The End of an Era

Today I reached the end of an era.  As of today, I'm no longer searching for a job.  Nor am I searching for a better job.  After over two years of looking for a quality job here in Chapel Hill, I finally got one.  Thanks to the Eternal Father, thanks to Dottie, thanks to everyone who has prayed for me once or often.

Since the fall of 2008, I have invested hours of my time, driven lots of miles, been emotionally distressed, discouraged, beaten down, and depressed.  And now, I can leave those things behind.  I no longer have to search for jobs.  I no longer have to apply for jobs.  I no longer have to wait for phone calls or emails from potential employers.

Today I got a call with an official job offer for a job which a friend (Dottie) passed on to me.  And When asked if I needed time to think about it, I said, 'No, I want this job.'  I will start a new career in two weeks.  Praise God for His faithfulness.

job

I got a new job. I got a call from a sign shop that I'd applied to a few weeks ago. The guy called me this afternoon wondering if I was still available and if I could come in tomorrow morning for some preliminary stuff. To that I responded, "Heck Yeah!" Anyways, I will start with only 25 - 30 hours per week but he says that within a month or two I should be at 40 hours per week.

This is great for several reasons. First, I now have a job. Second, I having a regular day job means I can still pursue being a personal trainer, but I'll just have to do it part time - evenings, Saturdays, that kind of thing. Third, I have worked in a sign shop before, so its not like I'm starting something completely new. It will take me a little to re-familiarize myself with the sign making trade, but I think I can be up to speed within a week or two.

Anyways, our Father continues to lead us and we continue to take steps with Him. Its frustrating and also scary sometimes to walk with Him because we don't always know where He's taking us. But at the same time its comforting to know that He knows where He's leading us and that it's always the best path.

win some, lose some ( a small setback)

As the saying goes, you win some, you lose some. This instance is a 'lose some' scenario. And this lose pertains to my job. I lost it. But I saw it coming. The job had a large sales component, something I knew that I would never excel at. When I was looking for other jobs between Dec 2008 and April 2009, I always shied away from sales jobs because I know me - I'm not much of a salesman. But since this was the only place that wanted to hire me, of course I took the position.

Anyways, after about 2 1/2 months at Lifestyle Family Fitness, I find myself unemployed again. Like I said though, I actually saw this coming. My sales performance had never been up to snuff - I had only gotten 3 clients in the time I was there. On Monday I saw that my manager had set up a meeting with me for yesterday afternoon before my shift was to start. I didn't take that as a good omen. I actually said to Jo the day before that I might be unemployed soon. As I drove down to Apex to work yesterday, I told God, "I'll accept whatever happens today." They were going to fire me, but gave me the option to resign just so it wouldn't reflect bad on me.

The great thing is that I learned a lot while I was there. I had zero personal training experience before, but now I have some. I got to work out for free in a really nice gym. I met some great people. Also, after having looked for jobs for so many months without success, it was nice to get a job and see that I Was somewhat worthy of employment. In general, I'm thankful for having had the chance to work there.

I'm really disappointed that this job didn't work, but at the same time, Jo and I are really hopeful. She had a great interview yesterday; the interviewer said she thinks Jo is perfect for the position. She actually went back this morning to do some testing and hopefully we'll know more about that job soon. And I've got another interview tomorrow that I'd already set up last week before I lost this job.

As cliche as it could sound, I'll say this anyway - I do trust in God. After all, at this point, what other option do we have?

its almost official

I now have 3 things in North Carolina:

1. a job
2. an NC driver's license
3. a car that is registered in NC
   

Soon we'll have a 4th - a place to live. I'm living here in Chapel Hill because I'm already working, but in 2 weeks, we'll all be living here as a family. Crazy stuff! The reason I say its crazy is because this has been a long time coming and there were times when we never thought we'd see the end. We've been planning this move for almost 9 months and 5 of those months have been spent living in Jo's parents basement.

If anybody's interested, here's a really brief sketch of the past 3/4 year:
In early-August of last year we visited Chapel Hill as a family then a couple of weeks later made the decision to move here. I also started looking for jobs then. In October we put our house in Drexel Hill, PA on the market and in early December it sold. Since I had no job, we moved to Roanoke, VA, not our destination, but a nice enough place to bide our time. I got really serious about the job hunt in early January. With some great encouragement from my wonderful wife, I decided in late January to pursue certification as a personal trainer. After much preparation, I was certified in early March. Then a week and a half ago, a friend offered to let us stay in his house for most of the summer AND I was hired as a personal trainer, all within like 2 days. And now, after having lived in my in-laws basement for almost 5 months, we are seeing our plans come to fruition.

In retrospect, things certainly didn't happen like we thought they would. They didn't happen according to our timetable either. But they happened just the same. What I mean is that regardless of what has happened since August of last year, we have almost achieved our goal of moving to Chapel Hill. And seeing the way things have happened, the scenario is definitely better than what I could have come up with. As cliche as it may sound, God is good and He is in control. I've learned over the last 9 months how true these things are and that I really believe them. Now its time to settle in and start yet another new phase of life.

words of the day

Job
Sample sentence: "I now have a job."

Move
Sample sentence: "In a couple of weeks we will move to Chapel Hill."