God's Plan To Connect The Dots

By Arthur Kutschied

God's Plan to Connect the Dots is a desire of mine to show others how God directs mine and their lives. God saved my life on many occasions so that I may share his Gospel message with his chosen children while on this earth. Although I am a sinner, just like you, God directed my life in a way to serve his purpose to reach his children. My prayer for everyone reading these words is to realize that God-from the moment of creation in your mother's womb until your eternal home with him-has connected the dots in your life to become his child and share his Word.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9781640797741

Book preview

1

My part of God’s plan began with my birth on November 6, 1944. Six days short of my second month’s birthday, my mother Donna and my grandmother Hilda, mother’s mother-in-law, escorted me on a train trip to meet my dad in California via the Pacific Limited. Connecting the Dots starts with the stories that were told to me about the train ride. My mother had told me about us being among the survivors of a train wreck in Ogden, Utah. She said that we were heading toward the Great Salt Lake when the train stopped and after some time it started up again and went on to the San Francisco depot. They thought their rail car had been switched to another train when actually we had stopped because of the wreck. Dad had heard of the wreck while waiting for our arrival at the depot. While waiting for notification of survivors, he had no knowledge of whether we were dead or alive. I was told that we all met each other in a very emotional family reunion. God had kept me alive. It was the first time dad had seen or held his first born son. Three more sons—Thomas, Kelly, and Peter—would follow over the years.

2

The train wreck happened on December 31, 1944, now over seventy-two years ago. I am now able to share with you what events happened that day as a result of my search on the Internet and comparing the story told to me by my mother so many years ago (GenDisasters.com. Bagley, UT Train Wreck, Dec 1944 as reported in The Ogden Standard-Examiner Utah 1945-01-01). A Southern Pacific train left Ogden, Utah, Sunday morning, traveling toward Great Salt Lake. A Pacific Limited train had been divided into two sections. Later, the first section of the Pacific Limited train departed, following the Southern Pacific freight train. The first section of the Pacific Limited consisted of mostly military and civilian passengers. We were traveling in this car. Soon after, the second section of the Pacific Limited followed the first section and was caring express packages and mail. This section of the train was also pulling two cars loaded with explosives. The scene of the wreck was at Bagley, west of Ogden. The Southern Pacific had developed trouble which caused the first section (our car) of the Pacific Limited to stop and then continue to proceed slowly.

The second section (with explosives) of the Pacific Limited, not aware of the trouble ahead, was traveling westward at its normal speed causing it to plow into the first section, causing the train wreck. The first section of the Pacific Limited had two hospital cars with staff, equipment and supplies. These cars, being undamaged, where filled with the injured and continued on its westward route.

Many died that day but I believe God stepped in and at the age of just two months old, I, my mother, and grandmother survived the train wreck. Needless to say, at that age, I had no idea of how many directions God would take my life. My wish is to share with you my life over the next seventy-two years and how God would guide me in the path he chose for me to fulfill my part of his plan.

3

My life in California is now relived in remembrances of stories told to me and of the things that I personally remember happening.

One of my fondest stories is that of my paternal grandparents living in California during this period. They owned and operated a ceramic shop in Burbank.

Gopher Ceramic Studio

1715 Magnolia Blvd., Burbank, California

The shop was named Gopher Ceramic Studio in memory of the University of Minnesota Golden Gopher football team, I believe.

During this time, my parents and grandparents became friends with Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds and their young daughter Debbie. I was told that while visiting my family, Debbie babysat me for a brief period of time.

After my dad’s discharge from the Marine Corps. in July of ’46, my parents and I returned to Red Wing, Minnesota. My brother Tom was born in October of ’46. After some time dad, mom, I, and Tom returned to southern California to start our new life there. Having joined the Marine Corps straight out of high school in ’42, Dad was searching for employment and training to support his family. One of the opportunities he wanted to join up with was the CHiP department, the motorcycle police department for the state of California. My mother said no to that idea and Dad went on to school for training as an auto body mechanic. He treated cars as pieces of art, taking damaged goods and making them new again, a true artist at work. The years that follow would show that his art gene, along with the art gene from mother’s side of the family, was passed on to his sons.

