Wandering, but not lost!

I have been without full-time employment now for 23 days. I'm not fearful, not anxious, not worried about the bills or any of that. God is faithful and has blessed us financially many times, this time is not the first and won't be the last. I have taken a job as a part-time delivery driver for Domino's. Something I always wanted to try since I went through Dave Ramsey's course and now I am doing it. I am making decent money and working a few hours.

I've also been cleaning Harrah Church since the first of August for the most part. This is part-time as well. I've been doing it to help them out while they find someone else to do it since we lost our guy right before I quit the church. It's also been helping us out financially having that little extra coming in. I have had a full-time job offer for about three weeks, but that training doesn't start until the 29th of Sept. I could start tomorrow morning, because I'm on a standby team in case people don't show to training. I also have a job offer coming tomorrow or Tuesday from Sprint. Yep, my old faithful! The call center though, not retail. I am being hired, just don't know the details yet (i.e., salary, start date, etc.) So here I am working two part-time jobs, with two full-time jobs in the bag, not sure what to do right now. I'm not too worried about it, God has proven His ways lots of times long before I get around to screwing them up (thank you Lord for that).

Now, we are also wandering when it comes to planting our feet in a church. You know, I have always said that we would remain at Harrah for a while, not every Sunday, but probably half-time for a few months, but I don't know if that is going to be possible. We have a lot of good friends there, don't get me wrong. I was there for such a time as this, or that it was at least, but I am starting to understand why people actually leave the local church body after they quit working for it.

It's hard, very hard, because you still look at everything through the eyes of a staff member, except you are no longer on staff. See, all the stuff I have done over the last 19 months are not important to most people. It was important to me! So now, stuff that bugs me is being done, but when I was on staff I could make sure they were not being done, so I feel like part of where I have helped bring the church to this higher level of excellence in some areas is beginning to slip. Now to be fair, there are areas I did not excel in that are now being raised to a level of excellence I could not bring them to which was one of the big reason for me leaving. I felt like I had done what God had me there to do and helped raise the bar.

I guess my hope and prayer was, and is, that the level of excellence we had attained in the areas I was directly responsible for would continue on and then new people would bring other areas up to a level of excellence that had never been seen in other areas, thus creating and keeping the levels of excellence high.

I tend to be very critical though and my way is the right way if I'm the expert in the matter, or at least more of the expert than anyone else and in a lot of areas, I am the expert, or was.... so, it's with a sad heart that I am saying goodbye to my life of the last two+ years and moving on. I plan on staying in touch with some people, but I must move on. God has released me and I've done all I could do to pass on my knowledge and now people must take it upon themselves to keep pushing to raise the bar in areas where it needs to be and to keep the bar raised in areas that it already has been worked on.

There will always be a part of Harrah Church in my soul and I will pray that HC continues to reach people that others cannot or will not reach, but my time there is complete, satisfied, concluded and finalized. I learned a ton working with the people I have worked with and for. I have been a valued staff member and go-to guy. I have been a great leader and I have been a terrible leader. I have shown people the love of Christ and I have probably pushed some away unfortunately. I have done it all because of my desire to show people a servant's heart and a servant leader. Please forgive me if you are the ones I pushed away, while continuing that legacy if you have been helped.

I say goodbye for now until I see you again someday... on the street, in the store, or in our resting place. I will pray for you and with you, please do the same for me. You will be missed!

Not all who wander are lost! ~ J.R. Tolkien