Awesome Job

God’s Timing is Perfect!

October 22, 2018

Awesome Job!

Louis and I operate a small business that pretty much shrunk from seventeen co-workers to one in the span of four months starting about two years ago.

Since just before then (I’m an analyst, I did see that we would shrink due to changing marketplace), I’ve been applying for various jobs all over in any industry I have experience for or my degree fits with.  I’ve been turning in applications for almost two and a half years.  Nothing.  That’s rather tough for my ego, but hey, I had a three-inch binder with book and article rejection letters that kept coming for fourteen years before my first book was traditionally published.  So I can say I’m used to rejection!  (Honestly, when it came every other job I walked into the business and three of the four was hired on the spot, the fourth I was called back that week – so it was a bit frustrating being well-qualified but not getting any offers.)

I answered an ad that I almost didn’t.  I knew the lady who owned the business, so I knew I would like working for her.  Although the ad was for a gymnastics school, it did say “no gym experience,” and when I arrived, I was asked if I liked working with children.  I LOVE teaching and working with children; I’ve taught and worked with children all my life – literally oldest sibling of 7, volunteered at schools, churches, and groups since they would let me (10), student taught, tutored, and I have 6 children.

The idea of teaching children a sport and getting paid for it is totally amazing!  I consider myself active, so a job where I’m working out a bit while teaching is perfect.

It’s really cool when God’s timing ends you at a place you know you’ll love being, a boss you know you’ll enjoy working for, and the schedule you’ll have really doesn’t mess with anything you already do!  (The girls’ college classes are during morning or early afternoon, we can still pick up Anastasia, it doesn’t change my ability to work early AM shuttle rides, it doesn’t interfere with the farm or schooling, and we can still  do weekend craft sale events and church!)

Bonus was that I didn’t have any workout pants, but the weekend before I started training, my brother and sister brought us bags of clothing and in them were three workout pants and socks!  So I didn’t need to spend money to start!

God’s timing is always perfect and sometimes what plops on your radar isn’t what you thought you would get, but it’s just perfect for you!  This job is almost too good to be true for me.  I’m going to get paid to teach children a fun  sport on a schedule that works with my family’s lifestory… Amazing!

I’m feeling so blessed and a bit awestruck.  Thank you, Jesus!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Our Daily Bread

Season of Uncertainty: struggles over finances and worry for me. Learning to trust in daily provision.

September 14, 2018

Our Daily Bread

Have you ever thought about the line in the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread?”

I always believed it meant to trust God for provision.

I never really lived the “daily” part.

Our life is broken into seasons and in this season, there is no weekly or monthly guaranteed income.  We work daily.  We get paid daily.  Of course, we understand that bills are monthly, so we have to save the money we make in order to pay for monthly provisions.  For the last few months, when we pray that prayer, I understand the “daily bread” part literally.

Our service work is different than a “regular job” in that we don’t have sick days or PTO to pull from when we’re sick.  When I got sick with the mold garbage was a huge cut on our family’s finances.  Our income has even changed from what we had a few years ago: From startup to two years ago our business had several streams of “weekly” or “monthly” income from operating, but times change.  We could take a day off then and it didn’t come with worrying if rent or electric would get behind over it.

God always provides, though.  God makes sure we get enough calls to keep our provisions met (we have been on time for rent & electric in this season).  We get blessed in unexpected ways too.  Unexpected ways are like this past Sunday when a sister from church gave us two boxes of fruit popsicles – the kids LOVE those things!

Radio preachers always say stuff like, “just give what your family would spend eating out.”  It makes me feel so sad.  (We do pay $200 a month to help another – plus anything God tells us to give.  But that is between God and us.) We don’t eat out.  We used to.  If I mention a restaurant we’ve tried “the other day,” it was likely over two years ago.  I don’t tell other people our financial situation.  I don’t like to “bother others” because God does always provide and as long as we have rent, I’m not going to ask anyone for help.  Outside of Louis buying a $20 box from the new Bojangles to try it out for a birthday lunch, we haven’t eaten out in ages.  We understand that good stewardship in our family right now means spending less than $8 for each dinner meal for all of us – and one item each from the dollar menu still breaks that budget.  Honestly, beans and rice (the most common) or spaghetti/zoodles with marinara (2nd most common) cost $2.80 and $3.30 each, respectively.  Most of our family dinners cost us less than $8 a meal.  Breakfast (thank you, God, for eggs!) is under $2 and lunch is usually about $4 since we save full meat and good veggies for dinners.  Since we make feed money off our chickens and eggs, eggs are practically “free.”  We go to a local produce market a mile from us and pick lots of veggies from the $0.50/lb “scratch and dent” box.  I like to think I’m pretty good at stretching money.

For us, this season has taught us to depend on God daily.  That was very hard for me at first.  I am a planner.  I am a saver.  I am very good at saying “no, that’s not on the list,” and not allowing money to be spent on something I consider unnecessary.  But I find it an extreme challenge to not have the full month’s bills sitting in the bank – we used to have six months of bills in the savings account and one in the checking!  I hate the uncertainty of depending on God to give us calls every day.  I look at our reservations and my stomach churns.  There’s usually nothing for me to plan on.  Fifty-three stories online and I made zero in August, so I can’t plan on that just yet.  I’m so unsure that I’m applying for every job that I can possibly pretend my skill sets fit only to be rejected by everything in the last two years.  (Obviously, God doesn’t want me there.)  If I get a job, it will be because God wants me there.  (Maybe God wants me in this season of uncertainty because He’s teaching me to depend on Him more and worry less?)

Do I love working from home?  YES!  (I drive when there are calls, wait at home in-between.) Do I love being able to homeschool, write more stories, tend my garden and tiny farm, and be present as my children grow?  YES!  YES!  YES!  YES!

What is hard for me is accepting uncertainty.

Frankly, though, life is totally uncertain!  A “steady job” is just as uncertain as the “daily bread” season we are in!  It only appears more secure.

Only God is truly certain.  Why would I want to trust in anything else?

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

 

Follow me!

Get my latest posts delivered to your email: