A Small Glimpse at the Last 6 Months
I’ve neglected to share a lot over the last 6 months. I just haven’t had it in me to rehash the journey, especially while we were still living it. But it only seems fair to share a little bit about why our Grand Opening event was so special for us (stay tuned for our Grand Opening blog post!).
In October, we parted ways with our contractor. It was a major shift in our construction process, and, suddenly, I found myself fielding calls from subcontractors and making decisions about construction I probably wasn’t qualified to make. We were bumping up against our budget and had to go back to the bank to ask for a significant increase on our loan, and on top of all that, we were behind schedule. It was a sickening process for us to go through.
By January, I was exhausted. I was overseeing a small crew daily, coordinating subs, designing and buying for 12 cottages, cleaning and setting up the cottages, managing the budget, working with the bank daily, and I was about to run out of steam. Jase was working at the university and doing everything he could from there to support me. Everyday had its fair share of challenges. A perfect example…we had our septic system installed in the Fall 2023. We have 6 tanks. Two cottages per tank. In January, we had a week of temperatures below freezing for over a week. I went to the farm to check on things and as I was checking each cottage, I noticed that the toilet in Willow wouldn’t flush. I thought it was because something was frozen in the lines, so we gave it a few days to thaw out. I went back and tried it again….it didn’t flush. So my sister (my hero) and I started troubleshooting. This was on a Thursday and I had guests checking to this very cottage the next day. It was pouring the rain and we ended having to dig down to the septic tank to see if water was making it to the tank. About mid-dig, my friend (also Jase’s first wife :) ), Amie, showed up to help. The three of us worked in the rain until we finally diagnosed the problem. We called the septic people, they came the next day, fixed the issue….problem solved.
Until a few days later when a guest reached out to me to let me know the shower in Sassafras was backing up. I knew immediately what the issue was and how to fix it now, so Jase and I made the trek to the farm with all the materials we needed to fix it and spent an entire Sunday digging it up, making the repairs and filling it back in. And then another one started having issues, and another…y’all, I kid you not, in the end, we had to dig up all 6 tanks to make repairs to the inlet lines entering the tanks. It truly felt like a daily uphill battle.
Everyday that went by, I was just praying for God to fix it. To make it easier. I didn’t understand why we had come this far only to hit roadblock after roadblock.
By February, I was almost ready to sell the whole property. I didn’t see a way forward, I didn’t know how to cross the finish line, and the weight of it all felt crushing. I had no choice but to surrender it all to God. My prayers shifted from, “God, please fix it”….to…”God, it’s yours,I have no clue how to get ourselves out of this mess, just show me what my next step needs to look like”. What I started feeling in my heart was a nudge for Jase to leave his job at UT. I was kind of like, “um…God, that’s not my call, you should be telling Jason that”. I didn’t say anything to Jase for a while. But then we were discussing our timeline and how to finish by May so we would be able to capture bookings in the busy season. I told Jase there’s no way my sister and I (and her crew) could move fast enough to get it done by May. I (we) needed help. We opened the conversation about leaving his job, and to my surprise, he agreed something needed to change.
We prayed over this decision, and to be honest, it didn’t make much sense. But we kept finding our way back to Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight”. I’m not going to lie, yall, we were scared to death. We felt confident it was the right decision, but that didn’t make it easy. There were so many factors to consider….first, the obvious, money. Second, the people at his work he loves and cares for deeply. Third, just leaving behind a campus he’s been passionate about for 20 years. And a host of other things. Regardless of all that, we truly believed God was calling us into this new season. So, we look a huge leap of faith. He resigned.
It pretty much sent out shock waves, not only across campus, but through our family, too. It didn’t make sense from the outside looking in, and we understood that. But it felt right…not to be confused with easy. We both cried tears. We both second guessed our decision. And to a degree, we both felt a tiny bit of anger because it wasn’t what we had envisioned for ourselves. But we stayed the course.
Jase’s first Monday not getting up to go to “work”, he was frustrated. He’s a routine person and not getting up to put on his khaki pants and polo was disorienting. He decided to head to the farm and mow. I let him go on his own. I felt like he just need time to himself, so I stayed in Knoxville to catch up on administrative stuff. By about lunch time, our phones started pinging…”Congratulations! You have a new reservation”….over and over and over again. With each reservation that chimed in, we would call one another and be like, “did you see that reservation?!”. That evening we were working on the computer and our phones just kept chiming with reservations. This went on for a week straight. Y’all, no one will ever convince me that wasn’t God blessing us for being obedient and taking this huge leap of faith and trusting that He has a plan and purpose for this property. It was an eye opener for both of us. We’re both doers, and want to be in control, but letting go and surrendering our plan to God ended up being the most freeing thing we’ve ever done.
Was it easy? No.
Was it worth it? Absolutely, Yes.