FocusOnTheFamily

Dreams & detours

Written by Jamie Driggers

When my husband, Brent, and I had the opportunity to buy an 80-year-old refurbished Victorian home, it was a dream come true for me. Meanwhile, Brent found himself daily trudging to a job he hated while he waited for an opportunity to live his dream – owning his own company.

Then the phone rang.

A friend had a business idea, and to join this new venture, all we had to do was sell our home, quit our jobs and move to the most expensive county in the state. No big deal. Unless, of course, you are a security-loving woman with a new dream home.

I knew what was going to happen even before Brent hung up the phone – we really were going to quit our jobs and move into the vast unknown. So I did what any normal, God-fearing woman would do. I panicked – then I prayed.

We discussed our future a lot during the next few weeks. When Brent asked my thoughts, I once told him, laughingly, “If we are going to have to declare bankruptcy, better now while we’re young and have no children than when we are trying to retire.”

No, it wasn’t the most supportive thing I could have told him, but it was what he needed to hear. We both knew he would eventually give up a job for his own business; it was just a matter of when and with how much hardship.

After the phone call, but before we’d made a final decision, I could see the change in his attitude. His trudge to work wasn’t quite so despondent, and the passionate zeal with which he spoke of the new idea sold even our skeptics.

If the simple suggestion that he might be able to change course perked him up this much, how could I possibly squelch his dream? After all, what was a couple years of hardship in the whole scheme of our lives?

Eight years and four children later, I wish I could say it has been an easy road. I wish I could say that the company was wildly successful and that we are back to financial prosperity. But I can’t. That company was a dismal failure, as were several that followed.

We moved into a tiny townhouse but paid more to live there than we had for our beautiful Victorian home. We went 13 months without a paycheck as we made ends meet by selling our car and cashing in our investment accounts. Our families and friends thought we had lost our minds.

Those were the best and worst years of our married life. Despite our financial troubles, we relished fighting for something we believed in. I believed in my husband, and he believed in his business. We fought back to back, covering one another through life’s challenges.

My husband and I are closer now because I put his need to pursue his dream before my need for security. I’ve been rewarded with a happy spouse who can’t wait to go to work in the morning and who provides enough for me to stay home with our beautiful children – another dream of my own. Our future remains uncertain, but as always, we’re hopeful that Brent’s latest venture will be a huge success.

For our 10th anniversary, Brent gave me this note: “There is nothing more meaningful than living a life of no regrets. I want both of us to look back and see that we gave everything we had to everything we were working on.”

Back when he was studying to be an engineer, Brent would joke that I married him not for his money but for his earning potential. We’d laugh and count the days until graduation when money wouldn’t be so tight. But in reality, I married him for so much more – his positive attitude, his encouragement of my dreams, his smile. I don’t have my refurbished Victorian, but I have a passionate husband who loves me and loves life.

Jamie Driggers is a cheerleader for her husband’s dream in Shawnee, Kansas.

© 2007 Focus on the Family. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission.

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