Two years ago today, my life changed.
Not it a small way, In the kind of way that forces you to sit still and stare at the ceiling afterward.
That was the day I got laid off from my dream job.
And I mean dream job.
I was making more money than I had ever made in my life. Double what I had ever earned before. I worked for a company I loved, one I had been with for almost three years, which was longer than I had ever stayed anywhere.
The work was not even stressful. I had the kind of job people brag about. Great pay. Low pressure. Stability. Comfort.
It felt like I had finally made it.
Then I got a call from my manager asking if I had a few minutes to talk.
I already knew.
In that quiet, awkward conversation, he told me I was being laid off. Just like that.
The timing was brutal. Six months earlier, Ashley and I had uprooted our lives and moved to Los Angeles so I could chase my dream of becoming a full time creator. I had bet on myself. I had bet on the future. And before we even hit the one year mark, the rug got pulled out from under us.
I did not know what we were going to do.
A few weeks later, my dad passed away.
That month felt like the ground kept disappearing beneath my feet. Job gone. Income gone. Father gone. Security gone. It was one of the darkest seasons of my life.
And yet, strangely, I also felt something else.
Peace.
Not happiness. Not excitement. Peace.
It was as if God finally hit the brakes on a life that had been running on autopilot. I had been drifting. Working. Spending. Upgrading my lifestyle because my paycheck told me I could. I was financially over leveraged and spiritually under centered.
Losing that job forced me to wake up.
It forced me to believe that if God took something away, He was not doing it to punish me. He was making space for something bigger.
Soon after, Ashley and I moved back to Atlanta. I needed to be near family. Los Angeles was beautiful, but it was also brutally expensive, and without my job it was no longer sustainable.
Those first few months back in Georgia were hard. Honestly, the first six months were hard.
I was applying for jobs. Waiting. Getting rejection emails. Watching my savings shrink. In the meantime, I was doing brand deals and UGC content just to keep the lights on.
And when I say that literally, I mean it literally.
One brand deal meant the electric bill got paid.
Another meant groceries for the week.
Another meant we could breathe for a few days.
Ashley and I lived deal to deal. Payment to payment.
But we survived.
We always do.
When she felt weak, I became strong. When I felt like giving up, she lifted me. That season taught me what partnership really means.
About six months in, things started to shift.
I started getting interviews. Brand deals started coming in more consistently. What began as a few hundred dollars a month slowly turned into a few thousand. Then suddenly, I was making eight to ten thousand dollars a month from content.
By the time I landed a new job, our life was stabilizing again. We caught up on bills. We rebuilt savings. We could finally exhale.
Looking back, I remember the fear. I remember how close I felt to the edge some nights. But I also remember how deeply I learned to trust God.
I did not survive because I had a good job.
I survived because God provided.
He always does.
Sometimes through a paycheck.
Sometimes through a brand deal.
Sometimes through a door you never planned to walk through.
Two years later, I am still grateful.
Grateful for the loss that woke me up.
Grateful for the wife who never let me quit.
Grateful for the man I became when things got hard.
And honestly, I am grateful for me.
I did not give up.
I did not run.
I stayed steady when it would have been easier to fold.
So if you are in a hard season right now, hear me when I say this.
It ends.
Every hard chapter ends.
Do not confuse where you are with who you are. Do not think that this moment is the whole story. Keep walking. Keep trusting. Keep breathing.
You will end up exactly where you are supposed to be.
Till next time.