day 10

We enjoyed good success in buying houses, fixing them up and then turning them over for a nice profit. By the time we left Richmond, we had enough equity in our home to buy a house and pay cash for it and had money to fix it up. It was our intention to fix up houses full time and look for an opportunity to live our (my) dream.

Phil loves to create things and I love theatre and entertaining. We made a great team, just like my mom and dad. I came up with these great ideas and Phil made it happen! I put on productions of all kinds and Phil would build the set. As our children grew we were happy to find that they could all sing and enjoyed performing.
Phil designed a huge house with a gym/ theatre and dreamed we would build it some day so that our family could have a place to perform.

When we came to Buena Vista and saw all of these great old buildings downtown that were empty, we got distracted and thought about fixing up one building after another, putting businesses in them and building up the town. When we bought our building on Magnolia we decided to run an ice-cream parlor and have a stage where our family and people from the community could perform. The building needed extensive renovations but we were excited for the challenge. Not long into our renovations we received a letter notifying us that Phil was being sued for 13.2 million dollars. We couldn’t afford a lawyer, so Phil spent countless hours studying to find out how he could defend himself and prove he was not at fault. Progress on the store moved painfully slow and money that should have been spent on remodeling and opening a business got used for living expenses. By the time the lawsuit was over, and all charges dropped, we had gone into tremendous debt to finish the building and buy furnishings and product. At the same time one of our children was having a crises that was draining me emotionally, we made a trip to Florida and moved my mother-in-law to Virginia at our expense, we had to sell our house and move into a rental, and then my mother died.

Though I had a hard time struggling through this, I had some hope because we were just getting open. Things started out okay. I had to rely on my children to help but with our resources all gone, Phil couldn’t help at the store and had to hire himself out to do contract work.

The first two years we did as well as we could expect. Our small community was slow warming up to us but the students from SVU supported us and we had musicians and bands and dances that packed our building some weekends, our family members even had an occasional concert.

When SVU built their activities center, and started having more of their own on campus activities, we saw a serious decrease in business. Overtime we started to see more support from the community but it wasn’t enough yet, by then my children all decided they had had enough and more and more I was spending all my days at the store alone. I hired some help but I could rarely get away, we just weren’t growing fast enough. I decided I needed to get out of there so I tried to sell it. No luck. The negative thoughts were in full force by now; I have no friends, no one will come to just sit and visit with me, my kids are selfish, my husband is never available, I am feel so alone, my mother in law needs attention, I was feeling trapped. Where was God? Why wasn’t he answering my prayers? Didn’t I have good desires, wasn’t I working hard enough and still trying to be there for my family. What else was I supposed to do? I Thought” I can’t just close it, we need the little income that it is bringing in.” I was distraught, and negative and wishing that God would just let me evaporate, I couldn’t stand the pain anymore.

My negative thinking was causing me to spiral down in an alarming way. Sure it was true, I was going through hard times but I was buying in to my victim mentality. I was praying and reading my scriptures desperately for help and answers. My thoughts were saying, you are meant to suffer, Nobody loves you, you are helpless against this. I had been in an overwhelming situation for many years before in Richmond where things out of my control were making life miserable and I
wallowed in it. During these times all I could see was what I couldn’t do, and the solutions never presented themselves until I finally took the faith to do something that I knew I should have done.

It wasn’t until Phil’s mother fell and broke her back that I was forced do what I needed to do and close down the store to take care of her. I had had impressions to close the store but couldn’t see how we could do it so I trusted in myself instead of God.

The next step from the LDS twelve step program:

TRUST IN GOD
KEY PRINCIPLE: Decide to turn your will and
your life over to the care of God the Eternal
Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.

God in his mercy reached out and saved me from myself. He does that time and time again. I feel ashamed that I had again allowed my circumstances and my thoughts to keep me a slave for so long when the truth could have set me free.