Climbing the ladder corporately was our career focus for my husband in the early years of our marraige. There are so many examples where committed servants of God were shown favor with men like Daniel and Joseph. So Shane and I prayed often that he would recieve favor at his job. And Shane climbed the pay scale in the company he worked for faster than anyone else. He would sometimes get 1 and 2 dollar raises when others weren't getting a third of that. However Shane wasn't happy with the line of work he was in (Warehousing) and had dreamed of being a counselor/ psychologist in the mental health field.
We prayed about the decision and felt good about sending him back to school full-time in the evenings to get his degree in Psychology while he was working fulltime. At that time I worked a paper-route between 2 and 7am so we could afford for me to stay home with our children. The next few years would be a struggle to maintain OUR relationship as well as his relationship with our 2-going-on-3 children and still keep up his 3.89 GPA. It was hard but in the Fall of 2005, Shane finally graduated from HPU with a Bachelors in Psychology.
That same month He got a job offer for almost double his current salary at another huge Manufacturing plant. Although it wasn't the field he was hoping to move into, we just couldn't say NO to the salary increase. We felt like again God had given him favor over all the other applicants. And then 10 months later, the company had a huge lay-off and Shane's job was eliminated.
With 2 months severance pay in hand, Shane and I were hopeful that this just meant God had something "better" out there for us. But after a few months of no promising job prospects, we were starting to lose hope in that. While Shane was praying for a job, I was praying for a business idea. I had always wanted to own my own company, work my own hours and be my own boss. After all, isn't that the American Dream? When it seemed we were down to the wire, God had revealed to me an ideal business for a growing family with 4 children. It was time to present the idea to Shane. Now Shane had over the years allowed me to have these random small businesses with low start-up and usually they made very little or lost very little for him to pay any attention BUT this business idea would require US to step out on the ledge and spend the last of what we had on start-up. With no job or any prospects, this was asking alot.
To my surprise, Shane was very interested in the business idea and we decided to find out anything and everything there is to know about the business. We befriended other christian business owners in this similar business and began asking every question we could think of in starting this sortof business. They were very helpful and I still call them for advice to this day. It took 4 months of serious praying for an answer from God about the business and while waiting we were researching EVERYTHING there could be to research. But we finally got a "Yes" from God and went forward with it.
That first year in business was terribly hard on us financially and we used up everything we had just to live. Shane ended up taking a job for a third of what he was getting paid before the Layoff and worked our business on the weekends. Our second full year in business, we came out of the red!!!!! The best part about owning your own business and living from pay check to pay check is HAVING to trust God daily for his provisions in your life. IAnd I am learning daily to trust Him.
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