Alot has been happening around our household lately, but I haven't wanted to post about it until it was all said and done. I think you'll understand why.
Matt has been working at Bethany Baptist Church since February 2005. When we started at Bethany, everything was WONDERFUL! The entire church was loving, kind, and accepted us as family immediately. I developed a quickly deep relationship with our youth minister's wife and Matt and I quickly fell into the church life.
I don't want to go into much detail, but we felt like God might be calling us elsewhere in the fall of 2008. We put out Matt's resume and just began praying for God's guidance. We were contacted by a church in Toccoa, GA (waaaaay up north, in the mountains) and even visited it a few times to see if we thought that was where God was leading us.
In January of 2009, our church had a pretty big split and Matt and I were pretty devastated. Most of the people that we were really close to left. In February 2009 Lorelai was born, and I pulled away from the church alot. We've been through alot of ups and downs since then, but felt like God was still calling Matt to stay. We started noticing that God was shaping us and molding us, but we didn't really know what for. Honestly, we figured it was to take us to a different church for Matt to serve in. In August of 2009 we became friends with Zach and Emily Parker. Zach works for Aflac and pretty much from the beginning of our friendship, Zach has told Matt that he thinks that Matt would do wonderful at selling Aflac. We always just brushed it off and kind of laughed about it and reminded them that Matt was called to the ministry, not to sell insurance.
Very slowly, that idea started to not be quite so absurd anymore and it seemed like God was pulling us in that direction. Eventually, we started praying really really hard about what God wanted us to do. Then we started praying that God would stop us if this was not the direction to go in. He never did.
October 3, 2010 was Matt's last day as the music minister at Bethany Baptist Church. He has been working for Aflac for the past 4 weeks, and is really starting to do well at it. It's a big adjustment for us - going from salary to commission is a BIG change. But we're sure that this is God's plan for our life right now, and we're just following Him. We are VERY excited about this opportunity, and even though it can be very stressful and is definitely NEVER where we thought we'd be, we know that God has amazing and wonderful plans for our family!!
We're enjoying visiting around to churches as a family - that is a luxury that we have never had before since Matt has been employed in a church since we were engaged (I was 18!), and I'll be sure to let you know when we decide on a church home.
But, we could sure use your prayers. :)
2 comments:
I know just where you're at! Did you know that Kurt sells insurance, too? He has been working for Farmer's Insurance since early summer. It is a tough job! And there's lots of pressure to make a quota, but he's really enjoying it. I hope that this change turns out to be a positive one for ya'll. We're praying for you!
Wow, I so did not know you were engaged at 18, that's hard core :)
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