Jeff's Faith Journey- Part 1

Hi friends! Today we will start Jeff’s faith journey. I am so thankful that I met Jeff all those years ago. He is strong, courageous, and a man that truly loves the Lord. Okay, you may believe I am biased because he is my husband, but I would tell you that it is fact because I witness it every day. He is more than I could have ever hoped for and inspires me. The man Jeff is today would only come from being refined by walking through many fires (true for many of us really!). A big thanks to Jeff for being courageous, transparent, and authentic so that others may be encouraged. With that we begin part one. Enjoy!

My faith journey started out like a lot of people’s stories.  I grew up in a Southern Baptist church that we attended every Sunday.  I had a very loving family and a good social network.  For the most part, I was a pretty good kid and stayed out of trouble.  My sister and I were pretty involved in church as kids and would go to youth group activities and Sunday school.  When I was around 12 or 13, I got baptized.  At that time, it was more of a rite of passage for me.  Though I had professed that Jesus was my Lord and Savior, it was more of a thing to do rather than me believing it and deciding it on my own.

When I went off to college, God and Jesus were the last things that I thought about.  I got into partying hard and that was my life.  I drank a lot with my fraternity and sororities.  The general college scene involved parties on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  On the other nights we would go out to bars, usually the ones with the best drink specials.  Most of my friends were not seriously going to church in college.  Perhaps one or two would go to a service every now and then.  The social scene was first, even schoolwork was secondary. 

My senior year I met a girl, who was a junior, at a fraternity party, and we started dating.  After I graduated, we continued to date long distance.  I moved to Richmond, Virginia while she finished her senior semester.  The following year, she was in Northern Virginia, and we would spend the weekends together.  During my solo time in Richmond, I was still doing the same thing, going out every weekend to bars in the area with friends.  One night I was driving home from a birthday celebration, and I got pulled over for speeding.  I had been drinking heavily at the party and this resulted in a DUI. I was arrested. 

Spending the night in jail was scary.  They put me in a holding cell that was a concrete room with only a small glass window in the steel door.  Aside from the urinal in the cell there were no other furnishings.  They took my shoes and gave me flip flops to wear.  I was also given a thin mat, no more than a quarter of an inch thick, to sleep on for the night.  It was hot, dark, and smelly in the cell.  There were about five or six other men in the room as well.  You hear horror stories about what happens in jail, and I didn’t want that to happen to me.  I kept to myself on my mat and did not talk to anyone.  Thankfully, most of the other men were just sleeping on their mats.  I tried to close my eyes to fall asleep but couldn’t.  I just wanted the night to end and hoped that someone would bail me out in the morning. 

The next day, I was allowed to make a call, but I didn’t remember anyone’s phone number.  I ended up calling my house hoping that my roommate would pick up the phone.  It was 6:00AM.  He did not answer.  Finally, around 9 AM, somebody knocked on the door of the holding cell and called out my name.  They pulled me out and told me I had been bailed out.  My roommate had put his car up as collateral and the magistrate released me.  In the end, my license was restricted for a year.  I was only able to drive to and from work.  That whole experience should have been a wake-up call, but it wasn’t. 

After the year was up, I got full privileges on my driver’s license back.  I headed down to Atlanta, Georgia to live with my girlfriend from college.  She was attending law school and had two more years left.  I found a full-time job that involved splitting time between two companies.  In one I was working in the mailroom of a real estate brokerage firm.  In my other job I was an assistant to a real estate developer that happened to be housed in the same building.  I would bill hours separately to the brokerage firm and the real estate developer based on how much I worked for each.  Theoretically it would be split four hours each, but eventually I would get my duties at the mail room done quickly so I could do more hours with the real estate developer.   

I began learning the ins and outs of commercial real estate and took classes to get my real estate license.  I saw the fancy cars the brokers drove and the expensive clothes they wore, and I wanted it.  While this gave me something to work towards, my role at the time was far from it.  Coming out of college I thought I was going to land this great job and should be running the company, any company.  That didn’t happen. 

I was starting off in the literal mailroom for part of my job, which knocked me down a peg or two.  My supervisor in the mailroom of the brokerage firm was unpleasant to work for and could be belittling.  She wanted more control over me and did not like that I worked so much for the real estate developer, even though her company was not billed for those hours.  Once, she told me, “Hey, you need to be filling these coffee cups and making sure that they don’t go empty”.  I didn’t believe it was necessary, but she insisted.  A lot of that was about control.  

At the time I didn’t have much money, so the cruddy job and no money hit my self-esteem.  I had a friend in Atlanta who I would occasionally go out with; but overall, I didn’t have a social network.  In retrospect, I could have gotten into something athletic to meet people, but at that time I was used to the social scene revolving around going out to bars.  Even that was difficult to do since Atlanta was very expensive.  It was very isolating and with my girlfriend studying so much for law school I felt very alone.  I couldn’t wait to get out of Atlanta. 

After my girlfriend graduated law school, we moved to Jacksonville, Florida when she accepted a position at a national law firm in their real estate division.  She was successful, dedicated, and worked long hours.  Even when she came home for dinner it was only to fire up the laptop again for another three hours of work afterwards.  Regardless, we ended up getting married shortly after we moved to Jacksonville, because it was the next thing to do.  I had a friend ask me some time afterwards, “Did you want to get married, or did you slide into marriage?”  Looking back now, I slid into that marriage.   

During that time, I landed a brokerage position with a global real estate company downtown.  Previously, when I was in Atlanta, I had gotten my real estate license.  I learned then that it was difficult to get established as an agent.  My contacts in Atlanta knew some real estate agents in Jacksonville and gave me their contacts to look up.  I called them up and essentially said, “Hey, I am new to the area.  I want to get into brokerage, so if you have anything available, or if anything becomes available, please let me know.” 

One of the first calls I made was to one of the top real estate brokers in the country, if not the world.  They had a local office and as it turned out, there was an industrial broker that wanted somebody to join his team.  I recognized that it would be a great opportunity because I could piggyback off him for the first year and would not be doing it all on my own.  I would not have to source all the deals myself and I knew I could learn from him.  

Real estate can be difficult.  The first year working with the company, I took a $40,000 draw to receive a steady income, which was helpful.  Taking a draw essentially meant that the company would pay me a salary the first year under the assumption that they would eventually recoup it.  The second year was when I had to pay back the draw, the salary I was given in year one, from any commission I made.  That is why it can be the toughest year.  As a result, I was not receiving income until I paid back the $40,000 that I owed.  I ended up making about $60,000 that year, so I did end up making a small salary.  I thought, “Alright, I’m now in an actual paying profession that has street cred.”

Although I felt like things were falling into place career-wise, my relationship was falling apart. 

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