I Took the Long Way Home

This year has given me time to ponder, to muse. It's been a time of removal, reflection, and renewal.

Since college, work and life have rarely formed straight line:

• Work for the YMCA of the Triangle
• Attend NC State University to become an engineer, like my grandfather
• Change majors to teaching
• Start a rock band
• Fail student teaching
• Withdraw from NCSU
• Re-enroll and graduate
• End the band
• Work for Raleigh Parks and Recreation
• Enroll in Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
• Go on an IMB mission trip to Turkey
• Work at a photocopy shop
• Get married and have my first child
• Work for a landscaping company, gymnastics company, internet company
• Have more children
• Teach at several Christian schools
• Move to Statesville and back
• Go on a mission trip to Uganda
• Teach at Iron Academy then leave after a year
• Start Confident Home Inspection
• Start an inspector training business
• Start inspecting commercial properties
• Start coaching basketball and soccer
• Go through a divorce
• Inspect incredible properties all over the United States
• Get into counseling, therapy, self-help (some of it is BS)
• Forget to read my Bible
• Travel and work a lot
• Hire an incredible virtual assistant and project manager
• Write classes with CCPIA and InterNACHI
• Get angry at God
• Change my mindset
• Start an inspector training school
• Start WBTC Hubs around the country
• Record my new music project, the Keeping Collapse
• Learn to read my Bible again
• Start construction development ventures
• Learn a new way home

In life, I've never taken the short way. Somehow my path is full of twists, turns, unexpected delights, unforeseen sorrows.

Maybe you're at a crossroads, wondering what to do. Not all answers in life are quite so straightforward. It can be a lonely, lost feeling.

I was there this week - alone, wandering, searching.

But I know who is with me. He is there in the pastures, in the shadows, and at the table. And I am His, and He is mine.