Ch 5: A Leap of Faith
We began our business with God's blessing, thinking "How hard could it be?"
Be careful what you wish for. Man, do I get that one!
Now that you know a bit about how I sort God’s voice from my own, let’s get back to that first layoff I witnessed in 1982. That was the day I told my future husband I wasn’t worried because I knew God would take care of us. And I allowed that if we were both laid off, maybe we could start a business.
[Editor's Note: This article is Chapter 5 in my serialized memoir “Well Guided: My Life as a Student at the International Academy of God,” in which I share some of the many ways God has had a hand in my life. Access previous chapters via the Table of Contents.]
Agreeing on a Contingency Plan
Pretty soon after, Husband’s mental wheels started turning away from layoffs and toward new options. Before long, he was once again his normal upbeat self. “Maybe we could start a store,” he began, a few days later. “It might be neat to have a gift shop where we sell only nice vintage stuff we buy at auction.” Auctions were a regular thing for us. Still are. His parents had taken him to weekly live auctions since he was little. That’s where he’d taken me, and I met his parents, on our second date.
That became the plan. If we both got laid off, we’d start a business.
The crisis of 1982 affected us no further. Life went on. We eventually got married and had two sons. We both continued to work at Westinghouse R&D Center, later renamed the Science & Technology Center (STC). Husband came to church with me, was baptized, and accepted what I’d felt all along – that God would take care of us.
For me, the layoff finally came in 1994, long after our initial conversation about starting a business. Although Husband was still working, the handwriting was on the wall. It was time to dust off that old plan from 1982.
I spent a few years looking at local options. I ran around the east coast, investigating possible franchises. I made a little money consulting with former Westinghouse co-workers. But none of it panned out as either a long-term option for me, or as something Husband and I could do together when his anticipated pink slip eventually arrived.
Everything Hinged on the Sewers
As we eliminated one option after another, we began to consider starting something outside of Pittsburgh, on old family farmland in the South that Husband had inherited. In fact, the land was a registered Century Farm in South Carolina: in continuous use as a farm, owned by the same family, for over 100 years. Shortly after World War II, when his dad had owned the farm and state highway construction was booming, Interstate 85 was run right up the middle of the farm. The state thoughtfully put an exit there as well.
The land had been a tree farm since the 1960s, when the old house burned and the caretaker and the cows had left. Husband kept it as a tree farm when his father gave it to him once he turned 21. The land lay on the edge of the tiny mill town of Piedmont. By the time we were looking at the area as a business opportunity, the mill was closed. While some inhabitants farmed, others traveled to Greenville or Anderson for work.
The first time I saw the property, on our honeymoon in 1986, the only thing at Exit 35 was an old service station at the southeast corner of the intersection. Husband owned northeast and northwest. Another farmer grew lespedeza on the southwest corner.
By 1994, Husband had sold the northeast corner. And now a truck stop did a bustling business there. The old filling station had succumbed to the competition and stood empty. To the west lay dozens of acres of undeveloped potential. But now that the county had recently extended the sewer system, the western corners could finally be developed.
A plan soon took shape: we would take advantage of the location we already owned and figure out the best thing to put there.
Getting Serious About the South
We took our time, did our due diligence, narrowed our focus to three possible businesses, paid for marketing studies, made exploratory trips, and prayed. A lot. We got input from Husband’s SC lawyer, county development people, a potential fuel supplier, a few close friends, and God (via my spiritual journal). After months of studying, we made our decision.
We would build a convenience store. And then some.
The marketing study said a convenience store was a great business choice for this location. The demographics and highway traffic would support the business. But to really succeed, in addition to the convenience store, we would need branded fuel and a fast food offering and a car wash. And, extra large bathrooms.
As it turns out, this was not the best advice. But we followed it to the letter, because we felt God was leading us to this decision, that God would be with us, and, therefore, that everything would be okay. In fact, there in black-and-white in my journal was God’s reassurance, starting right after my layoff, back when we weren’t even thinking about a store.
