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A New Beginning

The structure of Chris’s company was contractor work. Just like the owner/operators at Expedited, we owned our own business but contracted exclusively to Precision. Chris gave a generous percentage but it was fully commission work. So, despite this being a prospective way to do better financially, there was no guarantee. I worked out a goal based on my budget and went about seeing if I could meet that obligation. Slowly, steadily, as I built up my week, I found that I could meet and even exceed the objective. That first year I ended up making two and a half times what I had been making at Expedited. But it wasn’t just a financial burden lifted. It could be long days and we had occasional after hours calls. But, for the most part, unlike Expedited where it seemed like the job was always with me, we could leave the job at work. The dark, heavy burden had been lifted and my soul felt alive again. Not too long after I started at Precision, another significant milestone happened in my life ...
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The Third and Final Time I Quit

Sufficient time had passed for me to declare bankruptcy without affecting my business partner so I went ahead and got that done. It was a relief for me to finally get that monkey off my back. At work, we had been having some issues with the owner of the office we were renting, not least the air conditioning situation. After our yearly lease was up, we moved to a much nicer office, five minutes away from where we were living. Now, not only could I take a lunch because we had enough staff, I could actually get away from the office and go home. The huge weight we had been under for the past year was finally easing up.  Not that things were perfect. There were still the multiple foibles of the trucking industry, which still created pressure for George. Although he had mellowed significantly, he could still lash out at times. It wasn’t directed at me anymore so I found myself trying to act as the peacemaker again. Because of what we had been through together, I had learned somewhat how ...
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A Strange Neighbor Story

We found out from the property manager that the people who owned the house we moved into had moved to Japan with their two daughters with the military but had since separated. We noticed a house across the street that appeared to be empty with one of the gutters hanging down. But one day some people moved in. We didn’t really see them much at first. It was almost like they were trying to avoid us. We thought there was a mother and two daughters. I wanted to meet them and welcome them to the neighborhood and see if there was any way I could reach out to them. One day I was coming home from a bike ride and their garage door was open and the girls were outside playing. I went over to say hello. The mother was very friendly and we had a good conversation but a couple of times in the conversation she said,          “Let me know if there is anything we can do for you.”  I thought that was strange. That’s what I wanted to tell her. She was the new one here. Why w...
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The Second Time I Quit

Back at work, we had a problem. Well, we had lots of problems - that’s trucking. But this problem threatened to derail us. The company was growing by leaps and bounds but we couldn’t find solid, reliable people to hire. We began to ponder an interesting move. Back in Chesapeake, we knew plenty of people at church whom we knew would be reliable and available but they couldn’t move to Charlotte. So we began to think about moving the company to Chesapeake. I didn’t say anything to my family at first. I didn’t want to get their hopes up until it was a sure thing. When it was and I did, as you can imagine, they were ecstatic. So a year after our new church friends helped move us in, they helped move us out. Before we moved, we had visited Chesapeake a couple of times to find a place to live but nothing had come of it. We had to put our stuff in storage to do the two moves thing. Our friends, the Hughes’s graciously let us stay with them until we found something. Rents were higher in Chesape...
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Church Trouble

 Although my family didn’t want to be in Charlotte, it offered a lot of great things to do that we really enjoyed together as a family. Our neighborhood community center was fantastic with the pool, gym and sports complex. The neighborhood was also still being built so there were some good spots to explore. The Charlotte area is also more hilly than the flat part of Virginia we had come from. That means they have flowing water in the creeks. One of my boyhood enjoyments was trying to build dams. So I took the opportunity to take my son, Thomas on what I called dam dates. We enjoyed the Charlotte’s area’s greenways, which are paved trails beside rivers where one can ride bikes or walk. They also have large parks to explore and a small mountain called Crowder’s Mountain nearby we hiked a few times. I have always enjoyed riding horses, which also interested my daughter, Courtney. We found a couple of opportunities. The only problem is that they were just trail rides where you had to s...
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The First Time I Quit

About this time, our pastor in North Carolina, Brent Detweiler began a series of messages at church on the subject of anger. We had heard this series before at our church in Virginia. The gist was that anger is not a result of circumstances in your life, it’s a response to them. Circumstances are just like the props in a play. They happen to you and whatever is inside comes out. The message came with an illustration of a cup with water. As the preacher bumped the cup, the water spilled out. But you decide what is in the cup by your attitude and decisions. Likewise, you decide what is in your heart. You either have anger in your heart or love and peace. Whatever is in there will be bumped out by the circumstances of life. Also, if we truly believe that God in sovereign, if He really controls everything, then He has allowed all of the circumstances in our lives for a purpose. If we are angry at them, then we are really angry at God Himself. The day Brent began the series, my family was b...
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A New Despair

The group of churches that our church was a part of - People of Destiny - had changed their name to Sovereign Grace Ministries. There was a large Sovereign Grace Ministries church in Charlotte that had been started by one of the main leaders some years before. His name was Brent Detweiler. We had come to know and love Brent for his teaching over the years. Now he had started a new church-plant just north of Charlotte. George and his family and some other friends we had known previously were going there. So that’s where we decided to go. We enjoyed the more intimate, close-knit atmosphere that a church-plant offered.  We found a house to rent in the same neighborhood where George lived, also north of Charlotte. We were just going to rent for at least a year until we saw how things went. The house was in a very nice new community with a big pool, clubhouse and sports area. Our new church members helped move us in. Despite my family’s anguish at leaving Chesapeake, everything was look...
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