I’ve been wanting to do this blog post for a while, but had some trouble laying all my thoughts out accurately.
I have had a lot of challenges I have been dealing with, a lot more than I am used to; personally, and a little bit professionally. I want to always be open and real, luckily I have a blog that allows me to do that fairly easily.
This past year has been pretty tough, there has been a lot of changes in my life. I am going to spell out the major ones, not to whine, but just so you have some back story to where I am coming from….Weston and I lost two people who were pillars of strength in our lives, and found out that two other very close loved ones are very, very ill. Weston had changed careers, going in the direction of music, his first passion even before photography. Not having him as a part of the daily biz stuff is different and change can be a little tough. And as you all have probably heard, Kimberlee, my best friend, the closest I have even known to a sis, has moved out of state to be with her love, Eric. Things with The Boudoir Divas will remain the same, although some stuff will be a little tricky logistically. Even before Prince Eric came around K and I had some big decisions to make with the direction of the biz. What is next for us? Our two options are very different. It will be dramatic (and exciting!) but we are scared to make the wrong choice and we can’t put off the decision much longer. I am getting a little bit obsessive about thinking over which is the right way to go. Yuck.
And through all these challenges, my walk with God has been kinda rocky. I just can’t figure out why he is testing me so, so much. And just when I think I take one more thing, he tested me in another huge area: finances. And recently, when I let myself get too scared, too emotional, too down, I tweeted asking for prayer because I was so nervous about our finances. Then I realized that even though that tweet was about me and my personal life, I didn’t want people to worry about The Boudoir Divas in general. And, I realized that K and I are so closely tied that I didn’t want it reflecting on her. It’s not like you can really elaborate in a tweet. So I deleted it right away, but not after I am sure plenty of peeps saw it.
I know that a lot of people don’t like to share financial info, but I feel like I want to be open and honest in all areas of my life including financial. I don’t want this blog to be just butterflies and rainbows because that wouldn’t be an accurate rep of us. Nobody’s life is like that. I am sure you are thinking, ‘yea duh’, right? 😉 So here is what I was talking about in that tweet: about a year ago Weston and I received an inheritance from an uncle we unfortunately didn’t know very well. Next of kin, type thing. Well because we felt as though we really didn’t know him, we thought it was only right to give most of the money away to charity. Come a year later, after that money is gone, the gov is suing us for his cost of care for the years he resided in the Veterans’ home. Saying that this money is owed to them. So the day I tweeted, I let myself get to a really negative place in missing loved ones and just feeling overwhelmed in general. While I was in this pity party, we got a call and we learned from our lawyer that we really needed to start looking at how we were going to repay the gov. (And I know what you are thinking, yes we have tax receipts from what we gave away, no the gov doesn’t seem to care.) We had to look at the amount that we had been saving since we were dating 13 years ago (and just started to look at condos because we finally had a down payment). We had to look at emptying the retirement money we had been slowly putting away and face the heavy tax penalty from removing it to boot.
So that compiled with so many other more important emotional things going on in my life…. I was kinda at a breaking point for lack of a better term. I was trying to understand why God had taken my fairly even keeled life, and in one year poured on challenge after challenge in every area. At that low point all I knew to do was ask for prayer. And I definitely have begun to feel those prayers affect me. While my circumstances haven’t changed, in fact in some ways they have gotten a little worse, I feel God teaching me that I was at total standstill in my life before. I wasn’t in a place where I wanted to grow a whole lot, I was comfortable, I felt as though our biz had arrived and I was just really content just doing what I loved, and no more. I had a few things planned here and there for God but He was just showing me that he wanted me to get out of the boat. I was too cozy. And I am sure he showed me in subtle ways, but I wasn’t really listening. So he pretty much shoved me out of my comfortable little life I had created for myself. And just to be clear, by “comfortable” I’m not talking financially, I mean in how I had set up my life so I didn’t have to get out of my comfort zone very often.
What I am learning now is that he doesn’t want me to live a comfortable life without risk. He wants me to make bold decisions, he wants me to do bold things for Him, and to trust him completely all the way. And while I can’t control what happens in this life, I do know that there is a creator who loves me, loves all of us. That he is there for us and asking us to not try to live in a way that minimizes every risk. He wants us to experience joy, and fun, and rewarding things, but he also wants us to do things in His name. Whether that be in service, monetarily, or giving our love away constantly, praising Him everyday and being grateful for every bit of joy that he gives us. And in other ways I hope to discover. And the hardest thing….trusting in God even if at times he feels far away; as God seems to allow difficult things to happen in our lives so we will grow in character and realize how much we need to rely on Him.
Now I know that today I may just be very positive, so it is easy for me to arrive at this place, but I believe it’s because in some of my worse days I asked loved ones, acquaintances, and even strangers for prayer. I truly believe that is why my heart and head is where it is today. Thank you everyone who has been so amazing in prayer and support.
Love- M