We lived in Santa Barbara, El Centro, and other towns in southern California throughout the years. At the one home we lived in, Mom told me Dad had to kill snakes and Black Widow spiders that had infested the house.

Back in the 40s, we did not have a TV, so for entertainment, my parents would host card parties. One night, a snake snuck into the house and under the card table before anyone noticed it. It didn’t live long. The Black Widow spiders lived in the wooden shed in the back yard. Mom said that Dad had to burn the shed to the ground to kill all the Black Widows.

As a kindergartner, I remember the wood shop. We each had a wood tool box. We pulled it out of the wall to access the adult wood working tools. For my project, I built a square wooden tug boat with small nails and string forming a railing around the boat.

In later years, I found notes of things that happened, like getting to ride with Hopalong Cassidy on his white horse in the Rose Bowl Parade and being a possible child actor.

Being that I was living in the part of America where movies were being made and movie stars were being discovered, of course career opportunities would arise. My grandma had pictures taken of Tom and I by a photography studio. The studio placed our pictures in its window for everyone to see. One day, a Warner Brothers Studio scout saw my picture in the photographer’s studio window. He contacted my grandmother and arranged an audition at the Warner Brothers studio. She called Mom and Dad and had them bring me to the audition. I and Tom along with Mom and Dad kept my appointment at the studio.

I auditioned for the part the scout had picked for me. Being a very bashful four-year-old boy, I didn’t speak when they talked to me. At the end of the audition the scout said that they wanted mom and dad to sign a contract representing me which would allow Warner Brothers Studios to hire me. Out of curiosity, mother asked, Why do you want to hire him when he would not talk and his brother was doing all the talking and would not be quiet? They told her that they would get me to talk in my training. I was having an experience and opportunity that few people will ever have.

This opportunity, if taken, is a direction that would carry me on a wonderful journey for the rest of my life, and I haven’t even started school. And then God steps in. He has a better plan. My dad refused to sign the contract. I cannot recall the reasons for his refusal, but I know now that God had a better and more important plan for my life.

Shortly thereafter, our family moved back to Red Wing, Minnesota, the town my mother was raised in.

This is where I would start the first grade. God was bringing me closer to him.

4

Mother told me a story of the two of us walking down the street and talking about God, Jesus, and heaven. She said I was very interested and that even though I was just a youngster, I was ready for Jesus’s gift of living the rest of my life in heaven. She was so convinced that I wanted to go to heaven as soon as possible, that she had to instruct me on hell and how if I hurt my self and died on purpose that it is not God’s will, and it is a sin. And I would spend the rest of my life in hell. She told me God had many things to accomplish with my life on this earth and committing suicide was not one of them. She told me that God would decide when I was to go and live with him.

On arriving in Red Wing, Mom and Dad enrolled me in the first grade at the Hancock public school. It was the first week of school, and an accidental sickness occurred. As part of the regular curriculum, I was served a small carton of milk. I told the teacher that I did not drink milk because I did not like it, and it made me sick. The teacher standing next to me with a wooden yard stick in her hand made me drink the milk.

Yes, I immediately vomited the milk on my desk. Yes, to this day, I do not care for milk. Mom pulled me out of the school. God stepped in again.

I was immediately enrolled in St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church’s elementary school and was enrolled there until graduating from the eighth grade and being confirmed as a member of the church in 1958.

During my time at St. John’s, I—with the help of God—escaped two more brushes with death. St. John’s school had an end of the school year tradition, a picnic! The picnics were held at Memorial Park on top of one of the Hiawatha Valley bluffs in Red Wing. The park had a cliff created at a quarry on Sorin’s