenix as was I but how did she get to Swiss America to meet me?
God had a plan. See?
The church could not pay her enough to support her two daughters. Chuck was now working at Swiss America and the owner Craig Smith was a friend of Pastor Jack Wallace and he too went to Phoenix First Assembly. She came to Swiss America around Feb 1988. And when she first walked past me wearing this short pink "stewardess, outfit, I was never the same again. But she would have nothing to do with me accept to witness to me because I was an unsaved sinful Jewboy (this is what that old Marine used to affectionately call me). But God had a plan.
While I had accepted the Lord in October of 1988, our first date wasnt until January 25 of 1990 (I had dirty diapers for a while-sue me) but we were married on March 30, 1990 as God had known all along.
Paula is my beshert which is Yiddish for my soul mate. We were destined to be together before the creation of the world. The Talmud says that God picks out the man or woman whom you are to marry although many do not heed this call and thus their marriages fail. When you truly find your soul mate that God has picked out than you will be blessed forever with much joy and happiness and a godly marriage.
Paula and I found our beshert and thus have a wonderful godly marriage.
Thank you Jesus!

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