Mac and Choice

It wasn't so long ago that I fell into Mac envy. June 5th, to be exact. That's not so far, either, from another important date in my recent history. June 4th, to be exact -- the day I gave notice at my work.

On the Monday I gave notice, I was positively shaking with nerves. Nevermind that God had shown up on the scene to tell me what to do with the next huge chunk of my life, and nevermind that I'd prayed for weeks about leaving on June 29th and giving notice on June 4th. When the Day of Notice came, I was quaking in my boots.

One big reason for the nervousness was because I felt I would be leaving my department in the lurch. We had some other positions that needed filling, which made it hard enough, but there was also the fact that I was part of a smaller team within a bigger team that managed a lot of its own multifacted projects. My leaving would make that small team-within-a-team even smaller.

The other big reason for my nerves was the sheer audacity of the thing. Basically, it meant cutting off our income stream -- kablooey, bam, pow, it's no more! And even though we believed it was the right thing to do and had complete faith in God's provision, it was still one of the scariest moves I'd ever made. Thankfully, Kirk's faith in God's financial provision had been strengthened a lot in the past couple years, so he was nothing but supportive as we moved in this direction.

If you'll remember, though, there was also the factor of having just taken on a new lease in a new house that was five times the expense of our previous situation. That's right -- five times! (Obviously we got our previous digs at a rock bottom rate.) We knew all this change was right around the corner when we took the lease, so it's not like we were looking around to suddenly find ourselves stuck with this expense we hadn't planned for, but still -- it required faith to keep going forward with the plan now that the new house was officially ours.

Things moved into slow motion on that Monday morning. I told my big boss first, who was gracious and kind and prayed with me for this venture. Then I told my girlfriends in the office suite when we met for morning prayer. They prayed for me, too. Then, when my immediate supervisor came in, I told her, too. Before I knew it, the move had been made. I was officially leaving. Gulp.

Make that: Double Gulp.

Cut to Tuesday, June 5th, the very next day. It's after work, and dinner is done. Kirk pulls out his beautiful new Mac and shows me its squeaky clean, super cool features for the very first time. I fall in love with my very first Mac. I write an ecstatic post. Kirk pops his head into the farmroom from the kitchen as I'm writing and says, "You know how you can get your own one of these, don't you?"

"Oh yeah," I respond a bit sarcastically, since I knew he was joking me. "Be like you and get a master's in entertainment business from Full Sail, too?"

"Ha-ha-ha!" we laugh. "Ha-ha-ha! That's funny!"

And then we stopped. We stared at each other. We cocked our heads and raised our eyebrows. Hm.

"Hm," Kirk said.

"Shhhh! I know what you're thinking, and it's nuts! That's crazy! I'm not even going to let myself think about it!"

"I think it's time for a family conference," Kirk says anyway. "Meet me in the other room when you're done writing your post."

I finished a final once-over of the post and then strode into the other room, where he was already sitting with the course catalog in his hands, slowly perusing the pages. We looked at it for the zillionth time, only this time through the lens of what these courses might mean for me and this new business I'm embarking upon. If I took the program, I'd enroll in courses like Storytelling in Business. Brand Development. Business Venture and Finance. Executive Leadership. Project and Team Management. Entertainment Media Publishing. Mobile Marketing and Commerce. Business Plan Development.

In other words, courses that would give me everything I don't have -- business knowledge and entrepreneurial training and web media instruction -- to supplement everything I do have -- passion and intuition and creativity and personal journey and feminine insight.

To make a long story short, all of this came to be. It took a couple conversations with our good friend Paul in admissions to learn that my professional work experience in book publishing, magazine, and newspaper, coupled with the high GPA from my totally un-business-related bachelor's degree would qualify me as a candidate for this program. It took another conversation with the financial aid department to learn that I'd get student loan funding not only for the school expense but also for living expenses. It's not much, but coupled with the amount Kirk's getting from his program, too, it amounts to a little more than I was making on the job. Wow!

Not to mention I'm now the proud owner of my very own Mac. My beautiful, beautiful Mac.

Ah, life sometimes converges into some very, very sweet spots. We enjoy them to the fullest when they come.