Jan 15, 1995: … I will not let you fail in business. Nevertheless, choose wisely that the path will not be too difficult for either of us.
More than once I heard something like It is not for me to say what business you should start. Do your homework. My Spirit will be there to guide you. But at the time, everything seemed to be falling into place, so we plunged ahead, perusing fast-food franchise offerings, making phone calls to track down key suppliers, and reading Faith Popcorn’s books on future trends.
An exploratory visit to South Carolina over Thanksgiving weekend in 1996 meant I could also check out the church situation. I knew that a new home congregation would be a critical component of my happiness with moving South.
Right before we left on that scouting venture, this message arrived:
… do not be afraid to move, if it is what you truly desire, for lo, I am with you always, even unto the ends of the earth.
Six months later, the plan was clear. We would launch a business together on what had been an old home farm in the rural South: a large convenience store…with fast food…and large bathrooms…and a car wash…and a major fuel supplier to entice folks off the Interstate. Oh, and an indoor playground with slides and a ball pool where we could offer birthday party packages. We were the parents of school-age children, after all.
It Wasn’t as Crazy as You Think
For me personally, this wasn’t as drastic a change in life trajectory as it sounds. At least not the “moving to the South” part. A little backstory is needed here.
I met my first husband in Physics class, on the second day at a new high school. We dated all through college, marrying less than a year after I finished. Early on, he had drawn me into his vision of the future. He would go to dental school, then open a practice in some small town in the Carolinas.
First Husband’s mother’s family lived in Chester, SC. Another mill town, but larger than Piedmont, due to its being a county seat. His first cousin was the town dentist who did quite well for himself. First Husband envisioned following in his cousin’s footsteps.
He and I had spent every vacation and even some of our honeymoon in Chester. My ears had become used to the accent. I had learned to prepare country ham and red-eye gravy. I had totally bought into the dream.
So, ironically, moving to South Carolina twenty years later felt less foreign to me than it did to Second Husband, who had never been close to his South Carolina cousins.
And, there was the fact that we’d fit right into a local-ish congregation, just 25 minutes away in Greenville.
Making Steady Progress
It felt like we were making progress. I asked God for a report card.
May 24, 1997: You’re doing fine. Keep up the good work. Amen.
No really, I am pleased with the directions you have taken in following my will for you to do all due diligence in preparing for your future business.
Do not fear for your financial safety in your new venture. I have said before and I say again, it is my desire for you to be financially successful, to fulfill my monetary purposes (do your tithing) as well as to have you be in positions and places of power so that you might influence others.
The whole time we were making these plans, Husband was still slogging along in a now-onerous job at Westinghouse under a department manager who seemed to resent his very existence.
But as we ticked off the various phases of planning and acquiring loan commitments, I continued to get heartening messages. I can’t tell you what to do. I’m pleased with your progress. I’m sending you trustworthy people. Don’t be foolish with money. Be trustworthy yourselves. Keep going.
Eventually, Husband did get the layoff he was hoping for. The severance package gave us a little extra financial cushion and propelled us onward to the goal.
In addition to the cheerleading messages, I was getting messages specifically about our mission.
May 3, 1998: Indeed I see that you still seek to serve me and to incorporate your service into the business. However, keep focused on the goals of profit, community service, community building, steadfastness to my principles, and spreading of love. Be true to all of these. I love you. Amen.
Finally, right before we broke ground, I received this specific promise.
July 15, 1998: And now again, dear sister, fret not about your future, your property, your land. All in good time will my purposes be served. You will not starve nor your business fail. You are my beloved and I would not see you suffer in this way. Fear not, for I am with you always.
We Heard What We Wanted to Hear
As it turns out, there’s a huge gap between “wildly successful” and bankruptcy. I had read this last message to mean “wildly successful.” And, in fact, to cement the deal we were making with God, we invited Pastor Vicki to fly down from Pittsburgh to offer a blessing over our efforts.
