Climbing out of the pit season Part 1
I suppose as a natural verbal processor this is normal, but every time I sit to write, it feels difficult to get going unless I just start telling a story and in true Lindsey fashion I don’t like to leave anything out!
So, I’ll start from where I remember..
It was summer 2018, we had been in Nashville for a couple years and after a very challenging season in Memphis I hadn’t quite pulled myself all the way out of the pit I found myself in. Taylor was thriving, his business had just taken off and they had hired their first few employees. He was serving on worship team at church, had friends, had purpose and vision.
At this point, I had just turned 30, and I felt so lost.
Two years before, in July 2016 I had just started my entire business over moving to a new city. Part of my plan was to go back and forth to Memphis once a month to supplement my income and that door closed quite suddenly sending me into a summer of what seemed like a quarter-life crisis.
I thought things couldn’t feel any lower. It caused me to re-evaluate everything..even going into a totally different field of work. I was too tired to start something new so I soldiered through again, looking for other ways to supplement my income by applying for retail jobs. I even applied for a new kind of work I had never heard of, where you shop for other people’s groceries and deliver them.
Making money shopping for other people’s groceries sounded too easy, even kind of fun. I loved grocery shopping and meeting new people and had already built my strategy for how I would use it to share I was starting my new salon and get clients by way of delivering their groceries and striking up conversation. I had even upgraded my vehicle to a brand new Lexus the year before, so I felt like in these nice Nashville neighborhoods I would be their top choice.
The only catch—without even asking Him, God clearly spoke to me in the process and told me not to get a supplemental job. But it felt like I didn’t have a choice..I had gotten two months of free rent at my salon suite from a special they were running, but without clients and a second job there was no way for me to keep it going. I needed this other job to help pay my rent and get more people in my chair.
I had spent hours on this application and my interview videos were so good, I was a shoo-in! But, how many know, God has a funny way of helping us when we don’t listen to His direction.
I finally got a response in my email several days later from the company saying something like, ”Thank you for applying to _____. You have not been selected for this position and will not be considered for any future positions. Do not apply again.” Did I seriously just get rejected from an app for a grocery shoppers position?!
WOW. I hear you God.
Those 4 years prior in Memphis had revealed a deficit in me—I had managed to make it through my whole life on shear effort and performance.
But that wouldn’t be enough this time. God had my attention now, I was desperate not to fail.
God was showing me His faithfulness along the way, even when I didn’t quite understand the purpose of the lesson yet. A few core clients from Memphis drove back and forth for a season as I was building. Family in town spread the word, and a couple of girls in my building went on maternity leave and came back part time-offering me a portion of their clients. Taylor had also helped me get some direct mail out and set up facebook ads so I got some locals too. And, this next month will be my 8 year anniversary in that building. But more on that later..
My business was growing slow but steady, I got an opportunity to work part time for a product company out of California to learn public speaking, product knowledge and how to train other salon professionals and I got to travel. But there was still a place of me that was feeling unfulfilled and out of place. Taylor seemed to have everything figured out and was living out his purpose. Every year we would have a conversation about having a family and in 2017, 4 years of us both saying we weren’t ready, he was ready and I had felt like I needed to be now that I was almost 30.
Part of me always wanted children, the other part was terrified of what that looked like and what it would cost me. In my mind, it costs the mother of the child everything..she has to endure the physical carrying of the child for 9 months and all the things that shift and change—and all the restrictions and ”avoid while pregnant” labels and signs. Let alone the fact that mothers have to undergo the intense process to get the child out into the world..I couldn’t even go there in my mind of what that process would be.
Then there’s the fact that mothers go into immediate recovery physically, emotionally and mentally and be the sole source of nutritional provision meaning whatever time of day or night while running on no sleep—all while the father helps in ways he can but basically goes back to normal life as usual. I totally understand now having lived it twice that the father carries a new sense of responsibility to provide for the child and also share in the daily responsibilities and actually caring for his wife, but in my eyes it was way harder on the woman to do what I was about to agree to.
And then what would happen to my business, my dreams? How long could I afford to take time off with no “maternity leave” being self employed and what if my clients decided that the hours of my operations no longer suited them? Is my whole life going to look smaller now until my future currently non-existent children go to school in 5-10 years?!
We decided we didn’t want to be 70 when our kids left home so we agreed this was the time to start trying in case it took a while. Then after we decided we just went on living our lives, we would figure out the rest when we got there.
But back to 2018 when everything started to change.
In the fall, our church was about to have our annual conference and called for a fast for anyone who wanted to participate and see breakthrough in their life. So I went all in-it was a 21 day Daniel fast so I gave up all caffeine, meat, bread..basically all the good things haha
I definitely felt more tuned in and expectant for how God was going to speak at the conference. I did the fast alone—by this point I had seen a shift in Taylor..he wasn’t as present as he was in the beginning. What once was “our thing” to commit to him doing for a season, for the outcome of a different life had changed—it felt like enough was never “enough”. I saw him working longer, harder..he was seeing the return on his time put in and he didn’t stop. At first it was little bickering here and there and I competed with him at first, after all—I was an entrepreneur first and it had given him the idea. By now though, Taylor had started being noticed and getting a name for himself and before long his business would take off into the stratosphere, leaving me and what I thought were our original plans behind. After following him to Memphis and it being “at the bottom of the pit” season for me, this caused me to begin harboring resentment, but I wasn’t even fully aware it was happening yet.
While on the fast I went with a new friend to a bible study at her friend’s house. There was a woman of God prophesying over people..I had never had a prophet speak into my life before. At first she spoke generally and asked specifically if anyone was believing for God it give them a child. I didn’t raise my hand but kind of regretted it afterwards—we had been sort of trying for over a year and in the back of my mind felt concerned that something could be wrong. But I also didn’t know anyone there and felt weird to raise my hand. The day was long and I was about to sneak out the back and she called me out and said “don’t leave-you’re next!”
She prophesied over me “coming back to life” in this next season. And said that my husband and I were called together for kingdom purposes and we would do it together. (This is what he and I had always talked about when we first were dating with leading worship together, but it looked impossible now with how much success in the business world he had on his own). Then I told her I didn’t raise my hand about believing for a child because I was worried something was wrong but I wanted her to pray. She put her hand on my stomach and she asked me if I believed the word of God to be true that God had called me to be fruitful and to multiple?” and I said yes I believed that. So she prayed over my body and declared my womb to be fruitful. And then she said “She will be a psalmist”. My stomach lept..a daughter first?
I think the idea of that terrified me, knowing a daughter would be looking to me for her example and I felt like a literal hot mess.
The last 3 days of the fast I came down with what felt like the flu-I was so sick I couldn’t eat anything and just felt off. One of my friends asked if I could be pregnant and I truly thought there was no way..I wasn’t even late on my cycle. But I took a test anyway to relieve my conscience.. and all three tests read “positive”.
To be continued…..