For months, my husband, Rick, and I had been praying to God, “Please open doors widely or shut them loudly.” We were searching for guidance – where our children would go to school, if I should go back to work, and how could Rick find peace in his financial job at an oil and gas company. In February of this year, Rick used some old fence posts to create what we now call Surrender™ Crosses. He originally had made them for our son’s school auction, but as the word started to spread, we started selling some to friends and family.
In the beginning of April, we had our first “business” meeting, and we made a lofty goal to sell 20 crosses by the end of the month. At that point, we really didn’t see how we could do that, but nonetheless, we made it our goal. When the month ended, we had not only reached this goal, but had sold more than that. Rick came up with a name for our business, RAD JOY, and we filed the paperwork to make it official.
One month later, I texted Rick one morning to see if there was any way we could actually do this full time. We did some quick calculations and realized that it was possible. I envisioned him coming home and me saying- “What’s it going to take to just quit your job and see where we could go with RAD JOY?” That idea sounded neat in my head, but letting go of the “security” of a full time job was terrifying. Both Rick and I continued praying for His will to be done and for Him to make it SO obvious to us.
That evening when we sat down for dinner, Rick was running late. When he finally walked through the door, I knew something was different. He told me that he had been laid off from his job!
My first reaction was to laugh, and he later told me that my laughter was how he knew without a doubt what we needed to do. We ate dinner, he changed clothes and went to the garage, and that was the night we made RAD JOY our full time business!
The past 3 ½ months have been absolutely unreal— God revealing Himself over and over to us and confirming to us that we are moving in the right direction. This is not how we prefer to work. We are perfectionists, “let’s plan this out” kind of people, but when God says go, we go. So, here we are. Learning, to surrender our doubts, our hurts, our fears, our failures–learning to trust that while we don’t know what our future holds, we know Who holds it. Thank you for sharing in our story…
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