Last November a head hunter contacted Ben about a job in Colorado. He likes his job here, but there is little upward mobility and he has known for awhile that he would eventually need to find something else. So he applied for the job, and although it didn't work out, it started him on a job search that continued until this summer.
After applying for about a dozen jobs with no interviews or leads, we began to reassess. What he was doing wasn't working, so how could we alter our path? We knew a few things for sure:
1) Ben can't work in his current job forever.
2) We are quickly outgrowing our little apartment. We would love to be in a house with more space and a yard where our kids can run around.
3) We can't afford a house in the Portland area with Ben's current salary. The housing market is very expensive here and with the high cost of property taxes as well, we would be better served moving somewhere else.
With these realizations in mind, we began to pray. We prayed hard. What path did we need to take? Where should we go? We had seriously thought less than a year before about Ben doing an MBA but when we prayed about it we felt the answer was "no". Was it time to think about it again? Was "no" still the Lord's answer?
Living without direction in a midst of uncertainty was difficult. But I felt peace and a constant push to be patient, especially with Ben. Although we make decisions as a family, he needed to figure out for himself what professional path would make him happy and he would find fulfilling.
Then one day in August he came home from work telling me that he'd talked to his brother Landon about his job hunt. Landon has an MBA and has had great success with what he learned in his program. His suggestion was that Ben go back to school. It got the gears turning and got I saw Ben seriously considering going back to school for the first time in awhile.
So after praying, soul searching, and evaluating we have decided to have Ben apply to go back to school and get an MBA beginning in the fall of 2016. We both feel really good about this decision, even though we aren't sure exactly where it will take us. Ben is taking the GMAT next week and has been furiously studying since he decided to apply- he studies every weekday from 5-7am, goes to work, comes home to eat dinner and play with the kids until bedtime, then studies until we go to bed. On Saturdays he does a four-hour practice test in the morning, then spends the rest of the afternoon reviewing what the problems he missed. Needless to say, I feel like a bit of a GMAT widow right now, but I am okay with sacrificing time away from him now if it means taking the right path.
We'll be applying to BYU and the University of Utah as well as another school such as the University of Texas- Austin or Notre Dame. We would love to go back to Utah for a few years to be together with family, but we also understand the value in picking the right school depending on where Ben gets in.
Where will this all take us? We aren't sure, but it is such a relief to have a plan and such fun to wonder where we'll end up. No matter what, we're a family and we'll stick together through it all. Here's to another adventure!
