What an incredible plan the Lord had for a young newly wed couple 29 years ago when we started our furniture journey. Just 25 and 28, only married for 5 months, Robin and I walked into Furniture in the Raw, not knowing a thing about furniture, as the new owners. Surely I could do this, my father had opened the first unfinished furniture store in Beaumont, Texas and my sis and brother in law were also in the business. I'll never forget our first meeting with the staff. Here we were, a school teacher and a chemical engineer pretending that we had a clue about what was about to happen. I had never bought a stick of furniture in my life and certainly didn't know how to sell any. The only thing that I had sold was Baskin Robbins ice cream, when I wasn't eating it, and panties and bras for Bealls Department Store. Robin had sold mens suits and was quiet the expert on style, after all he was voted best looking in high school with his plaid bell bottom pants and his platform shoes. I think we pulled it off and the staff didn't know that we were leading them without a clue. We became great friends with our furniture finishers who were a husband wife team. Our delivery men adopted us and became our body guards. You wouldn't want to cross either one of them. Our familiy started off with 2 baby store kitties then little by little we added baby Chessers, all growing up in the store. They were often seen toddling among the furniture in their little innertube walkers.
Fast forward about 12 years and 5 children later, and Me & My House was born. As we were trying to decide what to name this new venture, Robin and I talked about how we wanted to proclaim Christ's name in the marketplace. I'm not one of those people who have a great storehouse of memorized scripture in this small brain of mine, but I remember the day the Lord named our business. I was on the way to Fredricksburg thinking how we could make that proclmation and the Lord brought to mind the scripture from Joshua 24:15," As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." I knew that Me & My House would be the name of our new store, dedicated to and named by the Lord.
Oh, and what great timing I had. We had just finished designing our new logo with 4 children in it when we found out that God wasn't quiet finished with our family . . I made the baby announcement when I was showing my family the new logo. They were oohing and aahing over the cuteness of it when I mentioned that the artist had made a mistake and didn't put enough children in it. My dad counted the children on the card several times more and then turned and looked at me with his eyes agap, is that a word? What a fun memory.
I was so sick with morning sickness, I would lay on one of the beautiful sofas and just direct from there, put this there, place that over there, wait, no I really don't like that thousand pound wardrobe there, try it over here. But we all survived and Me & My House made its grand entry on Babcock Road. We all loved it along with our sweet clients who supported us and invited us into their homes to let us play "decorating dress -up". Delightful. We eventually outgrew our location and moved to Huebner Road..
We quickly became a family in that little store. We've loved each other through new marriages, rejoiced over the miracle of new births, held each other through the deaths of parents, had to say good bye to friends but then welcomed new ones to join us not to mention meeting my very " bestest" friend in the world. What a great God we serve. It was a great retail store but so much more, it was a ministry that we all loved being a part of.
What an incredible and glorious ride it has been. We have learned much, grown much and loved much.
But now, God has a new plan for the Chesser family. With a slight pain in our hearts but at the same time, an anticipation about His new plan, we have decided to close our precious Me & My House store. We can't begin to thank all of our clients who have loved the store and loved what we do. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
What will we do? Robin will continue in his incredible finishing business. Have you seen his work? It is amazingly beautiful. If you ever want to see a perfectionist in action, call him. What will I do? Maybe stay home and help raise our precious grandbaby Wyatt, maybe head to the country and open a store there?.............. we really don't know every detail of the future but we do know the One who holds our future in HIS hands. We are resting comfortably and peacefully in that.
As we begin our housecleaning and warehouse cleaning, we hope you will find some great things at great prices.
Again, thank you so much for being a part of our fabulous journey.
Saved by His Grace,
Cathy and Robin Chesser
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
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