Because God Told Me To – Part 1

Why did I become a realtor? It’s simple, really. Because God told me to.

Let me back up. December 2019, I put in my two weeks at the non-profit organization I had been working at for more than 11 years; my last position being in a communications position for the disaster response program. I never thought I would leave that organization; I thought I was a lifer. Well, God has a way of keeping us on our toes, no?

Never say never.

While I had loved the work I was doing and the people and volunteers with whom I worked, I realized God was telling me it was time for a change. After this and that and in between, God opened up the opportunity for me at an assisted living community to help families with the decision of assisted living for their elderly loved ones. After much prayer and debate, I accepted the job knowing God was telling me to take it. Career change, here we come!

Enter 2020 and I was loving, just loving my new job. My team was incredible, the residents and their families were so lovely, and I was learning something new each day.  I was around people all the time and every day was different. Let me tell you, I have never loved a job more than I did in those first three months. I was energized, the work was engaging, I was building new relationships left and right, and truly enjoyed going to work every single day.

Then COVID hit March 13, 2020, and our building shut down. Even though so many aspects of my job changed in an instant, I still enjoyed the work. Instead of spending most of my time on marketing and helping families decide on move-ins (no one was moving at all…everything was shut down), I was filling whatever role was needed at that time. Whether it was helping residents with their phones and Facetiming, building bedroom furniture because families couldn’t come into the building to do that for their loved ones, to delivering flowers and mail to residents’ rooms. Basically anything else that needed to be done on top of trying to some semblance of my regular responsibilities. If I said I wasn’t frustrated that I couldn’t do the job I loved I would be lying. I did get frustrated. Everyone did. It was very difficult. But I was going to stick it out. I mean, it wouldn’t always be like this and my job would return to normal someday. Right? I’ve been through frustrating and difficult seasons of my career before so I could do this too.

One beautiful summer Friday in July of 2020, I was asking God what He wanted me to do about my career, “What do you want me to do? Just tell me… and I’ll do it! I’ll stay or I’ll make a change, just tell me. Please?” Later that night the Holy Spirit whispered two words to me …“real estate.”