"There's a time for everything..."

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

Well, after much prodding, I've decided the time is now to start a blog regardless of how incompetent I feel at this moment. But, I guess that's what learning is all about, moving from incompetence to competence, ignorance to enlightenment.

This is a season in my life where I feel like I'm finally, not only seeking, but also, discovering God's will for my life. This time in my life has come about through a progression over the past few years; culminating in many changes for my family & me.

I'll start by telling you a little about myself. I am from a wonderful family: sister, brothers, & loving parents who have been married for almost 39 years (an incredible love story but I'll save that for another post). I have a terrific husband (Sherwin) whom I met in college over 18 years ago - we've been married for 14 1/2 years and have 3 beautiful daughters age 12, 10 & 5. I did well in school but always planned to grow up, get married & stay home with my kids; college & university were just "something you did" when it was easy.

That wasn't how things worked out for me.

After finishing my degree in English with a PR focus, I "fell" into a career in Information Technology (IT) where I rapidly moved into the leadership ranks. Honestly, I never really cared about IT. I cared about people, customer service and did have an ability to understand the IT world. It didn't take long for my passion for people to really take over and helped me gain a reputation for building strong teams. It was instinct and intuition and a little luck at first. However, I took a 1 day team building course through work after a merger we were involved in. It was amazing! It gave me so much. The course helped me understand my strengths and the strengths of others but more than that, it articulated so much of what I "felt" regarding team & leadership. It impacted me so much that I spent my own money to take a 4 day course. I believe this course helped me immensely over the next 6 years as I worked for arguably the best IT company around (Long View Systems).

My career at Long View was rewarding and filled with growth, great people and opportunity. It was also a phenomenally fast-paced and fast-growth company which meant LOTS of work and stress. As part of the management team, I was privileged to work with the most incredibly group of talented and caring people - who were also all over-achievers. We set the bar high and loved to raise the bar. My personality is such that I am so afraid of letting people down so I kept giving all I had. I lived and breathed work but didn't even realize it. My husband & girls were the ones who got the short-end of the stick. They were remarkably patient (which is what I came to expect) but, I didn't even stop long enough most times to realize all I'd missed. Bear in mind, my job never "made" me work like this, it was just what happened. It was a slow-fade.

Anyway, time marched on and I was offered a transfer from Calgary to Edmonton to help get the new branch off the ground. Since Edmonton was so much closer to my family, we opted to take it. Knowing this would mean a lot of work for the first few months for me, Sherwin took a 1/2 time role so that he could be home with the kids to help with the transition. The move was great for us in so many ways: the team in Edmonton was AWESOME, the community we moved to couldn't have been better, my family was close by and Sherwin got to coach again. I, of course, fell into my workaholic, afraid to disappoint, somewhat competitive ways and worked A LOT. So much that I put my marriage at serious risk and felt at a loss as to how to fix it.

And then, about 11 months after we relocated, our world was shaken to the core....

But, that story is for next time. I'm so tired I can barely keep my eyes open.

Until next time, God Bless.