God Loves Cabinets, And The Cabinet Maker

— by Steve Bell

Where is God when businesses struggle or fail? Steve Bell, an award-winning entrepreneur, has dealt with this profound and painful question numerous times throughout his career. Bellmont Cabinets is a cabinet manufacturing company near Seattle, Washington. The company has won numerous awards for high quality, innovation, community impact, and service. But Steve’s journey has been far from easy: two near bankruptcies served as crucibles to form his faith and lead him to a new understanding of how God measures success. Steve shares a snapshot of his journey below which beautifully illustrates the differences between God’s definition of success and our own.

I was very naive, I was 28 years old. We were doing tenant improvement work at the time. We'd go into an empty space and build it out. But I was starting to have trouble getting money from these guys for whatever reason. Then I got a phone call from my attorney one morning and he said, Steve, are you sitting down? I go, Yeah. He goes, Well, you better pick up a copy of today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer because your body is on the front page. He just got arrested in an FBI sting operation with a briefcase full of cocaine. These two guys that I was contracting for were involved in a drug smuggling ring with organized crime. They owed us about $100,000, and we owed nearly all of that money to everybody else… Suppliers and subcontractors and employees. And we just lost it all. 

And I remember coming home one day. I was up in our bedroom. And I just laid on the floor and I told my wife that I had really messed up. I didn't know how I was going to make the House payment. I didn't know how we were going to eat that month and. Well, Carolyn came in, laid down with me and put her arms around me and said, “Steve, I believe in you… God will provide.” 

I remember sitting in front of my attorney, an accountant, and they looked at me and said, Steve, you've just been had. And I said, you know, I know it doesn't look good. I don't know how, and I don't know where. But if it takes me the rest of my life, I'm going to pay these people back. And I remember the attorney saying that's not the way the world works. Within a month, you'll have a dozen lawsuits filed against you. Bill collectors will be harassing your wife day and night. Your life is going to become a living hell. I said, sir, life's already a living hell. And maybe you're right. Maybe this is what I'll have to do. But first, I'm going to try it my way. They sent a letter to every single person I owed money to explaining what happened. And then I followed up with a personal visit or phone call and told them that all I had to offer them was my good name. If they would trust me, I would pay them every dime with interest. 

Folks had been reading these trade magazines and learning about this thing they called ‘frameless cabinet’, which was kind of a novelty at that time. To me, it looked really simple, it looked really efficient. And in 1986 / 87, I switched cold turkey and started building frameless cabinets. Dealers started asking me to build cabinets for them, and that's when the lights went on… I realized that, hey, maybe I could build a business around manufacturing. 

Eventually, he was actually making good money again. It took us six and a half years to pay off every bill. It's often been said that overnight success in business is 15 years, and for me, it took a little longer. 

In 2004, I bit off probably way more than I could chew, but we built out this one hundred and eighty five thousand square foot facility, and we moved into it in April of 2006 and we saw a huge upswing in business. We don't apologize for success in terms of growth and finance. 2006 was a great year. Seven was a great year and 2008 was a fantastic year. And then our world fell apart in November of 2008. Someone just turned the faucet off. We had our first big layoff in November of 2008. One year later, we had gone from over 200 employees and by November of 2009 we were down to 85 people. 

I've always made it a practice of spending time in the word and time in prayer. And I remember one night I sat here in my office. I couldn't sleep all night long. I felt like Jacob wrestling with the angel up until I was wrestling with God, why are you allowing this to happen to us? We've been so faithful all these years. And God kept saying, Do you trust me? 

Since that time, we've grown five-fold. Today, we unabashedly want to be successful because that is the scorecard. If we are successful financially, then we've got 300 employees that can go home with their paychecks and take care of their families… thousands of customers that can enjoy making a meal around a beautiful kitchen… dealers who make a living by selling our products and installing them, and all through that food chain, people are being blessed through God's common grace. It really does give me a great deal of joy to know that I'm a conduit of His grace. 

God loves cabinets, and the cabinet maker.

This article has been adapted from an original video series produced by Faith & Co. in partnership with Faith Driven Entrepreneur.

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