Throughout my first week working at the extremely friendly corporate office of National Lutheran Communities and Services, I have had the chance to get to know many of my coworkers. Of everyone I have established a relationship with, the person I have come to know most and the deepest relationship I have formed is with my supervisor Dan.

Dan has many phrases and acronyms that he uses consistently, both in meetings and in daily conversations. Everyone playfully calls them “Dan-isms.” One phrase that he has said multiple times since we have joined his team, whether to us interns, his coworkers, or in business meetings with other high level executives is that he has the greatest job description of anyone; he gets paid to dream.

As the Chief Strategist Officer of NLCS, a rapidly expanding nonprofit organization owning three nursing communities and building a fourth, Dan certainly has a lot to dream about. Yet, it is not only his huge dreams that make Dan such a compelling person, it is his willingness and enthusiasm to share his wisdom. Recently on a business trip to one of the aforementioned nursing communities, a two and a half hour drive, we were afforded the opportunity to learn more of his stories, share some laughs, and of course listen to the James Taylor Pandora station.

On our drive back to the corporate office after visiting the nursing community and attending various business meetings, I do not remember how, but our conversation shifted to the topic of faith. I was very surprised when Dan stated bluntly, “ I don’t go to church anymore. I don’t need someone telling me what my relationship with my God needs to look like, I don’t have time for that. Yet, my faith and relationship with my God has never been stronger.

Years ago, when Bishop Gene, a good friend of his, asked what he wanted to get out of his faith, Dan responded that he wanted faith like his daughter who would do a backwards trust fall into his arms. He would let her come inches from the floor, yet she would not flinch, knowing her father would catch her.

As we talked, Dan told us more about his faith. He recalled how when he was going through the necessary steps to become a member of the Roman Catholic Church, in order to have a Catholic wedding with his then fiancée, he attended a prayer retreat. While on the retreat, Bishop Gene instructed the group to close their eyes, as he would lead them through a type of meditation and prayer.

Bishop Gene told the group to visualize a room they would want to be in at that very moment. Dan, an avid sailor and lover of the water, visualized himself in a room on a beach, “It was bright and all the windows were open so you could feel the ocean breeze,” he recounted. The bishop then told the group to visualize God entering the room.

“Suddenly, the room got much brighter, but it wasn’t so bright that it hurt your eyes. I walked toward God, turned around, and fell. I hit the floor. I stood back up fell again, not afraid I would hit the floor again and God caught me. Suddenly I opened my eyes, Bishop Gene was looking at me dead in the eye and asked, ‘Did He catch you?’”

Dan was so struck that he left the group and went for a walk. The piece of advice that he gave us from that experience is what will stick with me for a long time. He said, “You have to really trust in someone to fall once, hit the floor, then fall again.”

What a beautiful way to express faith and how true this is in my life! I am reminded of moments in my life when I have felt like I have fallen, waiting for God to catch me, and have hit the floor. My first year in college, past leadership positions undertaken, and a disappointing result on a test, these are all moments in which I have hit the floor.

Dan’s story has given me the perspective that perhaps when I fall, I need to dust myself off, stand up, then courageously fall again. This internship is another great example of falling. I am certainly not an expert in business or in healthcare services and sometimes I feel like I am falling. Perhaps God will not catch me the first time, but perhaps that first fall is an invitation by Him to stand back up, fall again, trusting this time he will catch me.

Another Dan-ism rings true after his story, “You never know when something you say may connect with someone else.”