I don’t get religious a lot. I am sensitive to people believing how they want to believe and not getting into their faces about it. That being said, sometimes you have to out yourself when things go the way your beliefs work. I am going to talk in circles for a minute and then I will get to the issue at hand.

I was going to write again about 1984 today. However, I have been working on another deal that came through today. I signed a commitment to begin working in the professional arena again today. That will likely impact my dedication to this project and others that I have had up in the air.

I have mixed feelings a bit. This new endeavor may involve moving eventually. The working hours are Central Standard Time as it is all remote minus some level of travel. I took a significant pay cut from where I left my career in 2019. Despite all of that, there is a phrase that is thrown around in Christian vocabulary, “God provides”.

When I first left my job, mid-April 2019 my plan was to take the rest of the month off, decompress and then decide what my next steps were. I decompressed for a couple of weeks and then I was contacted by a recruiter to interview for a position as the head of Manufacturing Execution Systems for a regional supermarket chain. After I didn’t land that position, I interviewed for several opportunities that had significant downsides like more than 50% travel that I declined. I wasn’t ready to be employed again, at least under those circumstances.

Because of that, I basically took the rest of 2019 off. I was entertaining offers when they came, but not actively looking. My head and heart were not in employment. I knew that I wanted to try and start my own thing but I didn’t get much farther than that.

In the beginning of 2020, my wife and I discussed reality. We were not in a financial situation where I could never work again. Despite that, Covid-19 hit and the job market changed radically. For someone in my position, I was in a difficult spot. I needed to secure employment but hiring freezes were largely in place. Even postings had gone largely virtual. I was in a huge vortex of people needing jobs and no jobs available or known.

In the mean time, we invested a lot of money into remodeling our Accessory Dwelling Unit (little house). It was in sad shape. We could see that our savings was going to be gone by October of 2020. I put some energy into marketing my handyman skills but the business didn’t materialize in a way that I had hoped. Luckily, Amazon was hiring everyone that was qualified to deliver packages. This wasn’t enough income but it was enough to survive. We cut expenses, sold unnecessary items like my Mustang and lowered our needs.

Still, driving for Amazon was not the solution. I have enjoyed it for what it was but another recruiter contacted me right about the time I started driving. I had several interviews in December and then things went cold. I even assumed that I need to stop holding out hope and look elsewhere, which I did. But, low and behold they came back last week and wanted to talk again. That is where I am today.

The story is nice, but now to the main point of what I am writing, “God provides”. This is not something that I take lightly. Maybe my eyes haven’t been open, maybe this was a real test of faith. I have always heard this, but haven’t really lived it. I have always believed that you have to help yourself in the process.

God provided me with a spouse that pushed me into quitting my job in 2019. I have been on a nearly two year vacation. I was able to sell assets quickly that helped keep us afloat. I was given an opportunity to pick up some side work as well as a small steady income until my next opportunity was right.

2020 was an amazing year for me in terms of personal growth. I turned a more faithful and opportunistic leaf that I probably wouldn’t have done if I didn’t make a leap. Believe me, it was a true leap of faith, without as much faith. I can’t really recommend doing what I did, but I think that it worked out for me.

If I was to do it all over again, I would have tried to secure employment like driving for Amazon much earlier in the process so as to not exhaust all of our savings as quickly. That would have given time to build my business in a more organic and sustainable way rather than hope to hit the jackpot in the first spot I dug.

I hold hope that things will click and this will be a good decision, despite my reservations. The worst case scenario is that I can buy some more time to find the next thing. I am going to go with “God provides” at the moment.