15

“Jump—God Will Catch You”

Jerry and Tina Landry’s reward for following God into uncharted territory was manna from heaven.

Checking the mailbox, often several times a day, had become a nervous compulsion for Jerry Landry in late May 2002. Not normally an obsessive sort, he and his wife, Tina, had made big plans that depended on an insurance settlement they were owed. The check was already a month overdue, and a moment of truth was fast approaching.

After serving eight years in the army, he’d been back in civilian life for two years, settling the family in Colorado Springs. His timing could have been better: The country was still in the post–9/11 economic slump, and good-paying positions were hard to come by, even for veterans. With four young kids to support, they struggled to make ends meet. He was working two dead-end jobs with little hope of advancement, so they decided he might as well take advantage of the education benefits he’d accrued and go to college.

It would be tough financially. But perhaps by graduation time the job market would have improved.

And they had another goal in mind: move their family to a smaller town in the mountains. As it was, they spent every spare weekend driving westward over the Rocky Mountains Front Range for camping and hiking. For school, Jerry chose Western State College in Gunnison, a sleepy ranch town at nearly eight thousand feet, just west of the Continental Divide.

“We were ready for a big change,” he said. “But it also seemed like a big risk. We’d already made the leap into civilian life after years in the army. Now we were getting ready to do it again. Yet every time we prayed about it, we had a sense of confidence and peace.”

About a year after Jerry left the military, Tina suffered minor injuries in a traffic accident. The other driver was clearly at fault, and his insurance company reluctantly agreed to settle a claim to cover medical expenses plus a little extra. It wasn’t a fortune, but it was enough to bankroll the family’s move with cushion. Without it they could not have afforded the first- and last-month’s rent and security deposit necessary for a new place to live.

Having been assured by the claims agent that payment was approved and on its way, they made final plans to move the first week of June, just six weeks away. They allowed plenty of time to get settled through the summer before fall semester began. Jerry applied to the college and was accepted. He gave notice at work and informed the landlord of their intention not to renew their lease. He applied for new jobs from a distance and had at least one promising lead. The family began saying good-bye to friends. Everything was going according to plan, except that a week before moving day the check still had not arrived.

“It was absolutely nerve-racking,” Jerry said. “Our apartment had been rented to someone else—we’d crossed a point of no return. We couldn’t go forward or backward. Believe me, we were questioning ourselves pretty heavily, and God too, for that matter. Why had he seemed to give us a green light only to put us through this stress?”

With five days to go, something did arrive in the mailbox—a letter saying that payment was delayed pending a final review. Suddenly the check wasn’t just late; it wasn’t coming at all, at least not in time to be of any use in their current predicament. It was a tight spot from which they saw no escape. One way or another they were days from being homeless, since they lacked the money to sign a new lease no matter where they were.

That evening, with the kids asleep, the couple sat at the kitchen table to try to decide what to do next. The hardest part was feeling they’d been foolish to proceed so decisively without having the resources in hand. It was tempting for Jerry to question his judgment all the way back to leaving the relative security of military life. Yet the conversation always circled back to an undeniable fact: All along they’d consistently felt confident of God’s approval.

What could that mean?

“Maybe we should just pack up and go anyway,” Tina said. “Maybe what we have is enough, even though it doesn’t look like it.” She reminded Jerry of the Bible story about the five loaves and two fishes, which Jesus used to feed thousands of people.

He conceded her point—in theory. It certainly would take a miracle to make what they had be enough. He took his role as his kids’ provider and protector very seriously and wasn’t about to move them to a strange town without a safety net, unless God gave him an unmistakable signal to do so.

He’d just said as much to Tina, when there was a knock at the door. Faye, the mid-sixty-something woman who lived alone in the apartment above, had taken a grandmotherly interest in the Landry children from the day they’d moved in, frequently bringing treats and inviting them for tea. She was a Christian, and though she didn’t make a point of openly discussing her faith, it was apparent in the well-worn Bible on the end table by her favorite chair, and more so in the quiet grace that surrounded her like a gentle glow.

