Although We See No Wind or Rain

We jokingly say in our family that I am the Chief Financial Officer of our family (handle the finances, Type A personality to the point of being OCD) and Bill is the Chief Operations Officer of our family (the hard-working dreamer, takes one day at a time). In our first years of marriage, some of the biggest struggles we had would be from his "dreaming" and my squelching those dreams and giving him a reality-check.

I always knew that Bill dreamed of owning his own company. Since he was in the field of construction and built our first two homes, I always assumed he would be a general contractor one day although his strength and expertise in this field was the heavy-equipment, excavating and digging utilities. As he dreamed of being on his own, I was always more comfortable with the liability being on someone else's shoulders and I was comfortable with both of us working for someone else.

God doesn't always like for us to be in our comfort zones.

Late this past winter, the construction work scarcity finally hit middle TN. For a couple of weeks, Bill was getting fewer and fewer hours from his boss, who owned his small construction company that built higher-end homes. Just as Bill was filling out unemployment papers and applying to Home Depot just to keep a job, the Lord turned a chapter in our lives.

One morning, my devotion was on 2 Kings 3:16-17:

"Then [Elisha] said, "This is what the LORD says: 'Dig ditch after ditch in this stream.' For the LORD says, 'You will not see wind or rain, but the stream will be filled with water, and you will drink - you and your cattle and your animals.' This is easy in the LORD's sight. He will also hand Moab over to you."

The devotion spoke more on spiritual blessings. I hid the truths in my heart that morning. Memorizing the verse as best as I could and promising myself to expect the unexpected in my spiritual life that day.

As I was driving to work, Bill called me. Just that morning, his boss had approached him about purchasing the excavating equipment (a dump truck, dozier, backhoe, skid steer and misc. equipment) and going out on his own.

I know the next few minutes were nothing of what Bill expected. I chuckled in the phone and recited in my mind the verses I had just memorized this morning (dig ditch after ditch [excavating is digging ditches]...you'll neither see the wind nor the rain [this is a very hard economic time...it didn't make sense to go into business for ourselves], but the streams will be filled...this is easy in the sight of the LORD).

Bill was astonished by my reaction and the words that I told him about 2 Kings. He is a man of great faith and believes God will do the impossible, despite a hardening economy, despite the downturn in the housing industry. So Bill had been praying, unbeknownst to me, for some time that God would provide us with an opportunity to start our own excavating business. However, he knew his first prayer would need to be that his wife (that's me!) would be open to the idea!

We were amazed at how both of us, the dreamer and the realist, were both on the same spiritual page. We were going to have to go against conventional wisdom and do this. Everything in our day and times told us purchasing heavy construction equipment and going out on our own was foolish. We had been dreaming of me coming home from work soon, and were in the midst of making some adjustments to our 2 income lifestyle. Adding this equipment debt would not accomplish those goals as soon as we thought, but we both knew that all of our dreams were easy in the sight of the LORD!

It hasn't been a cake-walk these first few months of being a small business owner. The flood hit Nashville and knocked us off the grid for a couple of weeks, but then God provided work in helping people re-build after the flood. I often re-read that devotion. One portion says, "It is not the part of faith to question, but to obey. The ditches were made, and the water came pouring in from some supernatural source."

"Oh, for that faith that can act by faith and not by sight, and expect God to work although we see no wind or rain." --A.B. Simpson

A Fresh Start

Last Sunday afternoon, Bill and I took Claire to meet her new teachers at NCS. I felt a lump in my throat as a read her class name, Pre-K Transition, realizing that if you drop "Pre" and "Transition", our baby will be in Kindergarten. Only 2 short years.

The classrooms looked so fresh, she had a new folder for new projects. New teachers, new (and some old) friends, new procedures...thus I thought it was a great opportunity for me to have some new-ness in my life.

A couple of weeks ago, I started working with a Wellness Coach. Her name is Janis and she is the sister of one of my co-workers. Janis is "coaching" me for free in order to finish some credits, so it was a perfect opportunity for me to jump at such an opportunity. Janis and I had been talking for a couple of weeks about some changes I wanted to make/implement. She never tells me what to do. She just has this uncanny way of drawing it out of me and then asks me how I am going to put that change into place and be successful.

In addition to Claire's new school year and my wellness coaching, Bill and I decided for me to take a break from Remicade. This is the drug that I have been on for 1 year, every 8 weeks for the diagnosis of Crohn's Disease that I received 18 months ago. Remicade had caused some scary side-effects since I have been on it. Nothing horrific, but just enough to scare this non-medicine taking girl! As I walked out of the doctor's office last Tuesday, there was a pep in my step. Although Remicade makes me feel better, I believe that as long as I was on the medicine, I would have a dark cloud over me reminding me that I had this disease.

If all of these changes hasn't been enough, I also started the task of couponing for our family. Yes, I was the cynical one, the critical one that despite hearing my friends testimonies of how much money they were saving, I believed my time was much more valuable than the money I would save at the check-out with coupons. However, it has become necessary, due largely to starting our own company 5 months ago, for me to save wherever I can. At this point in our lives, my time doesn't matter and this is one additional way I can help invest in our future!

All of these changes have sometimes felt overwhelming. Especially as I am sitting up alone late at night on the couponing websites as everyone else in the house sleeps. But, oh, how good it feels when I check-out and gradually increase my check-out savings (my best record is saving 54%). But changes are also empowering. They give you energy when they are accomplished.

What changes have you made or do you need to make in your life? I am still making a list and hope to update you soon!