DAVID MCGRADY

PREPARED TO SERVE GOD’S CHILDREN

David McGrady

Born and raised in Wilkes County, David McGrady graduated from Appalachian State University in 1987. After working for 17 years in the Information Technologies departments of two different companies, David became the Executive Director of Wilkes Vocational Services in January of 2004. Married to his wife, April, since 1992, they are the proud parents of Joseph Daniel and Emily Brooke McGrady.

In 2002, I was at a low point in my life. After building a career with a stable company that may have caused me to seem successful to the casual observer, I was actually miserable. Circumstances in my life had conspired to bring on a severe depression like I had never experienced. Because of this, I contemplated all kinds of my own plans to alleviate my pain. I realize now that this hard time in my life was really one of the best things that could have happened to me, because it brought me to a place of surrender to God’s will, which opened up an opportunity to serve Him in a way that I would never have anticipated on my own.

It was in this time frame that a man who was like a spiritual mentor to me said, “I don’t know what it is, but God is preparing you for something.” After this, I remember very vividly going to the altar at church and saying something like this: “Okay God, I’ll give up my job if you want me to. Whatever you want me to do, I will do.”

saw an ad in the local newspaper, and it jumped out at me like a firecracker going off. “Wanted: Executive Director for Wilkes County Vocational Workshop.” Almost at the same time, my sister called me, and she had seen the ad, and she said something like this: “I know what you need to be doing.” When all this happened, I thought to myself, “God, you have got to be kidding,” but He obviously wasn’t. I applied for the job, and was called in for an interview. Although I didn’t think that the interview went well, I was hired for the job that same day!

When I took the job, I knew there were some minor financial needs in the company, but I thought to myself, “Okay, I think I can do this.” I continued running things the way they had been for years, and realized after a month there that we had only three months’ worth of cash on hand left. If we didn’t make dramatic changes, we would have to shut our doors. I completely shut down all spending, and even had to take away all employee benefits. That was a very low time, and a very sad time for me. That was in no way fun, it was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.

As all this was happening, I started to question myself. I was an IT professional. What was I doing in a job like this? “I don’t have the skill-set to turn this thing around,” is what I was thinking. Had I made the wrong decision? Had I stepped out ahead of God and tried to do something on my own?

This was the time that I realized that I was into something that was so much bigger than me. It was literally overwhelming. A feeling of total helplessness came over me. So, I went to my desk, sat down, and said to God, “I can’t do this. I have no idea what to do to fix this.” Now that may not be word for word, but it is pretty close. I sat there for a period of time, I guess waiting for God. There was no great revelation; lightning didn’t strike; thunder didn’t rumble. At this point, I really wanted to see some lightning and hear some thunder, and it didn’t happen. But I got a feeling, and I don’t know that I would call it a peaceful feeling, but it was a feeling, or an urging. I have no idea how to describe it, but in that feeling, God gave me a message and that message was “I did not bring you here to shut the doors.” That message was loud and clear, and I cannot explain that either, it just was.

I can’t say that I fully understood the impact of the message at the time, but I did understand enough that I realized that I was here for a purpose, and that purpose was way bigger than me. So at that point, I looked up to God and said something along the lines of, “Okay, I’m here to do the task you have given me, I don’t know what to do. You will have to do it through me.” This was a defining moment for which I’m very grateful. It led us to the kind of breakthroughs that have made this 11 year journey of my time here the adventure and the joy that it is to me now.

Let me tell a little about how God has brought us to our current state. Because the finances were going down the tubes and everything was just crumbling around us, both operationally and financially, I discussed with the board allowing a much larger company to come in and take over all of our services. At that time, it was the only option that I saw that would keep us running. But, this was one of the things that God used to teach me. Through this company, God showed me (and my board chair) what the other company was doing to be financially successful. We used this information to create our strategic plan. Of course, at the time, we didn’t call it a strategic plan, we called our survival plan. Using the information that was revealed to us, as well as other things that we learned in the process, we were able to turn it around financially.

Once we were able to say that we were surviving financially, we started to change our focus. When I came, we were focused on and our priority was production, making stuff. We still do production, and it is a key part of our business, but it is not the focus. Our focus is on the individuals that we provide services for. However, that was not just a switch that we flipped once we were financially stable. We started changing our focus, and the finances started to improve. I fully believe that was God’s purpose for bringing me here, to change the focus from production to providing services.

We are now providing services for approximately double the number of individuals we were providing services for when I came. It might be more accurate to say that when we changed our focus to taking care of the individuals that we were here to provide services for, God started turning around the finances. I would love to be able to take credit, but all the credit is God’s.

When I think back to that very low point in my life twelve years ago, I realize how right my spiritual mentor had been when he told me that God was preparing me for something. He was preparing me for this job, for this opportunity to love and serve His children. Written with Laine Isaacs & Ben Cox ~