So if you saw my post from yesterday, you might be wondering, "What happened anyway that made you quit blogging for six years?" That is a very easy, and very hard, question to answer.
God has such a way of humbling us.
Back somewhere around 2009, I guess, we started doing children's ministry for the church we were attending. Things were going great. Kids were coming. We were having fun. Everybody was learning about Jesus. It was good.
It was around that same time that I started this blog. Really, it was started as a way for me to have a little sanity. I was homeschooling two kids, had a toddler underfoot, and a crying baby. I needed somewhere to put some adult thoughts on paper, so to speak. It became an outlet for me to escape from the crazy for just a few minutes.
As time went on, the blog began to revolve around our homeschooling journey, which made it super fun for me. I loved doing school with my kids and then posting pics and writing about our day.
More people started reading my blog. I had people asking me questions about homeschooling. And as our children's ministry grew, people started asking me about ministry, too. It was exciting, because it made me feel like I knew something and could share that with others!
I signed up for a mentoring program with a children's ministry coach, which meant now I knew even more. I had a few articles published in a couple of different magazines, so that meant my writing was great, of course. I signed up to do blog reviews for a publisher whose material I was using, and it made me feel like I was needed, wanted, able to offer help to others. I had several other opportunities to help and share with others, and that only served to fuel my desire to be "more". More than just a mommy. More than just a stay-at-home mom. More than.
Let me just pause here for a minute. If you have ever heard the story of Job in the Bible, you know how he suffered. God allowed everything in his whole world to be taken from him, and then God watched to see how Job would respond. Would he continue to praise God and serve Him? Or would Job crumble under the weight of the losses and turn away from God? In the end, of course, Job stayed faithful and was rewarded with God giving him back more than he lost in the first place. He was faithful, so God rewarded. Don't forget that.
Sometimes God gives us suffering to see what we're made of, to see if we will stay true to Him. And sometimes God gives us abundant blessing and growing success to see the same. He wants to see how we will respond to the success, if we'll stay true to Him, if we will continue to seek and serve Him. And this was the case with me.
As life moved forward and things were beginning to succeed and grow in my blog and homeschooling and ministry, I began to think, "Look how good I'm doing!" Now don't get me wrong. It is fine and good to be proud of what we have accomplished. But when we begin to think that WE did the thing, and when we quit seeking God and His plan and blessing, that becomes a BIG problem. I started seeking out ways that I thought would get my name out there. Build a platform. Make myself look better than maybe I actually was. And do you know what happened? God took His hand of blessing completely off of every single thing I was doing.
As long as I was seeking and following Him, God blessed the things. But when I stepped outside of what God had planned, because I was seeking to be "more than" and looking for recognition from the world, God stepped back and just let me have it all. No, He didn't actually take any of it away. He let me have all of the things... on my own.
There is no more solitary, scary, desolate place that apart from God and His blessing. Please do not misunderstand what I'm saying. I was and am still a Christian who deeply loves Jesus. But we can still be a born again Christian and be far from God. It's in those times that He gently, but oh so painfully, calls us back to Himself. Because He loves us. And He desires to be with us. To lead us and guide us. And that is where I found myself.
God slowly began to show me that I was nothing apart from Him. Ministry was constantly a struggle. I couldn't seem to put two good thoughts together for my blog. Nobody wanted my articles. My marriage was hanging on by a thread. And through all the failure (which directly followed that pride), I began to see that I really had nothing of my own to give. I had nothing else to say. No advice to give. No great homeschooling tips. No help for others on growing a children's ministry. Nothing. I had nothing.
That was one of the saddest, lowest times in my life. I've always wanted to be more. And God broke me down to nothing. But praise God, He NEVER leaves us there, and He NEVER wastes a hurt! It took years - YEARS - for Him to rebuild my broken spirit. It took many, many tears and heartache for God to teach me the things I was missing. Here's what I learned.
~ I don't have to be somebody great in this life. I can just be myself. And that's enough.
~ Being a mommy IS an important thing! I don't have to go seeking elsewhere to find very important things to do. I can just be a good mom and love my kids.
~ Taking care of my husband is a very worthy thing. Loving him and tending to the things he needs (like clean clothes and breakfast before work) are very important.
~ Following God and staying close to Him under His umbrella of grace and blessing are the only things that matter. Because when I follow Him closely, His blessings abound. But when I step out on my own and run ahead of what He tells me to do, He steps back and lets me go... without His hand of blessing. I want to be blessed.
So it's taken me a really long time to get back to writing. About a year ago, with my hubby's constant prodding, I decided to start writing a book. I was scared to death to start it. Because I wanted to make absolutely sure it was God's timing, and I wasn't going to just be wasting my time trying to do something on my own. But I felt like maybe, just maybe, God was trying to speak to me through my husband and tell me, "It's OK. You can write again. You do have something to say." So I started writing.
It took almost a year, but my son (who is also my illustrator) and I have finished our book. We're still working through the self-publishing steps, which is proving to be difficult. But we're close. And I have found I still love writing.
I'm tossing around another book idea, but I haven't committed to it yet. I want more confirmation from God that this is the right direction. But I felt like He was telling me it was OK to pick up writing again on the blog. This has always been my happy place. It didn't start out as a place for others. It was just for me. Just for getting my thoughts out. And that's what I want it to be again. If this place happens to bless you, I'm so happy for that! But really, if nobody ever reads this blog again, it is still good. It's still a place I can just enjoy writing for the fun of writing.
My initial thoughts are to play catch up on some of the cool things we've been doing and the things we've learned through our homeschool journey. But those are just my plans. We shall see which direction God points.
Until next time,
Nicole
❤️
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