Do you ever feel like you have it all figured out? Like you know the direction your life is supposed to be going in? Have you ever been in that place and then all of your plans fall apart and you are left with nothing but questions?
That’s where I have been and then something amazing happened… God’s timing showed up.
Over a year ago my husband and I knew it was time to sell the business we had spent five years growing. We prayed for a very specific buyer. The first person that inquired about our business with the broker we had hired was a perfect fit except one thing… they weren’t interested in buying after they got a few questions answered from us.
I was confused as to why they backed off, but down deep I still felt like that man was our future buyer. I even told Dustin that I thought it would still work out somehow. We met with several others and then low and behold the first one came back.
Several months later we completed the sale of our business to him and his wife; the couple God provided as the answer to our prayers. The best part was they were also Christians and when I asked them why they were interested again a few months after walking away they said, “I don’t know, maybe it was God.” I knew at that moment it absolutely was God.
So our business sold and the plan was to move out of state and head south. We had been praying and planning this for a long time and felt that was the direction we were to go. We had an idea for a business that we wanted to pursue and we felt that we needed to move to start it.
I busted my butt throughout the summer and prepared our house to sell. We listed it in August. We had lots of showings, one extremely low offer, and that was it. We were stuck. We existed for several months not knowing what was happening.
It was easy to trust God when we were seeing the daily work that he was doing, but once we weren’t able to see progress each day and our plans fell apart, it was hard to keep trusting. Why would God bring us the perfect buyer and have us sell our business when our house wouldn’t sell? We had given up our source of income, what were we supposed to do now?
To be honest, it was extremely scary. It was also a huge test of faith. Could I keep trusting God even when I didn’t see Him moving in my life? Time showed that even though I couldn’t see Him moving… He was!
Back in October we had the idea to contact our church and present an opportunity to do contract work with them to assist with the management of the building and grounds (something we knew and had experience in) and plan events (something we had a passion for). It seemed like a shot in the dark. We were asking for a contract from our church when they hadn’t really put anything out there saying they were looking for that.
We put together a somewhat detailed email and sent it out with a prayer to the business manager in the office. We received a response that shocked me, she was interested in talking with us, and so we setup a time to meet.
When we met with her we began to see how God had been working. She was the one who did most of the work that we had included in our contract that we wanted to provide. That seems like it would be a problem except for one thing, she was ready to move on. The week that we sent our email to her was the same week that she had decided that she would be resigning from her position in the office.
You see, she originally started in the office part time doing the financial work, but when the need arose she took on the facility management position as well. She wanted to keep doing the financial role and give up the rest, but she didn’t think that would be possible and she was prepared to give up her entire job because she felt God was leading her to be at home for her family more at this time.
Through this one situation God provided my husband and I an opportunity to gain experience working for our church and provide an amazing woman a chance to keep the part of her job she wanted and be relieved from the parts that she was ready to give up.
It ended up being a winning situation for everyone and it was something I never would have come up with the plan for on my own. When we got to the point of meeting with the business manager and the pastor and we shared our story of how we reached this point, the pastor said, “I know why your house didn’t sell, it was because of this.”
So, we start a new adventure for the moment. One that didn’t include us moving south…yet. I still truly believe that will happen down the road. I think that God has a plan for us at the moment right where we are, but we never would have found it if we wouldn’t have been willing to choose to look where we were right now instead of just focusing on “our” plan and the future.
Serena @ Simple Holistic Girl says
Congratulations on all the blessings! I do find it hard to still have that faith when things slow down or stop moving at all. And then BAM out of nowhere something happens. I then smile to myself and think I was so silly for not trusting in the first place. It’s like someone coming to you saying “I told you so”. #Turnituptuesday
Stephanie says
Thank you! It’s always amazes me at how God can work out things that I never could have figured out to even try on my own.