I am now a Small Business Adviser with Accounting and Consulting Group in Roswell! I received a competitive wage and benefits package! Wow, this is really happening! I know it's not my first professional job but it sure feels like it! I start work July 6th. I still have 3 classes to finish my BBA; I'm taking 1 now and I'll take 2 in the fall semester.
It was quite the dilemma. I wanted to stay in Albuquerque until fall semester starts mid August, even if I had to rent someplace. Most of my support system is here. But I noticed that there just weren't any jobs in Roswell in the accounting field. Then there was a Revenue Agent with New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Audit Compliance Department. I promptly applied. About a week later there was the job at ACG. I applied right away. So, since January, there have been 2 accounting positions in Roswell. I was granted interviews with both and received job offers from both. It was a tough decision. The state job was basically a collections job. The accounts would reach my desk after all other methods of collections were exhausted. I would end up with the hard cases and have to literally go to people's homes and businesses to try to make arrangements for them to pay their taxes. My area would cover 9 counties; about 1/3 of the state. It would have also been my job to determine the assets to be seized and to seize them. While this isn't my cup of tea and I don't really agree with our tax system a girl's gotta eat. So I considered it. The plus side to the state job is no overtime. The trips would be day trips only. It was the best wage I would have ever received. State jobs are notoriously stable; you've got to really mess up to lose a state job. Besides, I had been praying and had everyone I knew praying. I decided that if that was the job meant for me that I would be a light for these people and let Christ's love flow through me.
The ACG job phone interview went well. The in person interview; not so well. I left feeling very discouraged because that was my choice of jobs. Then I get another phone interview with another person and she offers me a job tentatively after about 10 minutes on the phone! YAY! But...I didn't hear anything from ACG for 4 more days. I finally left a message for the woman I talked to. The next morning the state calls and offers me a job. I explained that I had a tentative offer on another job and asked for the day to decide. After talking to ACG, it turns out the lady that offered me the job was out for the next 2 weeks! They were so great in talking to HR and the managing partner to put my job offer together in a few hours. But...when the offer came in it was substantially less than the state. So I negotiated a matching wage! To be fair, ACG offered me much more than I asked for in the first phone interview. I explained that while I could see that they were offering me much more than I had originally asked for that I wasn't prepared for that issue to come up in the first phone interview. After I did some research I realized that I had undervalued myself. They understood were very willing to match the state pay offer. I'm so glad. There are so many more opportunities at an accounting firm. If I decide to sit for the CPA exam I can easily fulfill my requirements at an accounting firm; I wouldn't have been eligible at the state position. I will have my own accounts and bookkeepers at ACG. ACG offers a great benefit package. I couldn't be happier! :O)
I believe the key to my recent success is that I finally submitted to the authority of God and my husband. While I had agreed to move to the homestead my heart wasn't in it. It's not my dream. I had all these ideas in my head about conventional houses in town, retirement and charity work. Then finally a retirement community where I would be surrounded by friends (or at least people) until I died peacefully in my sleep.
The Lord has an odd way of preparing us for our future. I always wanted to live in town, preferably in a condo within walking distance of parks, libraries and shopping. Bo has always wanted to live very far out in the country (further than the homestead). We lived in a house in town the first year at Intel. Bo hated it; I loved it. When we had the opportunity to move to Algodones I cringed but Bo was happy. I learned to love Algodones. But in my mind I was thinking, "It's my turn now". Then Jeremy died and life became about getting through the next minute for 4 years. It devastated each of us, our family and our way of life. During that time Bo started talking about the homestead. I'd agree, then I'd freak out and, in tears, tell him I couldn't. We came up with the compromise of living at my mother-in-law's, but then that fell through. By that time I had been through a debilitating depression and severe panic attacks. I learned to ask for prayer, study my Bible and lean on God. Gradually, the Lord placed people in my life that were a great help to me. He pulled me out of the miry pit (Psalm 40:2). I am a completely different women than I was. But I was still thinking that I wanted what I wanted and that it was different than what Bo wanted. It was a hard time, made harder by some outside sources and pressures. Then I remembered Psalm 46:10 "...Be still and know that I am God..." I learned that in the stillness God will guide my heart. This is a good time to interject that I don't pretend to be perfect or think that Christians or people that go to church are perfect or better than others. I learned that nothing in this earthly life is more important than understanding that God created me, Christ died for my sins and if I believe this I will live eternally with God. God wants to spend time with me, all the time. My job, while on this earth, is to love people, whether they are lovable or not, just as God loves me. That is difficult, but God convicts my heart when I am stubborn about this. I no longer believe that I am a victim to my thoughts and feelings. Once I consciously change my thoughts and become obedient to God I feel a peace that surpasses understanding (Philipians 4:7). I love those moments and that's all they are at this point, moments. I'm a work in progress. I struggle on a daily basis to take every thought captive (2 Corinthians 10:5) and live with love in my heart for my fellow man, especially those who have hurt me. I've learned that feelings are just feelings; they aren't reality and I choose what I think about those feelings. I can be sad but I can still survive. I can be mad but I don't have to take it out on people.
So, when I realized that I had a hard heart toward this move I started praying double time and I had my church and friends praying as well. I've struggled with obedience my entire life and chafed at the thought of a wife being obedient to her husband. But then I heard a few sermons from different teachers and I started really reading and thinking about it. I read many translations of the Bible as well. The first thing most people miss about that passage is that God commands the husband to love his wife and to give his life her as Christ loved the church and gave His life for the church (Ephesians 5:21-33). God also commands the husband to be obedient to Him as the wife is to the husband. Context is extremely important in studying any Biblical principle. I also came to understand that obedience to Bo IS obedience to God because that is how God intended it to be. I needed to trust Bo to be a Godly man and nothing else mattered; certainly not where we lived. So if I'm hard hearted to Bo then I'm hard hearted to God. I don't have to understand or see the end of the road. We are not meant to understand everything about this world. God created us for so much more but we aren't capable of understanding everything. There will be a time for that understanding. I don't know why God placed this order on creation. I can tell you that I can look back over the years of my life and see God's hand since my birth. I am truly lucky to still be alive today. God held me in the palm of His hand. It's being able to look back and see His hand that has given me the strength to trust now. He wants me to trust Bo even when I don't understand.
Recently, I finally, learned this lesson well. Genesis 22:1-22 talks about how God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. At the last minute God sent an Angel to stop the sacrifice and a ram was provided. It is my viewpoint that God wanted Abraham's complete obedience. When He had it THEN he blessed Abraham by sparing his son and providing a substitutionary sacrifice. I decided that I needed to be willing to move to Roswell and stay in a camper barely big enough for 1 person to live with no hot water and no air conditioning in the summer in southeast New Mexico where summer temperatures are routinely in the 100s. As soon as I made that determination in my heart, even before I told Bo, God started moving in my life. I got a job, the house sale is finally progressing, I found a camper for what it would have cost to rent for 6 months in town. The greatest thing is that Bo and I will be together and won't be separated anymore. Once I committed in my heart to be in obedience to God things became bearable, even wonderful.
So, here I go... Thank you God for covering me (Psalm 91:4) and providing my path (Psal 18:36).
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