Tonight, 12 years ago, I enrolled as a Rodan + Fields consultant. I’ve shared so many times about my journey and how I am still taken by surprise for that level of bravery to embark on a professional journey I was so scared to do. Today, on what should be the celebration of my Rodanniversary, has instead turned out to be one of the most surreal, painful, and grief-filled moments of my entire life. The Rector’s livelihood was taken away in an instant with a restructuring of R+F’s business model… I woke up today having no clue I would be receiving this news and am finishing the day pinching myself to see if I am really and truly experiencing this nightmare.
I have one million thoughts and none at all at the exact same time. Tonight, after processing the reality for myself and with BJ, we chose to sit Eleanor and Tripp down to have the impossible conversation with them - one we genuinely never dreamed could ever come about. And I never want to forget what we talked about around our dining room table. I pray that days, weeks, years and decades from now we never forget the emotions we all just shared around that table in the most scary, humbling, vulnerable conversation we have ever had with our kids. I pray that tonight is a core memory for them - which is really the exact opposite of what my flesh would ever want for them - but I pray that tonight is forever remembered as the night where the Lord was glorified for all He has done, who He is and how we can actually trust Him as the author of our personal, and family, story.
We started with asking them to write a list of what they were grateful for - I won’t lie, they knew today that something was wrong and I could feel their fear of what they figured could be. So when BJ asked them to write out all that there is to be grateful for, their lists already looked like they realized the rug was about to be taken out from under them. And maybe I am a little glad for that, because their hearts were semi-prepped for a very hard convo.
I believe with my entire heart what I shared and I need to write it down, lest I forget and in the days where my grief naturally turns to anger, bargaining or depression I know that I would need to have an account for what is true to help me through any dark days.
When I jumped into R+F Eleanor was not even 2 years old. Tripp was 6 months old. BJ was traveling full-time for work and though he “knew” his kids, he didn’t get any time with them and generally wasn’t getting to know them. They were babies and I hoped that any pressure I could take off of our bottom line would hopefully be a blessing to us. That was the only goal - make a dollar instead of spending one. Have adult interactions and a challenge, but also being able to be home with my kids and raise them.
Who could have dreamed up what the Lord did for us through R+F? Never in my wildest dreams would I have considered, even knew to fathom, all that was afforded to us through this business. Not only did I make a dollar, I made enough after a short 13 months that BJ could take time away from the corporate world to figure out what his next step, that would hopefully keep him in the metroplex and in his giftings, would be. He went from being gone Monday - Thursday to being a stay at home dad until 2021. We got to raise our babies together. He equipped me on the home front in such a way that I could grow my business and work really, really hard all while still playing mom, first. We established the “rectordays” in 2014…. The days we would call our mundane fellowship, fun excursions, trips or family nights… when it is just us, it is the Rectordays. Who could have dreamed that a company would put me in 5 new cars? Or that they would travel me all over the globe? Or that they would unlock passions in my heart I may never have known without having to discover them through leading thousands of consultants in a multi-million dollar business over the last decade.
I look back at the last 12 years and I am overwhelmed with gratitude for a business that brought me great joy, incredible challenges, gigantic community, real mountaintops and valleys, financial freedom, new friendships, assured convictions, great skin, TIME with my babies, professional success, passions I got to live out, dreams I saw realized, change I got to be part of, lives I got to invest in, presence with my kids while building a career, lessons in humility and pain in conflicts with resolutions. It wasn’t perfect, but I look back and can only say I am so, so grateful for it all. I am so humbled for all R+F has afforded me. I am so thankful for 12 years of paychecks that have been the Rector’s livelihood. I am so thankful that I could look at my kids tonight, with tears streaming down my face and a trembling voice, and tell them that R+F was the best thing to happen to our family and we will forever be grateful for the gift of that business as we knew it.
The conversation had to pivot and we had to be honest and this is where I pray that I never, ever forget what I feel right now. We don’t know where we would be without Jesus today. The amount of grief, sadness and fear that has washed over me today would be crushing without His presence and His supernatural peace. It feels like a death and I can barely catch my breath. BUT, we serve a God that says He is the same yesterday, today and forever….
That means YESTERDAY, when I had a secure business that left us wanting for nothing, He was good.
That means TODAY, when our livelihood was taken away in a quick afternoon phone call, He is good.
That means TOMORROW (all of our tomorrows), when we literally have no clue what it holds and how we will do it and what it all means and what could happen, He will still be good.
And in His goodness, we pray that we will see it in the land of the living. Here on this earth. This is His moment for the Rectors…. We prayed over our family tonight that He could give us faith to TRUST what He says about Himself… that HE IS GOOD and that He will NEVER leave nor forsake us. We prayed that we would trust him with our lives, with our family, with our finances, with our plans, with our fears… that as we currently stand at the edge of the Red Sea looking like the waves will overtake us, that He would part those waters as only HE can do. That as we wander through what feels like the desert, that He would be our source where our daily manna would sustain us. That as we walk through what feels like the shadow of death, that we would fear no evil. That just as Christ came to save us and entered into this world to rescue us, that we would trust Him for salvation not just in eternity but here in this life both today and tomorrow. Because, He is good. We want HIM more than we want R+F, or the “security” of what that paycheck has meant to us. We want Him to have our story. We want Him to move the mountains. We want Him to change our hearts to believe that He is better than anything that this world affords. We want to be a walking testimony to anyone that ever knows our story…. That the Rector’s cry would be, “the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord”.
Well friends…. How can you pray for us? Please just do that. Pray for us. Please pray that we would not fear or make fear-based decisions. Please pray that the Lord would protect us in this very scary season. Please pray that the Lord opens doors that ultimately make everyone say, “Only God could have done that”… and that not only would we acknowledge and say that too, but that we would believe it with our whole hearts. Please pray for BJ and I as we have to look for jobs - this is intimidating for a variety of reasons, but I want to pray against that intimidation. Please pray for our kids… Dorothy Grace is currently too young to get it, but Eleanor and Tripp felt every emotion alongside of us tonight and I don’t want them to be scared. We are professing that we aren’t scared, that in this scary situation we are sad and a little stressed but not scared. Please pray that their hearts are protected from all the fears of what could be… home change, school change, etc… genuine fears that are completely appropriate for teenagers hearing this news. Please pray for the team members I have worked with for all of these years that are having conversations just like we are around their dinner tables - so many families will be affected by the changes made by R+F today and I’m heartbroken about that.
As I recognize my 12 years with R+F today…. I look back to say thank you. Thank you so much to the doctors who created a brand of products that I am so proud to represent. Thank you to the leaders in the field who trained and encouraged and challenged me when I first started and even today were an incredible source of mentorship. Thank you to every single person who purchases from me - I hope you have loved these products like I have and every time you buy from me you bless my family. Thank you, endlessly, to the friends that I call teammates. You have written the most beautiful story of success right alongside of me and I am forever grateful for your partnership, dedication to this business, and the dream we built together. It will never, ever be lost on me. I am the most thankful for these past 12 years. I love you, I am thankful for you, and I am always your biggest cheerleader. Thank you, Jesus, for the kindness you have shown our family through this business. We praised you in plenty and should we find ourselves in want…. May it be for more of You above all else.
*To hopefully dispel any rumors… R+F is not closings their doors. While the business model has changed, for some this will have very little (if not even a positive) impact. For my family, however, this restructuring has completely devastated us. Yes, you can still purchase products from me and I will happily continue using them.
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