Reflection....

If you all have some time to read along…I would like to go back to October of 2010. This was a time in my life where I have gone through several transitions that I am extremely grateful for. One very important moment of my life during that time was my son, Brandon’s birth on 10/15/2010. Prior to Brandon’s birth my husband, Markus decided that he wanted to quit his full-time job to pursue his dream of becoming an entrepreneur. This was not at all an easy decision, but we both spoke and prayed about this major life changing decision.  We took the leap of Faith as a family into the entrepreneurial world two months before Brandon’s birth. The road to entrepreneurship started out great for Markus, but shortly after Brandon’s birth (like two days after the birth) his dream of becoming an entrepreneur got a little rocky as things began to fall apart between he and his business partner.  During that time we remained prayerful and realized that everything happens for a reason and not to question what God was doing in our lives. We decided that he should continue to press toward the goal of achieving his dream of entrepreneurship.  However, while trying to remain faithful you could only imagine what I was going through. I was very upset with how the relationship between he and his business partner changed so quickly. I started to wonder how would Markus achieve his goal and most importantly would we still be able to afford to pay our bills and maintain our current lifestyle.  Now, let me say this….we don’t live lavishly (like the Joneses), but we do live comfortably. I was on maternity leave for 2 months after the birth of our son and my hormones were certainly out of whack and that was a not so good time for all of this to go down. However, we pressed on and continued with life and we remained hopeful, faithful, and believing in God to provide and make a way.

Now, I fast forward to June 2011 and I have been off of maternity leave for six months and working at my job as a case manager supervisor and business is booming for Markus. An opportunity at my job opened up, which would be a promotion for me from supervisor to director. However, two years ago, I had once applied and was interviewed for this same position, but was not chosen. So, I was a little hesitant about applying for it again because I didn’t know how long our family would remain in this particular area. Well, let me be real…I was afraid of being turned down again and the challenge and responsibility of becoming a director of a program. That is a huge title to carry and a lot of responsibility considering that this was a social worker position and the decisions that I would have to make when deciding what route to take in order to save another child’s life was a very hard pill to swallow. But, I realized I was already making those decisions because I was a supervisor of a unit but not a whole program. Anyways, I spoke with Markus and prayed about this opportunity and decided to take my leap of Faith toward my dream of becoming a director. I applied for the position on the closing date. I received a call the next day and I interviewed for the position. I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I’m going to. I felt so comfortable and relaxed during my interview that I blew everyone’s socks off with my responses and from my observation of how the interview was going…. I had the job. The only thing stopping me from starting immediately after the interview were the policies and procedures of our human resources department. Anyways, I left the interview feeling like I had the job, but I left it in God’s hand and said if this is for me…God will work it out. Well, shortly after the interview I got a call offering me the position. Needless to say, I was happy and excited about our future.

October 2011 is here and everything is going well in our lives. We have a handsome one-year-old son and we are at the height of our careers. Well, I thought we were at the peak of our careers. What more could I ask for; I’m happy, hubby is happy, the baby is happy, and we love our careers! At this time in our lives, Markus’ consulting business picked up so much that he was traveling back and forth to New York City. With him frequently traveling we rarely were able to spend time together as a family.  This situation led us to make another life changing decision that would affect both of our professional dreams and uprooting our family to allow Markus to pursue an unbelievable opportunity in NYC.  We prayed, weighed all the pros and cons we spoke with our parents, our pastors, and friends about our move. This upcoming change weighed heavily on my spirit because I was finally in a place of true happiness with my new position as director of program and I did not want to give it up because I did not know if I would ever be given the chance again. I also did not want to turn in my letter of resignation because I did not want to drop this bomb on upper management considering I was only in this position for three months. I invested seven years of my life to this agency and worked hard to get to this stage and now I’m wondering how are they going to look at me when I give them this letter of resignation. Well, we knew that moving was the right thing to do because we believe that God spoke to us and said that we should go to NYC and not to worry about what other people may think. So, we packed up the house in less than two weeks because Markus had to be in NYC before the end of October. This was so hard on me because we left everything we built to start over in a new place without any relatives or friends and I wouldn’t have a job to go to.

We made our move up to the east coast! We are excited because we reside in northern New Jersey, which is not too far from midtown Manhattan where Markus is working. We can literally hop on the subway and be in Times Square in no time. We have so much culture and opportunities at our fingertips. This scenery is totally different from what we are used to. Well, our transition up the east coast was fine until we got news about our household items and vehicle.  Our family flew into New Jersey and our items were to be delivered to us in a week. However, that never happened because a freak accident occurred with the moving company’s truck and the brakes caught on fire, which engulfed the back of the trailer where our items were being stored.  We practically lost everything either due to water, smoke, or fire damage. I was a hot mess emotionally and literally. Once again Markus and I had to sit down and talk about some things and we prayed about this situation. I started to question whether or not we made the right decision to move here and leave everything behind in Florida.  I became depressed very quickly over this. Markus started working at his new job, my son and I are in an empty house, and we know no one in this state. I had to get myself together before I went deeper into depression. I started reading my bible daily, going for walks with our son, and I found a moms meet up group to join.  During this transition God has spoken to us several times and with the fire incident He said to my husband and I that He will provide for us and will never leave us. He wanted us to have a fresh start all away around including a new job in a new state; I’m a full-time mommy (which is a job), new home, vehicle, furniture, etc. We took this as a lesson and learned that no matter the situation we need to sit down with one another and discuss our family situation and include God in everything that we do.