The couple invited her in, but Faye said she had only a moment. Standing in the doorway, she handed Tina an envelope bearing their neatly written names. It contained $50 in cash, which she described as her “blessing for their journey.” Then she told them she’d been praying about their upcoming move and had received a message from God.

“She was generally aware of our plans, but knew nothing of our present crisis,” Jerry recalled. “Her statement about having a message for us took me by surprise, since the subject of God had never come up before. Yet she said it so easily and unapologetically, like it was the most natural thing in the world.”

The short message—just five words—packed a powerful punch.

“Jump,” she said. “God will catch you.”

So they jumped. On Saturday, June 6, the Landry family arrived in Gunnison. The dark spruce and pine forests at higher elevations were tinted with the bright spring-green of new aspen leaves. The sky was deep blue and cloudless. They found a campsite north of town along the Taylor River, swollen with spring snowmelt.

All weekend long they watched rafters and kayakers navigate the rapids. The kids had a blast climbing granite boulders and chasing a gang of thieving gray squirrels back into the towering trees.

“Watching them play was an eye-opener for me,” Jerry said. “They didn’t have a care in the world, even though our situation still had the potential to end badly. I tried my hardest all weekend to be like them, to just let go and trust that somehow things would work out.”

They had made up their minds to simply relax for the weekend, resisting the temptation to rush into town and start pounding the pavement for a job and a place to live. They decided to honor the Sabbath, and demonstrate their trust, by doing nothing at all. And it paid off in momentary peace of mind. The family had more fun together in those two days than they’d had in months.

Then Monday morning arrived, and Jerry woke with an iron ball of fear in his stomach. The sun had risen on another beautiful mountain day, but he could see only the “reality” of just how risky this move had been and what a long shot it was to expect everything to fall into place. He mechanically ate breakfast, sickening dread steadily growing. The children were still immersed in adventurous play, but this time he couldn’t follow them. Now he felt the weight of their well-being squarely on his “inadequate” shoulders.

Just as the warm sun was cresting the canyon walls, they loaded the kids into the car and headed to town. Their first stop would be the Job Service Center, a state-run employment office right on Main Street. Jerry had spent hours on the phone with a clerk, exploring a variety of opportunities. One in particular, a seasonal job with the U.S. Forest Service, looked promising.

He parked across the street; Tina and the kids would wait. Inside he’d barely finished introducing himself when the woman said all positions he’d applied for were filled. All she had available at the moment were day labor opportunities. She pointed to the bulletin board where notices were posted.

“The fear I’d been wrestling with all morning suddenly got heavier,” he remembered. “I had no idea what to do next. Somehow I managed to say, ‘Okay, God, here we are. What are you going to do with us?’”

He turned to leave the office and deliver the bad news. As he reached for the doorknob, the clerk called his name. She was approaching him with what looked like an invoice. Something was handwritten across the back.

“There is this opening,” she said. “It came up a few minutes before you got here. We haven’t even had time to post it yet. I don’t know if you’d be interested. It’s a full-time position delivering furniture.”

Jerry assured her he was most definitely interested. Grasping the paper she offered, he asked who he should contact.

“Go out and turn left,” she said. “The first door you come to is the furniture store. Tell them I sent you.”

He thanked her and once more headed out the door.

“Oh, and one more thing,” she said. “If you don’t already have a place to live, the job comes with a house.”

Twenty minutes later, the interview finished, and Jerry was no longer unemployed. He crossed the street and got back in the car. The aching dread was replaced by amazement and wonder. He told Tina the details of what God had just done: With less than half an hour in town he’d found a good job and a house at reduced rent. The place would be ready in a week. Further, his new employers/landlords didn’t require first- and last-month’s rent or a security deposit. They were as happy to hire him as he was to find work.

“A lot of people have heard this story over the years and said we were so ‘lucky’ to be in the right place at the right time,” Jerry noted. “But we know there was more to it than that. God said if we would trust him he’d take care of us. And he did it in such a way that we couldn’t deny it was him. As miracles go, it wasn’t as dramatic as some. But it sure touched our lives and taught us something about childlike trust.”

Four years later he graduated—and the family has never regretted their adventurous move to the mountains.