Why I Left Stampin' Up! and What's Next

 Have you ever HIT A WALL?!?!

Have to Give Up A DREAM?!?

A Passion? A Business? A Life Vision?

Well... I did this last year and 

I had to give up Stampin' Up!

Here is a Video on what has happened... 

this was inspired after I hit a wall in exhaustion and it led to adrenals crashing, hormones going awry and life going upside down.  

I also LITERALLY Disappeared from the Stampin UP! system for two weeks!

It also led to me giving up... 

Letting Stampin' Up! go after 16 years of doing what I love....

I laid it down at the foot of God and stepped back.

Guess what??  

This is one of the reasons I love God - when you give up a dream, He gives you something much better in return.  

This is also one of the reasons I love Stampin' Up! - with the support of my Getting Crafty Family (aka team) and my Getting Crafty Stampers, my family, my friends and even the support of those at Stampin Up!... I walked away... 

I paused...

 and I had to say to the Lord "OK, Father God, if you want me to let this go, to walk away after 16 years of doing this as a business.. I will."

This week it hit me.. this has been YEARS (especially the last two) where I had to continually do that.. extract my fingers that clung so deeply to what I wanted... to lay it at the foot of the Cross, to give it up, to see what God will do instead.

Know what??

It has been AMAZING at how God can turn, what seems like a loss, into a bigger blessing.

So Good-Bye to what I knew of my life and HELLO to what is new.

(Here is a post I shared on Social Media this week and I just wanted to share it.)

This was one of many changes that happened to us this year. 

We didn’t end up in this home  (in the historic district of Fort Wayne). We ended up with multiple buyers on our home in CA who failed to line up proper financing. The last buyer who made life hell for us and dragged it out (our realtor was FLOORED by the insanity of that and she’s been a realtor for 20+ years!)

BUT even in this God shines bright. 

We found the beautiful craftsman home we are in, in Markle (the cutest little town full of amazing people), centrally located to family and with a river and private peninsula in our backyard. We saw it online, family viewed it with our realtor and our cash offer with a two week escrow.... God knew. 

This year I struggle to look back at it all..

HONESTLY?!? I really have blocked much of it out as we went from crisis to crisis daily, weekly, monthly and I lost count. From multiple handymen, people who broke more than fixed it, moving the four kids, two dogs and I across the USA 🇺🇸 to establish our new life.... to our husband’s employer closing down in CA. Massive fraud, fighting the state of CA who stole $$ via the DMV, moving away from family and close friends to a whole new life. From insane crashes in our front yard, flooded basements, construction 🚧 needed on our home that was hidden by the previous owner, medial emergencies (from fireworks 🎇 in my son’s legs and subsequent burn unit visits to my daughter’s heart rate crashing and my liver becoming enflamed from stress)... trauma in bad employers for my kids to ended up at a good job/employer and together... new flooring (it took months to come in) that we had to rip out due to the flooding, new furniture that came after we sat on the floor for months, being close to friends who we met in CA who live in IN... we were never alone and God never abandoned us. 

(I really need to write ✍️ it all down to remember all the Lord has taken us through.) 

We plugged into new homeschool communities, found a church we love and now are finding service opportunities in, the kids and I joined taekwondo 🥋 and grow in strength physically and mentally, found friends in our community in local businesses who help us, even now, get our footing... John joined us this past October, holidays and exhaustion (and depression) became an issue but - even in this - God brought the right health care to help pull us out of it. We even have old friends HERE within driving distance and it’s a bit of home to be close to them. 

God brought us to a beautiful new life, filling our hearts with new friends while we keep (and miss) the old... one of the blessings of social media is keeping connected. I maybe struggling with some lingering exhaustion but I find rest in His love, grace, mercy and provision. 

(I laugh that EVEN NOW there is more change coming and I do NOT know His plan but I doooo know that God will continue to protect, bless and provide for us!) 

“'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. '” — Jeremiah 29:11 

All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

BTW - we’ve driven by this house, a few times, and we KNOW as we are filled with peace that it was NOT for us. God did use it as a stepping stone to hold us during that season that lead us to our forever home 🏡 that issss a blessing!!