The morning I got the news that I was being cut down to part time at work, about an hour before the meeting, I got a call from a representative from Aquent, a graphic design placement firm. They were calling to tell me all about their company and that should BCC ever need additional creative types, that they could help us fill those positions. Now, at the time of the call, I knew what was happening to my job, I just hadn’t been told officially yet. I thought about telling her the irony of the timing of this phone call … kinda like, not only do we NOT need any more designers on our team, but do you wanna help me find a job? It was weird.
I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do yet. Michelle and I need a little time to decompress. Insurance is the main thing. I am fairly sure that I want to make the freelance thing happen, as well as growing the whole painting/artist side of my life, which is a dream of mine. Hopefully all while staying at the church part time, because I really do love the place. Health insurance is the big variable here … My eyes and ears are open on all fronts. Maybe I think I’m going to go freelance, but who knows, someone could call me tomorrow about a great job somewhere. I’m open at this point.
I’ll tell you honestly what I think. I’ve been talking about going freelance and painting (and eventually writing novels) for a long long time. I think God finally got tired of hearing me talk and decided to give me a kickstart. He’s going to make sure we’re okay. He always has. I wasn’t necessarily thinking about taking this leap into the freelance world while my wife was pregnant … stability and a pregnant lady are nice companions. But here we are, and for the time, stability is kind of out of the question.
Or is it? Maybe this is a way where God is really going to show Michelle and me that we’re going to be taken care of. Seriously, I have sought out graphic design business one time, two years ago when Michelle lost her job. I got one client out of that, who I still have a great relationship with today. Other than that, I’ve done a LOT of work that has literally fallen in my lap. It’s what’s kept us out of the poor house so far. Not by anything I’ve done. It’s totally been a God thing so far, and I think that’s just going to continue and increase from here on. We’ve got a baby on the way. We’ve definitely been wrestling with the “Why on Earth is this happening NOW?” thoughts … and those aren’t over. If this had happened at any other time, we wouldn’t be as scared. How do we get past paying insane rates for health insurance? Can we make sure Michelle and the baby are covered through another insurance policy? That’s the variable. That’s the biggest question of all. How do people do it? And we’ll have a kid eventually to cover as well.
But people do it every day, don’t they?