Member-only story
If You’re Feelin’ Down, Lost or Cornered, Remember One Thing
A story of faith, hope, and peace.
I lay in my bed, staring at the bare, white ceiling, thinking about how I was draining my retirement account every day with no end in sight. It felt as if the walls were closing in on me, like the Star Wars scene where Luke, Princess Leia, and Hans Solo were trapped in a trash compactor.
A few months earlier, a new leadership team fired me from my high-paying sales management job just as I was getting divorced from my wife of eighteen years. Our kids were in high school — not a fabulous time for anyone. Even though the divorce was relatively amicable, the dissolution of the nuclear family was heartbreaking for me.
The divorce agreement, settled the year before, had alimony and child support calculated on my salary then. My new job paid me about half of that. I was shelling out thousands a month for alimony and child support and paying rent for a nondescript, soulless townhouse a few minutes from the family home.
I was depressed and miserable. I hated my new job, the separation from my kids, and the prospect of seven more years of crushing debt-inducing payments sat like a heavy load of stone on my shoulders.