Saying Goodbye

Yesterday was the weirdest and best day all in one.  For the past 21 years I have worked either full or part time for an electronics rep firm by the name of AKI.  In1989 I was the first employee hired by the very business savvy owner, Dean Akiyama.  (Hard to believe that I don't have any pictures of these people, so I decided to go with their celebrity look alikes instead).

 Only 7 years older than me we were the youngest, hippest thing going in an industry dominated by the “Good Ole’ Boys”. In fact, we often joked that our business motto was “it’s better to look good then to feel good and darling you look marvelous!” (okay, we may have stolen that from Billy Crystal but that’s not the point.) We started off in a 2 room office (two rooms and a large closet actually) in Cherry Creek (I told you we were hip!) My early memories of AKI include Dean’s “Bobby Brown”, after lunch naps (he blamed it on his allergies), Wally the Crystal Mouse, Al Adwani the testy buyer from Kuwait, the heist (they stole our type writer and the copier that copied one page per 30 seconds… curse you Optrex specs!!), practicing my manicuring skills on Dean (I was going to night school) and his first outside salesperson… Sally. Oh Sally, while she would never fess up to it, she had a mad crush on Dean, she too, had a Japanese last name and loved it when people mistakenly thought Dean and Sally were married… Dean, however, did not share her enthusiasm. Sally had the same suit and blouse in 5 different colors and wore a different shade each day, compared to my late 80’s early 90’s flair for fashion and big hair. Famous Sally quote? “That was next on my list of things to do.” (Sure it was…)

Several years passed, Sally moved on. Dean & I both got engaged & he hired two new outside sales people.

 The “Jon’s”, no… that not some inside joke that you are not meant to understand, he hired two guys both named Jon.  Jon H, who came from local distribution, and who had prior connection to our company (hmmm… I say “our” like I was part owner, not) in fact before Jon came to work for AKI, I used to clean his house to make extra money to pay for my wedding.   The other Jon, was JPK also from distribution but a completely new face to AKI.  He was old (in his forties, wink!) and wore a weird winter hat (he was  from Wisconsin) and he ate a granola bar every day for lunch.  Oh, and wore cowboy boats every single day.  We were still in the 2 room office in Cherry Creek, so JPK shared an office with me and Jon H had a private office (in the closet).  Dean used to just pound on the wall and he would come running.  One of Dean and I’s favorite pass times, during those early years,  was to torment them with “pink sheets”, ah… the memories!  It wasn’t long and we moved to a new spacious office off Louisiana. Dean had an office and the rest of us were in an open bull pen, a conference room and literature room finished off the balance of the space. The elevator in this building was a death trap and I often pictured myself plummeting to the ground (and no, I did not think it was funny when JPK would jump inside and try to scare me).  It wasn’t long before we had need for another inside salesperson and we hired Nancy, simply the nicest person on planet earth.

Nancy came to Colorado from Chicago and more recently from a local disti named EIL.  Few more years passed and Dean hired Mike in our Utah office (sorry, no celebrity look alike for this one, I don't get to see him often enough to come up with a good one) and we moved to a new building on

Grape Street

.   AKI had several other hires over the next 15 years, Kjell in Utah, Katie the would be historian, Allyson, the beauty queen who couldn’t make a copy to save her life, Valerie the student, Crystal my beautiful niece, Matt the guy who just couldn’t quite figure it out, John (yes, the 3^rd) ah, I really liked John, Debbie and most recently Kaloni oh and my replacement, Angie) but Dean, Jon H, JPK, Mike, Nancy and I have been the core of AKI for years.  And I suppose in a way we have been some what of a family.  We have watched 3 get married, 8 babies have been born and we have even shared in the loss of loved ones. 