We held the little service on the fast-food side of the building, right before we opened for business. A couple of people from our new church family attended, along with most of our new employees.
I gave a little talk about how we felt God had led us to this place. That we wanted to create a sense of community within the workplace and with our customers. That we had asked Pastor Vicki to bless the business and all of us as a team. We sang one of my favorite hymns, with lines that reflected the way I viewed our efforts.
… be not slothful but obedient,
… heed ye, then, a Father’s counsel,
and by deeds your purpose show.
… Naught can harm whom God protecteth…
And the most important part:
… Up ye, then, to the high places
I have bid you occupy!
Peril waits upon the heedless,
grace upon the souls who try! [1]
With that, we were ready. We opened the doors full of hope, in March 1999.
Getting What We Wished For
It’s true that almost from the get-go, we sensed we were in for a much bigger challenge than either of us had expected. Frankly, we had gone into the venture thinking, How hard could it be? Well, way harder than we had expected.
What followed were nine years and three months of a break-even, just-barely-hanging-on, will-it-ever-get-better, nail-biting existence.
Throughout the nine-plus long, grueling years that we ran the store, every so often, I would ask God, How much longer? Husband and I were stressed to the limit mentally, physically, and financially. And yet the response was always reassurance. God was with us, God’s mysterious purposes were being fulfilled.
January 23, 2002: Do not be dismayed that the way is not clear and the path is long. It is yet day and my time is not yet accomplished to meet my ends at your current situation. Needs exist that you know not of but I must insist that you stay the course for now so that my purposes might be fulfilled. Amen
April 11, 2004: When you first moved to South Carolina, my goals for you were twofold: make a living for yourselves, and guide others to me through your example. But now I see you tire of this mission – you’ve been tired for a long time, and I can justify your feelings since you see only your own pain and little in the way of results.
But know this, I am with you and with your efforts and they have borne much fruit though you know it not. JC [an employee who stole from us] is but one example. As was true for your mother, the witness does not always see the end result. But fear not, the results are there.
You Don’t Always See the Results
That reference to my mother was about something that happened in my teens. When I was 14 (the summer of ‘69), she and a local minister had started a “youth program” (i.e., an indoor hangout) to keep the local “hippies” (mostly boys) from loitering in the tiny war memorial parklet and dirtying it up with their cigarette butts.
Six years later, when I was in college and Mom had passed, I ran into one of those guys. He was now a clean-cut, proud home-owner with a good job and a family. He told me how much my mother’s efforts had meant to him. But she hadn’t lived to see the end result. So, I understood the reference to Mom to mean that, like her, I wouldn’t necessarily see the results of my own efforts.
Over time, we had several opportunities to sell the business. People who wanted to buy would get the tour, and we’d get our hopes up. But they were never willing to pay enough to cover what we still owed on our loans. So, we kept going.
It was a long haul.
Hope dawned again in 2006.
April 24, 2006: Even now, I am preparing the way for you to be rid of the store and its burdens, but you must wait a little while – perhaps another year. The burden is great, I realize, but you must hang on and continue in faith. I require this of you and seek only for your welfare in the end. My ways are not your ways and my times are not your times. You must trust that I know best in this instance and that I have a plan I am working on. It just takes time to accomplish this plan.
Apparently all those hard years we were investing were accomplishing something in God’s plan. Even if I would never be able to completely figure out what those accomplishments were, I was content with that.
And I was encouraged by the glint appearing ever so faintly at the end of the tunnel. But there still wasn’t anything to do but keep going.
[1] Luff, Joseph. “O My People, Saith the Spirit.” Community of Christ Sings, Community of Christ, 2013.
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The reality of day-to-day life often seems to contradict our spiritual visions. I appreciate how you are weaving together both factors in your memoir. Reading your words, calls back memories from my own life where I felt passionately supported in a certain direction, but the physical support or financial support legged far behind. It is affirming to follow those threads and to contemplate in the present how listening or not listening to guidance changed the trajectory of my life.