From that post you probably gathered that we decided to start a business in March, I quit teaching in May and continued singing at Life.Church and we had a baby in July.
A lot has happened since then so here we go...
The month of July we were totally focused on baby. People were bringing us dinner every night and we were in la-la-land soaking up every moment with a newborn. Initially, when we first started the business, we had a goal of going full time in August. When we found out our deductible for insurance would start over even if we kept our same policy through Samson, that changed our minds and we made our new goal January 1, 2017. We are so thankful we changed our goal because it was a blessing having Samson's steady income while we got to enjoy having a new addition to our family and not have to worry about building up a client base.
In August, Trevor and I decided to put our house up for sale. After thinking through our big life changes and what that looked like financially, our home just didn't make much sense. We have family land in Coweta that we are able to build on, but once we build, it will be something that we never sell. In the past that didn't make much sense to us because we weren't sure where jobs/life would take us. We decided financially, this would be the best option for us right now. The home that we are wanting to build would be cheaper than our current home and we would be able to do a 10 year mortgage instead of a 30 year mortgage. Wahoo...mortgage free by 40! So we put our house up for sale at the end of August. We also started meeting with an architect almost every other week to design our dream home. We actually have completed plans for our dream home! :)
Around August or September, Trevor was approached at work to stay a little longer than we planned. We hadn't really heard from God on when to go full-time with the business, so we were open to this idea. It's kind of funny how you create time-tables for things. Because if it's not in God's timing, you are wasting your time! Proverbs 19:21 "Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails."
Here is how we thought things would go...
*We would stay at Samson until Summer 2017 like they asked
*Our house would sell super fast
*We would move in with my in-laws during the in-between stages of our house selling and our new house being built
*During this time we could build up clients for Armor Accounting so when it's time to go full-time, we have clients built up and ready to go, all while not having a mortgage
*Our dream home would be completed and since we are still at Samson we could get a loan with a good interest rate
*We would move into our home, have our client base built up, go full time with Armor and quit Samson
*Live happily ever after...etc
Well, that's not how things went/are going!
Our house took longer than we anticipated to sell. In hindsight, it really didn't take that long to sell, but we had a timetable built up in our minds and we were shocked when things didn't go as planned. We put everything on hold waiting for our house to sell. We felt like we were at a stand still...waiting. I was really hit by this reality one day reading my bible study. The words literally jumped out of the page faith requires action. I know that and I have always known that, and to some of you reading this, you might be thinking, why did that hit you so hard? Here's why: I was putting my faith in my house selling and not God. I didn't want Trevor to go full time with the business until after our house sold because I was nervous about money. I didn't want Trevor to go full time with the business until we got a loan on our new house because I wanted my dream home. I didn't want my life to change even though we have had several life changes. Faith requires action. If we truly trusted in God, we would not worry. We truly believe God led us to start this business and we weren't having the faith to jump out and go all in. In order to have faith, we needed to move, we needed to jump into action, we needed to go full time regardless of our circumstances. The following week at bible study we were discussing John 6 where Jesus sent his disciples in a boat across the lake for Capernaum. It had become dark and there was a strong wind so the waters were growing rough. The disciples became worried and then they were frighted because Jesus approached the boat three to four miles from shore walking on water. They were frightened because of the storm and they were frightened because Jesus scared them approaching the boat. One of the questions we discussed was, "Were the disciples caught in the storm because they had sinned or because they obeyed the Lord's command, and what does this teach you about God?" That really hit home because we know that it was God who led us to start the business. He is not going to leave us in the middle of the storm. If we go full-time, we are obeying his command and he is not going to leave us if we are obeying and listening to him. We are worrying about things that God already has under control. We shouldn't be surprised when Jesus shows up in the middle. This is also exciting because this is when we get to see God in action!
I shared all of this with Trevor and I want to say he was on-board, but we both needed a little more confirmation than a feeling. So, we decided that the week that Trevor returned from his hunting trip in November, we were going to do a fast and pray specifically for direction and timing.
