The Lord laid it on my heart to share a bit of my story with you today. Of course, I can't get it all down here. But I want to open up a little bit about how I arrived at the place God has graced me to occupy.
Well, let's see... I got married when I was 21 years old and got pregnant right away. I lost my first baby when I was four months pregnant and my husband and I were devastated. I wouldn't eat. I refused to pray. I was so angry.
Why would God take away the new life inside of me? That rocked my world, but thankfully, the Lord saw me through it. So when I got pregnant again, the doctors advised me to stay home and take it easy. I was still in college at the time, so I had to take a year off. During that time I remember feeling like I didn't really know what I would do with my life. This was well before I got bit with the entrepreneurship bug.
I began dibbling and dabbling in freelance writing. It all began with a few church projects. You know... editing, writing letters, nothing fancy and nothing I got paid for either. But through that, I discovered somewhat of a love and gift of writing. I never planned to parlay that into anything. I was just doing something... or at least that's what I thought at the time.
Skip ahead a few years...
My husband had a dream (literally) about starting a business one night. He woke up with fire under him and neither of us knew much about starting a business. Even though the thought of entrepreneurship fascinated me, it terrified me too! I wanted to be home with the kids and still contribute financially to the family, but I didn't know where to begin.
We had absolutely no idea what we were doing! Both of us graduated with degrees in English... not MBA's. We pretty much depleted our savings trying to run a consulting/writing business that first year. It was so sad. We were like, "God we thought you gave us this vision. Why isn't it working?"
But God was teaching us and refining us at that time.
After initially struggling to stay afloat, we shifted our focus primarily to writing--ghostwriting, editing, web copywriting etc. I can't tell you how many times we "reinvented" ourselves and the business.
After a while, I started thinking we might be a little crazy.
But God is so merciful. He began opening doors and we landed larger accounts. Those terrified us too. There was an enormous amount of work involved and much higher expectations came along with the higher price tag. Many days and nights I prayed and wondered, "What have I gotten myself into? Is this really you God?" But as always, God walked us through those hectic times.
As the business grew, our company brought on a few more ghostwriters/editors to help with the load. Eventually, we added a team of web designers to expand our list of services... and we branched out from there. Expanding our services was a bit scary in the beginning. But we did it anyway by faith.
God continued opening doors.
It's been five years since we first started our business; to see what God has done in that amount of time is so awesome.
I never knew that He would challenge me to begin an online magazine as my next venture. But God was preparing me 5 years ago when I first started a monthly newsletter.
Let me just interject something right here. Whenever the Lord plants something in your spirit, stick with it. You never know what He's up to.
Well, my newsletter, at the time, was an expression of my thoughts and ideas about business, ministry, purpose and whatever else was on my mind each month. I called it "Paradigms and Principles." All it was, was a PDF article attached to an email that I designed myself with my limited skills. I remember when my newsletter subscription reached 8 people. I thought that was a miracle! I was so excited that ANYBODY at all wanted to read what I had to say. Then, 8 turned into 20 and the numbers kept growing.
That's how I tapped into what I call "the desire to inspire". EEW Magazine was birthed out of that desire. God placed it on my heart to push past my limitations and launch an online magazine for Black Christian women.
Ask me if I had any idea how to do that.
Uh... no.
Ironically, I've never been a magazine reader. I still don't have any subscriptions! I just wanted to inspire people--particularly women of color. I know how cunning the enemy is and He's eroding away the spiritual and moral fiber of believers. He's doing it subtly and sometimes overtly through the media. That's why God is raising up a generation of people that refuses to be led astray.
I believe I'm a part of that generation and so are you.
In the beginning, even with a divinely-ignited fire in my soul I still felt like, "God, I don't know enough to begin a magazine! I don't even read those things. Besides, with all of the 'big guys' out there, how do I compete?'"
But the Lord instructed me NOT to try to compete, but rather, to let EEW be an expression of what He placed in my heart to do. So, I did. I talked to my team about it and we created a free online magazine--Empowering Everyday Women Online Magazine-- and pitched businesses, ministries, and other organizations to support us through advertising revenue.
Sometimes it was difficult to convince major organizations to take a risk with a start-up online mag, but I thanked God for those who did say yes. We were also able to leverage some of the contacts we had from ministry connections.
At the outset, for every yes, there were about 5 no's. But eventually, one yes led to another one... and another. Today, EEW Magazine is still going strong. God is so faithful, isn't He?
Nurturing the vision hasn't always been easy though. There have been times when I poured my heart and soul into a new initiative that just didn't seem to be working out; but God wouldn't let me give up. Somehow and some way, whenever I wanted to quit, He would send something or someone to re-ignite that fire in my soul.
I'm still trusting Him to lead and guide me everyday.
I want to encourage you today to stick with whatever God has planted in your spirit. If you know that idea is from Him, don't give up on it. Though it won't bloom overnight, if you keep nurturing that seed, it will grow and blossom into something wonderful!
As always, thanks for reading, and until next time... may you be empowered to prosper!
Dianna Hobbs
www.eewmagazine.com