Two and half years ago, after the relentless encouragement of friends, I decided to start my own business as a photographer, photography is and always has been my passion and I have been playing with it as a hobby for over 20 years. The Lord has poured out His blessing on my business and by August of 2010 I was feeling worn out and tired from trying to manage my family, a growing photography business, ministry at the church and my job at AKI. For the first time in 21 years the thought crossed my mind that maybe it was time to quit my job at AKI. I asked Rod to be praying with me about what we should do. That night I spent sometime in prayer crying out to God asking for the chalk and chalkboard kind of answer, I wanted to be absolutely positively sure I was doing the right thing. The following evening we had a group from church over, one of the girls told me that she had a dream about me the night before that I had quit my job at AKI, and went on to tell me about how she quit a couple of jobs in obedience to God only to have her husband blessed with a new and better one. The following morning the devotion in my inbox was about getting out of your comfort zone and doing something creative and the next day it was about trusting God and letting go. Whoa! Talk about chalk and chalk board, I knew with out a doubt what God wanted me to do. Two weeks later Rod and I were out to dinner when I asked him if he too had been praying. He said “yes, but he just didn’t have a peace about it.” WHAT! You have got to be kidding me, I mean I had proof, chalk and chalkboard evidence of what I was supposed to do. That night I prayed again, what the heck was going on, why wasn’t Rod on the same page as me if he was praying about it too. The next morning the devotion in my inbox was titled “Wait” and the one after that “When Patience is Required”, is God cool or what? Okay, I would wait for Rod to have peace and would know that when he did it would be God’s perfect timing.

September

October

November

(feels like a seen from New Moon)

At the end of November, I was working on my Bible Study when it mentioned that sometimes we are called to obey now and to wait for the reward. Immediately, I felt like that was right where I was, I was being obedient in respecting my husband as the head of our home and later I would be rewarded for waiting on him, but in the blink of an eye my flesh took hold, what if Rod wasn’t praying (he’s a car prayer, I would never really know if he was praying or not), what if he wasn’t listening, I would be tired and worn out for the rest of my life!! That’s when I heard God say “Cija, I am not going to give you more time until you learn to honor me with the time I have already given you.” What? I thought this was about Rod, not me! What did that even mean? If anyone was efficient with her time it would be me, not a single moment is wasted. I get up early, stay up late and am busy all the live long day. Had He even looked at the list of things I accomplish in a day?

And so the next chapter began, learning to honor God with my time, lovingly He revealed good things like my meal planning (gone wild) and money management (on steroids) that had gone completely over board. I was using these good things as trophies to prove my worth to the people around me. With the help of the Lord, I began to shed the things He pointed out to me and I was beginning to breathe a little bit easier. A few days before Christmas I was at lunch with a friend when I joked that it would be just like God to give Rod peace about my quitting AKI on January 1st, right when my photography business would slow for the winter as would his window sales. Can I just say that God did not disappoint. On Christmas day, Rod gave me a card that said he was at complete peace with my quitting. I quite simply…. Panicked! This was insane! What was I thinking? The economy is terrible, Rod has been making close to half of what he used too before he got laid off, I HAVE a good job with a great boss, who has been so generous! Had I lost my cotton pickin’ mind??? I prayed, I cried, I asked my friends for their thoughts, I was beside myself, I had made a horrible mistake and now was I faced with being disobedient or making the biggest mistake ever! Oiy… why hadn’t I have just left well enough alone. The week between Christmas and New Years ticked by, Monday was coming and what was I going to do. Sunday morning I was working at the welcome desk at church, the receptionist there has a little flip calendar with a verse and mini devotional. The verse for that day? Hebrews 11:8 and the title… “Will you go with out knowing where you are going?” In my heart, I heard the whisper “Yes.” I grabbed my Bible and read the rest of the chapter, the Faith capture. Multiple verses start with the words:

“By faith, Moses…”

“By faith, Rahab…”

“By faith, Noah…”

and at the very end of the chapter, months before I had penciled in the words…

“By faith, Cija…”

This was my moment, God had chalk and chalk board led me to this place, He had made His will for me abundantly clear and now He was reaching out His hand and waiting for me to take a giant step of faith. That moment happened the next morning when I handed Dean my letter of resignation and yesterday was my first official day with no AKI.

So, let the journey begin, I may not know where He’s taking me but I’m gonna sit back and enjoy the ride. God never disappoints!!

To my friends and family at AKI, Dean, Nancy, Mike, Jon H, and JPK I truly miss you all!! (Kaloni too…)