Chapter 1: An Oddly Comfortable Chair: The Start of A Journey.
I can still picture it, the wall I was staring at, although some of the details like what was hanging on it and perhaps even what color it was, I have trouble distinguishing between reality and my imagination. I remember the chair was comfortable though, which I thought to be very surprising. Why I found it surprising, I’m not sure. After all, it was the office of a Lieutenant who was responsible for many up-and-coming Navy pilots; comfortable office chairs for guests are an important thing, in her position. Perhaps it was not the comfort of the chair that surprised me, but rather the lack of discomfort I felt about the whole situation. You see, I was sitting in that oddly comfortable chair on this particular Monday morning to end a pursuit that had consumed the vast majority of my time and mental energy for 3 full years. I was there to drop out of flight school.
I have begun to feel, recently, that it is time for me to start sharing this story, and the way God worked in my life by leading me from flight school to seminary. I believe some of this urgency may simply be because, if I don’t start putting this on paper soon, the events and memories will become even more hazy than they already are. Either way, up to this point, I tend to keep the story generic, and I don’t like to offer any more information about it than I am directly asked. However, I think I am doing others a disservice by keeping the way I clearly saw God’s hand in the events in my life, to myself.
Part of the struggle I have had, as I have considered sharing more of this story, is the fear that it will come across as vain or bring glory to me rather than to God and His work. There are certainly times, throughout this, where Rachel and I took rather large “leaps of faith”, to pursue my internal call into the office of ministry. Yet, I have come to a point where I do not believe even this to be a valid excuse for keeping this story to myself. That being said, I ask you not to think of any of this as a testament to our strength or resolve. We struggled throughout all of this (me more so than Rachel, who truly is a pillar of grace under pressure), a fact I will draw out as I unravel this story.
Instead, I want to point all of this back to God and His willingness to work with us pitiful sinful creatures, even amidst our own shortcomings and flaws, and provide us with exactly what we need to get us to walk in the works He has prepared for us before the beginning of time (Ephesians 2:10). In my case, one of the greatest comforts I had throughout all of this was the clarity He gave me in this internal call.
I wish it was something I could articulate more clearly, as I have yet to find the words to describe it. The best I can do is say that it was something like a light switch. The switch powered the apparatus in my mind that said “you need to go to seminary, and you need to do it now”. Of course, the knowledge that God would eventually be leading me to the ministry was of no surprise. God had put it on my heart since I was 3 years old that He had that in store for me. In fact, at every juncture in my 11 year military career, Rachel and I would diligently pray that God would grant us discernment as to whether I should remain in the military or pursue seminary. But I never would have imagined it would come as abruptly as it did, or in the way that it did.
In fact, as I was starting my career as a newly minted mustang (a military term for an enlisted member who goes to the dark side… i.e. commissions) I was pretty confident God would let me get to my 20-year mark and retire before sending me to the seminary. I had visions of retiring at the age of 39 and being “set for life”, taking the financial burden of supporting a pastor off the back of any congregation God would send me to. Turns out, that’s not what He had in store.
No, this story doesn’t start with me walking off the parade deck in a retirement ceremony that feels like it came “just days after” I joined. It begins with me sitting in an oddly comfortable chair in the office of a Lieutenant who, for the life of me, I can’t remember the name of, listening to the gentle ticking of the clock on the wall and waiting.
I wasn’t waiting long, it didn’t even feel long, it just felt… weird. Up to this point in my career, I had never quit anything. Even the thought of quitting something I set out to do just seemed wrong. Not to mention the fact that I enjoyed what I was learning. Heck, I was going to be on the flight schedule for my first flight that week! But none of that mattered as I sat in the oddly comfortable chair, because I knew this decision was not mine to make. God had said “go” and I had no choice but to say, “yes Lord.”
The Lieutenant walked into the office in a confident but non-aggressive manner. She was taken aback at my choice in uniform.
“Why are you in your Khaki’s, Ensign Simmons?” She began, “you don’t need to wear that uniform anymore.”
She was right, two weeks earlier my flight school class had celebrated our graduation from Phase 2 of the Naval Introductory Flight Evaluation Program (also known as NIFE). In this celebration, which commemorates the successful completion of the “book work” or academic phase of introductory flight school, Naval officers in the program are authorized to wear their flight-suits for the first time. After this celebration, students are able to wear their flight suit as their uniform of the day for the majority of flight training. Picture that, working in a uniform that was about as comfortable as going to work in your pajamas! That was the life…
Rachel and me at my “Flight Suit Friday” Celebration.
“I felt like this was a more appropriate outfit for this conversation.” I responded, setting a solemn tone for our meeting. I proceeded to tell her I needed to withdraw from the flight school program. He demeanor did not change upon receiving this information. After all, I was far from the first student to drop from flight school, and I wouldn’t be the last. This was not the first time she had had this conversation with a Student Naval Aviator sitting in one of her oddly comfortable chairs.
She fired off a list of questions that solidified the fact that this wasn’t her first rodeo. “May I ask why? Can you give me a percentage of how confident you are in this decision? Don’t you at least want to try flying once before you withdraw?”
Here it goes, I thought to myself. “Well,” I started, “I believe God is calling me into pastoral ministry… and I believe He wants me to go now.” For the first time in our meeting, I saw what appeared to be genuine shock on her face. Of all the reasons people drop, I will venture a guess to say this was the oddest excuse she had heard before.
“Okay… how sure are you about this?” She asked.
“100%, ma’am, I know this is what I need to do and I’d like to start the process now.” I responded, shifting my tone from solemn to a bit more confident.
She insisted that I take a couple days to consider and offered that I should return on Wednesday. She told me, “if you are still this confident on Wednesday, we can begin the paperwork for you to leave the program… but you have to understand, once you set this underway, there is no going back.”
The finality of her statement struck me. No going back. I chewed on this statement for a while. 3 years of studying, 3 years of paperwork, 3 years of preparation and training, a career only a percentage of a percentage of the world ever have an opportunity to have… no going back.
We wrapped up our conversation with the common pleasantries and set a time for our meeting on Wednesday. I assured her my resolve would be the same, but I thanked her for her concern and friendliness toward me. I stood up from my oddly comfortable chair and shook my Lieutenant’s hand, then walked out of her office back to my car. My journey of leaving my career had officially begun. Now, I just needed one of the seminaries to respond to my request for information so I could find out if I could even start the journey to become a pastor…
