Right Where I'm Supposed to Be

Not long after we were blessed with the free elliptical for my home Personal Training studio, I received an inheritance from my paternal grandmother. She had passed away several months earlier after a period of frailty and illness. Although my sisters and I were sad to lose her, we were relieved that she was now experiencing freedom from her failing body and was reunited with our dad & grandpa in heaven.

An inheritance is a blessing. My sisters and I were astonished when we received our insurance checks because we weren’t expecting much. We were informed in the months before our grandma’s death that we would each be receiving a third of our deceased father’s portion. Our grandma had 5 sons and her lifestyle was very humble. We didn’t expect our gift to be substantial. Money amounts are relative to every person and although our sum wouldn’t be much to some, for us it was a significant thrust in the right direction.

The miracle wasn’t so much the provision of money due to my grandma’s generosity and wise planning, but the difference in how we spent the money. As we may have in the past, Shawn & I didn’t book a vacation or make a major purchase in reckless abandon. We had a plan and the money was considered and spent according. We gave a portion, paid off debts with a great portion and invested a portion…in paint, flooring, lighting and other materials that enabled my PT studio look esthetically pleasing to my target market: women.

I know my grandma would be happy with the lessons I had learned and that the money she left me was used in a manner that brought glory to God and catapulted our family closer to a life without debt and slavery.

As tax season approached we were surprised once again when some tax laws were introduced that allowed our children’s tuition to our church school be counted towards our charity contributions. Our children were no longer enrolled in WCFA and were now attending public school due to our severe cuts in spending, but the change in taxation law was retroactive and we received several year’s tax credit to claim on our income tax. We were overjoyed at this breakthrough in our finances. Again, we followed our decision to give, pay debts and invest.

Having left my job as a personal trainer for a major fitness chain to go into business for myself, I had willingly forfeited my job as a group fitness instructor. This was a necessary yet painful sacrifice as my fitness instructor position yielded little income and actually incurred expense as I was forced to pay for a quarterly fitness music subscription.

My intention after I stopped teaching classes was to use my accumulated fitness music and the corresponding instructional DVD’s for my own personal exercise. I soon realized however, that when the music was played, I would yearn for my class participants, remember how fun & exhilerating it was to teach a class and remember all the admiration I enjoyed as an instructor. A perfectly beautiful day would quickly cloud over when I started thinking about what I had left behind.

One particular Sunday afternoon I was washing the dishes while my husband cleaned up for our home mentor’s group. Shawn enjoyed using my upbeat tunes as a motivational charge for attacking housework. I instantly began to cry as memories flooded through me and I contemplated the choices I had made over the past couple months. Was leaving my job and starting my own business a mistake? Was I just imagining that God had opened wide the door to pursuing this dream and was going to bless me in it? I tearfully asked Shawn to turn off the music.

Even as I was explaining my feelings to my bewildered husband, the phone rang. A woman from church called to say that God had told her to give me her treadmill to use in my studio. He had told her a few weeks earlier but she had resisted until that moment. I didn’t know what to say. The tears of doubt and regret were still wet on my cheeks but I was instantly reassured that God was indeed providing for me and that somehow, I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

We never played that fitness music again. Some months later I emailed my former fitness co-workers and networked with some instructors throughout Canada & the U.S. I sold every single DVD/CD set and netted over $1000 towards our Total Money Makeover!