Hope and a Future

So Dan resigned from his wonderfully "safe" good paying job last week.  He has another week to go and then he is done there.  I am so ready for this, and I'm not really sure why, I can only say "it's a God thing."

Last spring... probably May... Dan and I were doing our chat-in-the-evening on the couch thing and he "dumped" on me.  All at once I heard that his work, that had actually just changed a few months before to no longer be shift work, was terrible.  He was tired of the stress and responsibility that comes with having men work under you working with poisonous gas etc.  We had realized the summer before that Dan felt a restlessness to do something new, but I had hoped that his new job, with new responsibility would be just what he needed.  It was not.

The next day, I was at the kids school for something, trying to wear my brave, happy face when I finally broke down with a couple of friends and told them my story.  It's funny because now I wonder why I was crying... but I know at the time it felt like my world was ending.  Dan was going to begin actively looking for his own business.  He had an idea what he wanted to do, but to me it was just to be a hobby not a job, I had been dismissing it for at least 6 months (maybe even longer) as a viable option.  Anyway, back at the school... these two women told me many things and prayed with me.  God placed me with two women who had actually walked in my shoes not long before.  Both of their husbands are self-employed and both left jobs that to some it would seem strange to leave.  Some of the words they said that God still uses to encourage me are: "God will not waste anything... he will use this time."  "God sees you," "Trust God," "Trust Dan, you know he will not plunge into anything without having prayed and done his homework."  The overall feeling that they left me with was that God would provide for Dan and for our family. I was still scared... totally scared, but I was open to where God was going to lead us.

Less than a month later, Dan was offered to be mentored and trained, by a man and his team that is so super smart.  God has blessed them and he has done amazingly.  Wow God!  He gets to do the very thing he had wanted to do for a long time. 

In August (after a couple of months of initial training) Dan began to actively work.  Now six months later he continues with his learning, he is being mentored and prayed for, he has all the support he could ask for, yet he is his own boss.  He has his own clients and is loving what he is doing.  It is exactly what we were hoping and praying for.  

Many verses have encouraged me on this journey of resigning one job to begin the journey of self-employment. One of my favourite is Jeremiah 28:11 "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to proper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Will I be scared next Monday when Dan's alarm doesn't go off half an hour before mine?  Probably... but I do know that with my God I do have hope and a future.