Twist of Faith by Anne Beiler

Author:Anne Beiler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2010-03-29T04:00:00+00:00

Yet that’s not how I always felt when I visited Angie’s grave. During those first years, after Jonas and the girls and I moved north from Texas, returning to Pennsylvania, my visits to Angie’s grave simply reminded me of my failings as a mother and a wife. As I mentioned earlier, I felt guilty for leaving her in Pennsylvania when we moved to Texas. I felt guilty that I couldn’t protect her. I wanted to know the person she would have turned out to be, not in a peaceful, happy way, but in a way that led to despair and hopelessness. I rarely visited her in those days, and that’s not surprising when I think of the way those visits made me feel.

Still the business continued to grow, and I sank deeper and deeper into the somewhat comforting clutches of busyness. Opening stores, supporting our small network of “licensees,” visiting with potential new-store owners, searching for more locations . . . running Auntie Anne’s became the gauze that fit perfectly over the seeping wound that was my soul.

I don’t mean to make it all sound so heavy—mixed in with the stress and the activity came lots of fun times. By the end of 1990, we would have fifty Auntie Anne’s locations in nine states. The days were exciting, thrilling, draining, busy, and absolutely crazy. My team consisted almost entirely of family members, and we had all grown up working hard, appreciating the feeling that came after a long day of giving it our best. I have so many positive memories from that summer, like the day Aaron drove off to the shore in a huge brown van dragging an overstuffed trailer. His mission: to open five shore-point locations. Or when LaWonna took over as trainer, teaching all new store owners the ropes. So many things took place that summer, it’s no wonder Jonas and I felt the need to hire someone to oversee it all.

At some point Jonas and I finally sat down to talk about our organization. There were too many things to do between the two of us, our three new employees (Aaron, Becky, and my younger brother Merrill, who joined us early in the summer of 1990 as a deliveryman), and others who were helping on a part-time basis. We needed someone to step in and organize us, especially some of the financial areas. But we didn’t know where to begin, where to look, or what to do to attract the right person.

Jonas came up with the idea of listing everything we needed this new person to do. “Fine,” I said. “That makes sense.” So we pulled out a lined sheet of yellow notebook paper and started writing: do accounting and bookkeeping work, manage the warehouse, oversee and develop contracts, provide direction in supporting our stores, introduce new products, help develop processes for everything from mixing a batch of dough to opening a new store . . . the list went on and on. Finally we finished and said a prayer together, trusting that God would bring us the right person.

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