Interactions with God #78

We lived in an apartment for several months, when we first moved to the Phoenix area.  We did buy a house in a new neighborhood, but it had to be built.  We picked the area based on where we hoped that again, maybe one day, we could plant another church.  That area was called Cave Creek. 

Cave Creek was northeast of downtown Phoenix and about 45 minutes from the nearest Vineyard church.  That Vineyard was called Vineyard Church North Phoenix.  Brian Anderson was the pastor there.  He was also the regional overseer for the entire southwest area and a board member of the Association of Vineyard Churches.  Brian was the guy to talk to if we wanted to plant a church.  When we first met him and told him of our interest, his response was a smile and “We’ll see”.  That was good enough for me at that time.

In my new job, I did quite a bit of traveling.  I flew to either Denver or LA every other week for 2 to 4 days.  I liked it a lot. Martha, not so much.  To travel, I was given a corporate American Express card.  Yea, I felt like a big shot. 

A corporate Amex works like this.  It is a credit card, but it does not build up a balance like a Visa or Mastercard.  No, it must be paid off each month.  So, when I traveled, I would use the card, then submit an expense report.  Once I got paid for the expense report, it was my responsibility to pay the Amex.  The Amex was not to be used for personal items.  This I was not aware of…until I had already used it.

When the house was built, we needed to buy a refrigerator as well as a washer and dryer.  The place we went to wouldn’t accept a check as payment, but they would take American Express.  Without realizing that it was a big no no, I paid for the appliances using my corporate card.  I had also miscalculated thinking that I was a month ahead on the expense reports. If that was true, we had the money already in the bank…we didn’t. 

Because of my stupid move, I had a balance of $4000 to pay each month, but each payment was now a month behind.  From November to April, I would get a letter from Amex with big red letters.  I was terrified that sooner or later, American Express was going to notify Sybase that I was running late on my payments.  I figured that if they found out I had used it for personal items, I would lose my job.  The stress of my mistake had gotten so bad that I had a constant case of heartburn.  I knew I was on the way to a full blown ulcer. 

I spent many a night in prayer asking God for help and apologizing for being so stupid.  In March of 1999, I had dinner with Jesse, my manager, and another co-worker in Denver.  While at the dinner, Jesse informed the two of us that there were other Field Reps, in the same role as us, who had a much higher salary.  She said she had made efforts to fix this discrepancy.  Because of this my co-worker and I would get a big bump in our pay…retroactive from January 1st.  The retroactive amount would be paid to us in the first week of April. 

Yea, the amount of that check came out to exactly $4000.