Affirmation!

                We haven’t “blogged’ in a while and there is a reason for that. We have been in a serious time of transition and upheaval.  Your mid-20s are a difficult time period. So many BIG decisions that have to made that will affect your entire life. It can be overwhelming at times. Keaton and I, along with deciding to commit to each other in marriage, have been wrestling through decisions about where to live and what to do career wise.  Not exactly as easy as deciding where to eat on Friday night…

                This is a story worth sharing, though. If you have ever felt like God has forgotten about you or things are not going according to planned, just know that He is still at work. I know some people (my father included) do not necessarily think God is in the details of our lives, but I whole-heartedly believe He is. He is always at work and I am about to tell you how He creepily started directing my paths to Butler, KY (just south of Cincinnati,OH) well over a year ago. Yes, I called Him creepy….

                If you don’t already know, Keaton moved back to his hometown of Butler, KY in April. God was working in his heart to get him back to the community he loves and grew up in. This was all wonderful except I work for my dad in Nashville, TN. We had always talked about living in Nashville, so this was a major adjustment for me. Not only was I going to have to find a new job in a matter of months, but I would have to move away from my friends and family. Quite scary if you are not the biggest fan of change (and who is?).

                So going into May of this year I was incredibly uneasy about our future. Would I find a job? Would Keaton get a job? Would we be able to get married in October? Would we be able to take care of ourselves? Just all the questions that fill you with doubt and TERROR.

                Let’s backtrack now to February of 2011. I had withdrawn from Graduate school, moved back home and was in need of some quick job….Serving! I had always thought I would enjoy serving, so I went to Carrabba’s in Hendersonville and they were hiring. I only worked at Carrabba’s for four months.  I ended up with some regulars who would come in and ask for me, and one of them was a group of Dollar General people. I got to know them, they got to know me, we had a fun time together. End of story….so I thought!

                So I leave Carrabba’s in June 2011 and go to work for my dad at his and his brother’s CPA firm. A woman who had worked for them a decade had decided to move, so I had the fortunate opportunity to take her place. They work out of an office building in Goodlettsville, TN located beside the Dollar General headquarters. Towards the end of 2011, they started doing renovations in my dad’s office building and said that Dollar General people were moving in because they had run out of room in their two GIGANTIC office buildings. Well, what do you know, but one day I get on the elevator with the VP guy I had served at Carrabba’s. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Well, hello there! You probably don’t remember me…

VP: KATIE!

Me: Knob Creek!!  (That is not his name, but I remembered people I served by their drink order)

VP: What are you doing here?!

Me: I work for my dad on the second floor. Do you work in this building?

VP: Yea we just moved in. You know, we came back to Carrabba’s to let you know about a job opening we had back in the fall and you were gone.

Elevator opens….

VP: Well great running into you!

Me: (Totally bummed) you too!.....

End of story….or so I thought!!!!!

Fast forward to 6 months later…..

May 16, 2012…..a great day for many reasons. #1. It was my  25^th birthday #2. God rocked my world.

           A woman came into the office and introduced herself as working for a company called Daymon Worldwide and VP guy (who I thought worked for Dollar General) had sent her down to talk to me about a job opening they had that they thought would be a perfect fit. My heart was saying YES!!!!!!! But my head was saying Katie, you are moving to Butler, KY in October….She told me to email her and she would give me more information about the job. I emailed her and told her that I was more than interested in the job, but I had to move to the Cincinnati area in October, so I didn’t think it would probably work out.

So disappointing, right? Such a great job opportunity in a tough economy and I can do nothing because I’m not staying in this area…

       She emailed me back within a couple days and said that they were still interested in me and in October they could transfer me up to their Kroger account in Cincinnati. Whhhhhaaaattttt?? Was this real life???

Long story short… 

       I applied, interviewed and signed the contract to work for Daymon Worldwide this morning. In my interview, the VP guy called running into me “serendipitous”. How would a serving job at Carrabba’s that I thought was just a job lead to a job for a company that works right outside Butler, KY?!!  What if I hadn’t been scheduled to work that night at Carrabba’s that they first came in or what if I hadn’t had that table section?? What if my dad had not had that opening at his office? All the details, the very small details, that had to align to create this crazy string of events. It could have never been predicted or orchestrated  by anything other than Divine Intervention.

Bonus: Keaton got officially offered the PE & Health teaching job at Pendleton County High School yesterday!!!!!

          What a big week. But even more than us getting jobs, how grateful are we to God for working behind the scenes to bring about such good! Both Keaton and I have been very discouraged at different points over the past few months. We just could not see how everything was going to work. Did it go according to planned? Absolutely not, but it is way better than we ever planned.

         This whole experience has been unbelievable. If I could offer any advice from this experience it would be this….Let go of your plans. It is hard to relinquish that control, but do it and see where God takes you.

So excited to see what adventure God has planned for us next!