my blogging story: part 2

Hello, again and welcome back! Thanks for listening :) Here is part 1 if you missed it..

As we were getting settled into Texas, I had a really great idea, something that had been at the back of my mind since we lived in Idaho. There was a discount home décor store there that a local family opened that was only open 2 days a week. Lubbock had nothing like it, and I thought it would be such a great idea to open one. Besides, it was only open 2 days a week, I could completely handle that! I could even build a playroom at the back that my little ones could play in while I set up the beautiful décor and chatted with my customers. It had been discouraging watching our savings being drained so quickly and this seemed like the perfect solution to supplement our modest student income. I called our realtor, she thought it sounded like a great idea and gave me some sources for looking into buildings to rent.

I started designing the logo and even had a perfect name. I would be called Dorothy: a home décor outlet and underneath it would be: there’s no place like home. (my grandmother’s name and oldest daughter’s middle name is Dorothy) I was so excited. It would be perfect.

Reality soon made herself known. When my boys fell asleep in the car, I would drive around looking for a potential rental store location. Everything was so expensive and they wanted a hefty down payment. I tried to talk to some owners of home décor outlets in other cities for resources on merchandise purchasing and starting the company up and offered to pay them for their time, but no one got back to me. C’mon! How busy can they be if they are only open 2 days a week? I got some quotes: just a sign for the front was $3,000? Forget that, I’d paint my own sign! Nothing seemed to be coming together and I was getting really discouraged about it.

I thought about it, prayed about it, made a notebook about it (anything major in life deserves a notebook, right?) Twice a year our church holds a conference where our leaders speak. It was coming up soon, and I prayed that I would be led to some answers about this business endeavor that I was so excited about.

Julie Beck spoke on Sunday morning and her words felt like she was speaking directly to me from the television:

“Mothers who know do less. They permit less of what will not bear good fruit eternally….Mothers who know are willing to live on less and consume less of the world’s goods in order to spend more time with their children—more time eating together, more time working together, more time reading together, more time talking, laughing, singing, and exemplifying. These mothers choose carefully and do not try to choose it all.”

I had a distinct feeling inside of me that said to wait.  This wasn’t right for now. It would be too much. Some call it mother’s intuition, a gut feeling, that little voice inside your head, the Holy Spirit, and I call it the Holy Ghost. I have learned to listen to it because it has never led me the wrong way. In choosing a university, my husband, career, it has always guided me through major and not-so-major decisions in my life.

So….I waited. But I had that feeling of peace that you get when you’re listening to that voice inside and as I continued to receive some follow-up calls from all of my inquiries, I just told them that things were on hold right now.

Life went on and I tried not to think about the store.

We were getting ready to visit family in Dallas for Thanksgiving and the weekend before we were supposed to leave, my daughter got strep throat. I always seem to catch it after her, so I asked the physician if he would mind looking at my throat while we were in there. He touched my neck and said, "did you know you had a goiter?" (an enlarged thyroid) Sure enough, there was a lump sticking out of my neck. He said to get it checked by my regular doctor. Our insurance kicked in Dec 1 with the University and so before we left for Thanksgiving break, we had to choose a plan. I remember my husband saying that we didn’t know what that lump was, so we better just go with the best insurance even though the monthy premium would be more than our mortgage. I gulped and agreed, and we signed up for that insurance plan.

click here to read part 3