As I stated in my first post, our family began this journey many months ago when we learned that our friends were moving. It was at that time that we started putting things in motion to make this transition.
You see, my husband began using his musical and technical gifts and talents to help our local church nearly six years ago. Since then, he has slowly shifted to doing this full time. It has been an amazing thing to watch God work in him and through him to impact other people.
Serving in the church full time is clearly where God wants him to be. He’s good at it. He’s a better husband, dad, friend and person because of it.
Serving in ministry is not a high-paying job, and we were used to living a certain way and having a little extra spending money each month. Supporting my husband and his new found purpose meant we were going to have to sacrifice.
Before moving, I was commuting 45 minutes one way and working a lot of over time. I loved my job and had no plans to change, but I also knew that I was missing out on my kid’s lives and carving out time to hang out with my husband felt like work. Something had to give but it wasn’t going to be my job.
When our friends told us that they were moving to a small town in Texas to start a new church, we both wanted to entertain the idea of helping them. But how could we possibly do this? Where would I work? How would we pay our huge student loan bills on a small-town salary?
The answer became clear one afternoon while speaking with one of my mentors.
I would present a work-from-home scenario to my employer and a new, much-needed position that could be done from home. For weeks, I worked on a written proposal and practiced what I would say to my boss when the opportunity presented itself to pitch my far-fetched idea.
I wasn’t sure what the reaction would be from my company. I did expect to be met with a lot of red tape and obstacles. Would they allow me to keep my benefits? Would there be a lot of technology that I would need to purchase?
What I didn’t expect was for my boss and my company to be open and even eager to help me make this idea a reality. During the entire process, I felt calm and relaxed that everything would work out the way it was supposed to. Again, this is not like me. It was as if I was on some trial anxiety medication that worked like a dream.
In a few short months, I went from working and commuting more hours a week than I care to admit to working from home and having a 30 second commute (I take my purse with me to the “office” attached to my house).
As if having an out-of-body experience, I have watched this grand plan that could have only be orchestrated by God Himself play out over the last 10 months (in retrospect, some things leading up to this have been in the works for years).
Some of the events that have transpired to make this move a reality have been small miracles. Seriously. If someone had told me two years ago that I would be working from home, my husband would be doing ministry full-time and that we would be living in a small, rural community, I would have laughed hysterically.
There is no other explanation for how we got to where we are today aside from the fact that a God who loves us and wants the best for us has a plan for the people in this area and wanted us to play a part in it.
Maybe this is our purpose…to bring the light of the world to this rural part of Texas.
