For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die.
A time to plant and a time to harvest.
A time to kill and a time to heal.
A time to tear down and a time to build up.
A time to cry and a time to laugh.
A time to grieve and a time to dance.
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.
A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
A time to search and a time to quit searching.
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear and a time to mend.
A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
A time to love and a time to hate.
A time for war and a time for peace
Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8
The bible teaches us that there is a time for everything. As indicated in the above scripture, we all go through seasons. It is my firm belief that from 2009-2018, the Lord was putting me through a season. While I didn't understand fully why things needed to be done as they were, I now can look back and be thankful to the lord for those things that he was doing during this season in my life. This post will discuss my career season. As the time begins, I was a CNA at a nursing home in New Port Richey, Florida. This nursing facility did not have a good reputation, but I made the move from a brand new facility to this one because it was closer to home and offered a better schedule. I hated to do it, but the place I was working at was not following through with promises made. You see, I was hired to work as a night shift receptionist. Shortly after starting, I was being required to work on the floor as a CNA. I did not want this to happen, but I was doing what my supervisors were telling me to do. Soon enough, I was called into the DONs office and told that I would be moved completely from my position as a night shift receptionist to a full time CNA on the floor. This really frustrated me because it meant that I would not be home to take my daughter to school and I would be sleeping even more during the day and missing out on my 2-year-old daughter's life. You see, my children were my world. Less than 2 months later, my husband was hired at the nursing home that I ultimately would leave my position to go to. It was more pay and better hours. I scheduled an interview for right after I got off of work one morning. I was offered the position at a higher rate of pay and turned in my notice that night. I started working at the new facility in early 2009.
Deciding to leave my job as a CNA
In December 2009, after much deliberation, Ryan and I decided that it was not worth my being physically abused by patients and verbally and mentally abused by nurses and administration. I quit my job just about a week before Christmas. This was a hard decision because we knew it would cut our income in 1/2. I had only ever been a nursing assistant and we would be trusting the Lord to provide for our needs. Ryan and I weren't sure how to approach this with our extended family, so we didn't say anything. I'm pretty sure they knew that something was up, but they didn't say anything. I continued volunteering at Mackenzie's school and doing whatever it took to raise Maddie.
Raising my children to school age and beyond.
I continued staying home with Maddie through 2011 when she went to kindergarten. At this point, I thought I would try doing the AVON thing. It didn't work out for me. So I just continued being a mom and taking care of the apartment. In 2012, we moved out of the tiny apartment we were in. We shared a large house with our friends for about a year. After they moved out, we were supposed to be able to keep the house ourselves. However, the landlord reneged and forced us to move into a tiny mobile home that was falling apart. This was during the summer of 2012. In March 2013, we found a little house that we moved into. By this time, Ryan wasn't working locally, so I had to move us on my own. It was so hard to balance this. A few months later, we found out that the house was still owned by someone who was deceased and we were not in a legal contract. We moved again, in with a different set of friends. During this time, our family unit went through a lot. About 3-4 months later, we had the funding to move, so again, I moved my family into our own place. It was a rough start, but we were able to stabilize. About 6 months later, we found a home we wanted to go into a contract on.
2/2014, we were able to move into what we thought would be our forever home. I was still living as a mom and dad both since Ryan was working so much on the road. The girls didn't have to change schools for this move, so things were starting to fall into place, or so we thought. I began my college education 04/02014. I was going to be going for my billing and coding diploma.
That summer, we went to visit in Hendersonville, NC. While we were gone, our neighbor started some really ridiculous things with our friends who were house sitting for us that week. We didn't trust him, but we didn't have anything to go to the law with. The week after we came back, there was an old tree branch that fell and smashed my friend's car right before he was leaving to go home. The girls and I were in the house and no where near the tree, but this neighbor tried causing more trouble. He called DCF and told them that the branch narrowly missed killing my children. This was not the case and upon their investigation, this was unfounded. She acknowledged that we had been gone for a week and that I was getting things all caught up from that week, so she closed the case. I got the rest of the tree branch cut down and we went on with our lives. He continued causing us grief. I called the agent who was selling the house and he told me that this was what this neighbor does to all of the tenants that attempt to purchase this house. It was horrible.
Shortly after that, Ryan and I made the decision that we would be moving to North Carolina. We loved the area and wanted to give it a try. The key here was that we had not prayed over it. We made the decision in our flesh and didn't give the Lord time to get things in order for us to move. Due to this selfish decision, we ended up moving back to Florida. I posted a bit about this a few days ago.
I continued with my education until 3/2016 when I obtained my Associate's degree in HIT. Right after graduation, I applied at a place called iScribes. I had never heard of the company, but was hopeful that I could get my foot in the door and be able to progress from there into coding. I finally got a call and scheduled my interview. I was hired on 06/30/2016. I worked through training and almost quit. It was so hard to learn all that needed to be learned in 2 weeks. Ultimately, I kept going because the trainer was so very positive and uplifting. I was given an assignment and worked 3 weeks on training then the lead decided that she wanted to step down and that meant that I would not be able to work for this provider. So, I got a call from the manager. He explained what had happened. I was really broken at this point. I almost said thanks, but no thanks. Ultimately, I took the weekend to review some of the recordings for this new provider and decided to give it a try. In less than 1 month, I was made independent with this provider. Soon after that, my lead came to me saying that there was a new position and she'd like to put my name in for it. I was looking for more hours, and this was one way I could get those. Not only did I get more hours, but I got a raise. This was huge for me. By this time, I had gone from not working, to working 12 hours a week, to now making more and working 25 hours a week.
Six months later, the trainer that I had quit and that meant that the training specialists (my new position) would have to step up. I started working about 40 hours a week at this point. Additionally, I received another raise. A few months later, our manager quit. This was such a hard thing for all of us. Just 4 months after that, we were told that our company had been acquired by Nuance. We were very concerned with this because it meant that we weren't sure if in 6 months they would close the door on us. It took some fighting, but with the acquisition we were able to get the other part of the raise we were given earlier in the year. Now we are in May 2018. The new manager, who happens to be the founder of iScribes, called a meeting to promote the training specialists to training/content leads. In addition to this, I was given another raise. At this point, I am having to force myself to not go over 40 hours a week because most weeks, I could be working 50+ hours due to all of the work that there is to be done.
In the last few weeks, I have been training 2 new training specialists. I have gone from being a stay at home mom to a manager in the last 2 years. I has been amazing to see the Lord work. Additionally, all of this has given us the opportunity to do so many things with our family.
I tell you all of this to circle back to the scripture that says "And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them". Romans 8:28
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