Who Wouldn’t Want This?

By Donna Burroughs

Are you afraid of dying? Do you believe Heaven is real? This is the story of an ordinary man who thought he was a failure at life until he learned the answers.

From trouble in his school years to adventures in the Coast Guard, drama as a police officer and fireman, managing the street department, and eventually in a dangerous job as a lineman, he thought he had seen it all. 

After serving his community for decades, Jim had built up a good life for himself and his family. But then the unimaginable happened, and Jim learned how small the world really is and how connected we all are. Not only that, but there was even more to his life than he had previously imagined possible... 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Donna Burroughs
• Release date: Mar 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393830085

Book preview

Who Wouldn’t Want This?

Who Wouldn’t Want This?

The Story of a Miracle in a Man’s Life

Donna Burroughs

Who Wouldn’t Want This?

The Story of a Miracle in a Man’s Life

---

Copyright 2020 by Donna Burroughs.

---

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or in any means – by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without prior written permission.

---

ISBN: 9798629918851

Contents

Foreword

And So It Began

A New Test: Basic Training

Coast Guard Duty Begins

A Civilian Again

Police Adventures

New Careers All Around

Life of a Journeyman Lineman

A Season of Miracles

Trauma

Thought / Discussion Questions

Foreword

On November 3, 2016, my husband, Jim Burroughs, had an accident that transformed our lives.

A miracle occurred...

---

This book tells the story of his life’s many adventures leading up to that day. We have been married for forty years. During those years, his adventures have had us crying and spending sleepless nights. They’ve also had us laughing until our sides hurt so much we couldn’t move. Our love and devotion to our marriage has been tested through the years, but we not only survived, we are now thriving.

Jim is literally twice the man he was when we married. He’s a large man, but the largest thing about him is his personality and his sense of humor. Our friends say Jim should have been a stand-up comedian. He’s always making people laugh. One of his favorite lines is asking, Who wouldn’t want this? as he runs his hands up and down his body. That’s one source of the book’s title. The other reason for the title will come out in the reading of this book.

We were blessed with two beautiful and talented children, Jimmy and Mandy. They are successful and happy adults. They are married to marvelous and talented people, Tianna and Dustin, and have blessed us with four angelic grandchildren. We are indeed Blessed. We dedicate this book to our family.

Jim has always done dangerous jobs: police officer, firefighter, emergency services ambulance driver, high-voltage lineman. For more than thirty years, and with lots of prayers, God kept him safe, and then the accident that changed him happened.

This book is a testament to our faith in God, our Father. All good things in our life have come through His blessing and goodness. We have always considered ourselves to be Christians, but The Accident brought us closer to our God and gave us a deeper understanding into what it means to have Faith. We thank our Lord and Savior for His love and understanding. It is true that those events that don’t kill us do indeed make us stronger!

Oh, my husband has asked me to state that the names in his story have been changed to protect the innocent— Whomever they may be.

And So It Began

On October 26, 1960, Jim Burroughs entered the world. He had to be cut out of his mother. Nothing was ever easy for him. His birthday was the same as his brother Mike’s, but Mike was five years older. Jim always felt cheated; he didn’t even get to have his own birthday. Talk about not ever feeling special!

He was born and raised in the little rural town of Argos, Indiana. Argos had, and still has, only one stop light in the center of town. It boasts a population of 1500, give or take a few. The school houses about 600 students in grades K-12, all in one building, under one roof. When Jim started school, the kindergarten was in a separate building a few blocks from the school.

When Jim was growing up in the 1960s, Argos was the kind of place where people didn’t lock their doors or their cars at night, and everyone knew everyone. It was the kind of place where families had been there for generations. Jim’s grandmother remembered trading with the Indians who lived in tepees nearby when she was a child. We told our children that they should not plan on marrying anyone from the area because we learned during our genealogy research that we were almost all related in some way.

As a child, Jim attended the Walnut Church of the Brethren, a tiny rural church south of Argos. He was brought up to know wrong from right and to believe in Jesus Christ and the one true God. His dad was a deacon in the church, so they were very involved in all the church activities. Excellent behavior was expected of the children during the strict, traditional worship service.

Many were the times Jim’s bottom was paddled in the basement of the church for misbehaving during the service. He also remembers being thumped in the back of his head by his dad’s thumb. Of course, that was always the fault of his cousins, the Skuds. They were always making him laugh. Jim has always had a great sense of humor and loved laughing and making people laugh, but the church was the one place where his sense of humor got him in trouble. Jim remembers being baptized at Walnut Church when he was about thirteen years old. The church did a full immersion for baptism. This was something Jim felt compelled to do, not because of a faith calling, but because his brother and cousins were all