November 21, 2018

By Faith, I Decided To Start A Blog

I don’t often share the story of why I decided to start a blog, but with the focus of Thanksgiving this month, I thought it would be the perfect time. Several years ago I felt a burden to help my family with finances. My husband is a hard worker and always provides what we need. It just seems the money goes out, as fast as it comes in.

Our son has had 18 surgeries over the last 10 years to remove a giant nevus on his leg. Nevus cells have a high likelihood of turning to melanoma, so removing them reduces the risk. It makes it hard to save with a lot of medical expenses. Also having two cars totaled within a year period, doesn’t help either.

We also have some big house project that need to be done soon. The need to replace the siding and the rest of the windows on our home. We also need to replace our family vehicle, since it won’t make it much longer. Obviously, with all these big expenses looming…I want to help financially if I can.

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By Faith, I Decided to Start A Blog

At the time when I was first prompted to help, I was a stay at home mom. With 3 relatively young kids at home, I had no desire to give that up. I cherish being at home with my littles and never desired to work outside the home if I didn’t have to.

I began looking here and there to see what jobs were available. Somehow, I thought to earn extra income, I could work around my husband’s schedule and get a little part-time job. However, any job I found would not bring in much income. It made more sense for my husband to stay at work 30 minutes longer, than it would for me to work 3 hours for the same amount. Plus, the stress of having to work around schedules while I was gone wouldn’t be worth it.

The Lord continued to work on my heart, could I really start a blog? I wasn’t sure why….I didn’t want to blog, I didn’t know anything about blogging, and I don’t consider myself to be a writer. The funny thing was people kept mentioning to me….”you should start a blog.”

But the idea of having people read what I wrote was kind of terrifying. Plus, there is no guarantee of making money.

I Can Do It

One day, I was flipping through a magazine I saw an ad for medical billing. I thought oh that would be a great idea, I could stay at home and earn some money. As I stared at that ad, I just really felt God convicting me, “Do you Trust Me?” I knew by taking a job like that, it was all me. I could do the job, earn the money and do it my way, but starting a blog would be a step of faith and following what I knew God was telling me to do.

So I said OK God, I will start a blog.

I had no idea what I was doing and I was afraid to tell anyone that I had a blog. One friend is all I told and eventually a few family members. I remember hitting publish on my first few posts and my stomach was in knots.

The blog I started was called Surround Yourself With Abigail’s based on 1 Samuel 25. Abigail helped David from doing something dishonoring to God and that is exactly the type of people we should have around us. Friends and family that can help us pursue Christ and hold us accountable.

I thought this is perfect, God wants me to blog, I’ll blog about Him. God really used that time to help me grow, learn a little about blogging and get much more comfortable with writing and sharing my writing. However, I was very inconsistent and with many things going on at the time, I just didn’t have the time to continue. Plus, I am not a bible scholar…while I love learning and digging into the Word of God, it was not my area of expertise.

Start A Blog, Again?

A year passed and I still felt burdened to help with finances, again not because my husband was asking or not that we had to have the extra money. I wanted to help and I continued to feel God leading me to help. So the blog thing kept popping back up in my mind. I didn’t understand, I was like I tried that, it didn’t work, I didn’t make any money and I don’t know what I am doing! And yet he kept leading me that direction.

If I was even going to think about blogging again, I knew I would need to learn more about the blogging world. I also began thinking about what I love and what gifts God had given me. For months I jotted ideas down and then one day an idea stuck.

While I love our house, I had always laughed with my husband about how I see a jewel and most people probably just see the nasty siding, crooked fence and brown shag carpet. I had wished I could just put a sign in our yard that said, Soon To Be Charming…and that day my blog was born!

Our house was a fixer upper and we weren’t afraid to tackle many of the projects ourselves, so why not blog about it. I mean, I already take a million pictures…which my husband really loves especially in the middle of a project when he is ready to be done! Ha ha, ok maybe not!

The Right Fit Is Important To Start A Blog

I knew this was the right fit for my next blog and I really wanted to make it succeed or at least give it everything I had.

I began planning and trying to learn more about blogging. Let me tell you, for every one thing I learned, I realized there were 5 more things I didn’t even know I needed to learn about. Blogging is one of the hardest things I have ever done. It’s like building a business from scratch…having to combine photography, IT, writing, media, search engine optimization….and the list goes on. I still feel very overwhelmed at times.

Some moments, I feel like I have come a long way and yet other moments, I feel like I have only scratched the surface. Since it is like building your own business, most blogs do not make a profit until the second year. I have been working very hard to get to that point. I may have impatiently reminded the Lord a few times that he asked me to do this! However, following God’s leading doesn’t always mean it will be easy.

The Blessings of Following God’s Leading

I share this with you, because I am grateful! Grateful for you and all the encouragement I have had on my blog. I am grateful God pushed me out of my comfort zone and helped me find my voice.

I still am not real great at self-promotion, but wanted to share the journey I have been on and how God led me to this blog. It is not something I just woke up and wanted to do one day. However, I know I am following God’s leading and no matter what happens with this blog, it was started in faith and obedience. And I can’t imagine life without Soon To Be Charming now!

Sharing projects and being challenged is what I love! Being held accountable by all of you, I mean my house would have never looked so organized if it wasn’t for all of you pushing me on the 30 day organizing challenge!

I have just crossed the threshold of my second year and look forward to all the amazing things that will happen!

If God is prompting you to do something out of your comfort zone, I urge you to listen. He will give you the gifts and abilities to accomplish anything He may be asking you to do.