That next week, Trevor had a crazy encounter! Several times when he was praying, a specific name kept coming up in his mind. I'm not going to share the name for the privacy of that business/person. But, after this happened several times, he decided to google the name and he realized it was an accounting company that was really similar to him. He decided to reach out to them. He didn't really know why he was reaching out to them other than he felt led to. He called them on a Wednesday and he was leaving for North Dakota on Thursday. He was only able to talk to the receptionist, but she went ahead and scheduled him to meet with the business owner the next day at 10am. Let's call the business owner Nancy for the sake of this story. He didn't really give the receptionist any information other than he is also a small business owner. The next day, he met with Nancy and her the receptionist. He told them upfront that he wasn't sure why he was there, and that he felt silly, but he has a story to tell them. He told them everything from the beginning...how the vision for the business came about, all the confirmation we received right from the get go, how quickly we got our first few clients, the hick-ups we had, and how we are now feeling we are at a stand-still, we aren't sure how to transition into full-time especially financially, etc. She had a very interesting reply! Nancy told Trevor that she is a believer and that this morning during her prayer time, God told her that a man was coming to visit her today. She knew that this man was in the same profession as her, that his wife worked at a church and that they had a baby. (WHAAAAAAT!!) Nancy told Trevor that God wanted her to give this man a message and that message was if you feel called to do something, you need to have the faith to jump out and do it. She quoted Matthew 17:20 which says "Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can move mountains. Nothing will be impossible for you." (WHAAAAAAT!!!!) Nancy also shared with Trevor that her spirit was praying for this man this morning and that she understood what her spirit was praying and it was praying spiritual and financial blessings over our home. (WHAAAAAT!!!) I don't know about you, but every time I hear/tell that story, I have goosebumps! Trevor called me after his meeting and told me everything that was said and we were both just in tears. For one, we have heard about these encounters happening to other people, but we never really expected it to happen to us. And two, WOW, just think about the confirmation and the blessings this woman just gave our family! Nancy had a truly inspiring story as well, again, one that I won't share on here because of protecting her privacy; but, this day was life changing. This is truly an example of, if you want to hear from God, press in harder, pray, dive in deeper, I promise he will reveal himself!
When Trevor returned from North Dakota we still wanted to do the fast. We were doing a juice fast. We had decided before fasting that we wouldn't let fear hold us back and that we were for sure going full-time with the business at the beginning of the year, so we were more praying for direction with our home (should we still sell it or should we take it off the market), we were praying for finances because we knew if we went full time in January, our mortgage would be too much to handle for a few months until clients were built up, we were just praying for protection and guidance. We actually didn't complete our fast because we both ended up getting sick. I came down with strep throat and Trevor got a stomach bug and sinus infection. We continued with no tv, social media, distractions, but we did eat regular food after we both got sick. The fast was definitely successful because the day after we completed our fast, we had an offer on our house!! PRAISE THE LORD!
So, that brings us to the end of what we know so far. We sold our house and we have moved in with my in-laws.
So...what's next?
Well, remember my plan from above? We move in with my in-laws and then we start building our dream home? Well, we actually won't be doing that. Since we have decided to go full time with Armor Accounting in January, we will not qualify for a home loan. You have to prove 2 years of income if you are self-employeed so as of right now, we would not qualify. This, of course, was one of our fears. But, FEAR NOT! Here is what we are doing now. We have decided to build a small, probably close to 1,000 square feet, two bedroom, 1 bath house and live in it for a year or so. We are actually able to pay cash for this with the equity from our home that we sold, so we will be mortgage free during this time. In February of 2018 we will be able to qualify for a loan, so we will start the build of our dream home then. Or not, if we decide we like living mortgage free!!! Honestly, we are just taking it day by day. If God told us to do something totally different, we would. We are up for the adventure and just enjoying life, day to day. We are so excited for January when Trevor gets to jump all in on Armor Accounting and be completely self employed. That definitely comes with uncertainty, but we are excited to see God at work.
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| Good-bye first home!! |
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| Hello, new front porch view! :) |
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