A friend of mine asked yesterday why I didn’t just “go back to a regular 8-5 job or teach” instead of living such a different schedule to stay home. It was an easy answer, because right now, its what works for our family. I came home from full time teaching at public school and at the local college when my mother was ill, my husband as in Iraq, and my school district was consolidating. I came home flatly out of obedience to God, who had asked me to for two years, and because it was my husband’s desire for me to be home
Truth is its alot more work some days to be home. I struggle with being an organized homekeeper, but I can say with joy that I have learned to love the smell of fresh towels and to appreciate freshly swept and mopped floors. (I can also still say it is NOT my gift) This year God has blessed us with new opportunities to keep me home as well. Our budget worked on one salary, my husbands, but we had committed to debt freedom and dental bills, so we needed my income slightly to cover that kind of things to be more stable financially.
I am a morning person, so we decided that 10-15 hours a week would be the maximum hours I would work for someone else. There were choices like Mary Kay, which I do….substitute teaching, which I won’t, and then the workshops I love to facilitate for workshops and small towns, and grant writing. Working with children was also an option. However, it seemed this time as we prayed God was showing us something entirely new…out of our thinking box…
In the end, an opportunity to begin my own business began. I have written things for people for years, whether it be specialized grandchildren stories, grants, city outlines, proposals, or clean up of books, it seemed to make sense. I also shop for others quite regularly, both wholesale and retail. More over, it turned out that one thing I have done for years for many of my business owner friends, is problem solve. Whether it be helping create a path for their next phase, or identifying what they did well….or helping them set appropriate step for their goals…well I am a good thinktank and have gathered that into a business. My dear friends in NWA offered me a contract writer position with their company and before we turned around good some 4 months later, we owned two businesses. Its kinda wild right now, for God has truly blessed the efforts to wait until He said “yes” and now folks seem to be coming out of the woodworks for my friend’s business and in the same breath, my own.
Its truly an interesting thing to go from teacher, to Master teacher, to Facilitator, to home mom to business owner. The morphing is exciting, yet the growing stretches you as you learn the ins and outs of licensure and production.
I was blessed to have found a new friend along the way, and low and behold God put her in the path on all levels. She is not only one of the most talented graphic arts people in the interpretation of what is needed, but her heart is so focused on God’s way of life. What a blessing! Then there are the many clients God has simply blessed me with….from the ones who have not only used my skills, but helped me in my own business as we went. Those who have been around have shared their knowledge and wisdom to this very new writer and business owner…God is good!
Why start a business? Because when we prayed about how to do the ministry God had laid on our hearts for six years, God showed us each step of the way a business plan that would allow us to begin a more formalized ministry. Something that would fund the work we do in helping families. God is good….even if he is absolutely breathtaking some days in what He asks of us……and we’re so focused on obeying Him even if we skin our knees alot in the process of our humanness.
Provision, it is provided when we follow Him…..and I can say its happening…..a day at a time…and yet, what blows my mind wide open is……I am working from home from 5-9 a couple or three mornings, stopping when the children are up and usually again 1-3 two afternoons and I still am homeschooling. …the house is still in its routines, dinner is still at 5:30 or 6 and getting done and I still get to be “Mom” and taxi cab for all of them. I still have the freedom to be off when a child’s activity means being there and yet I have such joy in knowing that God indeed gave me this and it is working!
The logo came in a week or so ago from none other than my Graphic Designer friend, Mrs. Goofy…..Sweetwrites! is the license I provide writing services under, facilitate, and ghostwrite and edit work for others. She’s So There is a much more involved business of services for cottage and small business that covers everything from helping one go through the process to go into businesses, to connecting wholesale vendors to small or home businesses, to personal shopping from bulldozers to cherry settees.
God is good and I am thankful!
