The Reason We Are Here

Ever wonder why you're doing what you're doing? Ever contemplate if you're supposed to be doing more than this whatever "this" is? I think a lot of people do, and those who say they don't have figured out what it's taken me way too many decades to learn. There really is an answer to that question, and let's be honest, it's probably not what we were taught in school.

I grew up in a small county in Eastern Kentucky. I watched my grandparents and parents get up each day and respectively go about their tasks for the day. My parents had been working in the medical field by the time I came alone. My father was an orderly, and my mom was a nurse. Eventually after my brother was born, mom stopped working and my dad moved to day job with the Post Office. Both of my parents were college graduates. My grandfather worked in a sawmill until an injury put him out of work well before I was born. My grandmother was a homemaker her entire life. Neither made it past first grade in school. I lived on a mountain side surrounded by church going, God fearing, Jesus loving family members, who never ceased talking about the Bible and the importance of knowing God and having the Bible guide me in all I do.

In my youth, I spent my summers running outside, either in the garden, planting flowers or playing with my sister, brother and cousins. We'd spent countless days on the lake or going to flea markets and thrift stores. I recall spending a lot of time watching my parents and grandparents, and even a few extended members of the family making homemade baskets. They went into the mountains to find the vines and gather tree limbs that would be used to craft these beauties. After spending hours cutting the limbs into the right length to make the handles and ribs of each basket. They'd boil the vines and bark to make the ribs and ends of each basket. Then once their creates were complete, they'd take them and sell them at the Red Bird Mission for far less than they were actually worth. The tales I could write about from those experiences are endless.

We stayed busy, and I never knew until I was almost an adult myself just how poor we actually were, and how little we had. My parents did what needed to be done to feed us, clothe us, and give us a really good childhood. We learned to value everything we had, and the fruits of frugal living, not because it was cool, but because we had no other choice. When my brother, sister and I got to the age where we could get a job, we did. We worked on the house collectively to keep it clean and we shared the choirs.

I've carried all those lessons that I was taught as a kid about working hard, valuing what you have, and not being afraid to work into my adult life. Like the fact that my faith and family come before everything else. To never worry because God is in ultimate control. That what I need, He will supply. No matter what was popular at the time for others my age, no matter how much people picked on me for being different, at the end of the day, I knew I was fearfully and wonderfully made, and I have a purpose. I've raised my kids to be the same way, with those same values.

Yet with all that wisdom and all those life skills I've learned throughout my life, I found myself falling into the trap of becoming too narrowminded, too driven by wanting to give my kids more than I had growing up. I was the ultimate worker bee and had spent the better part of my life being in management roles at a variety of jobs. Let me say it now, I was EXHAUSTED.

Little did I know that 2019 was going to be a turning point for me, and that Covid was right around the corner, and was going to turn everyone's world upside down. While I was 'stuck at home' for fear of spreading the virus to others, I found that I was still able to use my hands to make the things my grandmother used to do. I was able to make money through various hobbies of mine, and I found I really liked doing that. So, for two years, I crafted. I painted. I baked. I made things with my sewing machine, and twice a week a set up at a farmer's market to sell those things. I was doing exactly what I was raised to do, and I quickly understood how my grandparents must have enjoyed being alive in a time when that's how you made a life for yourself. It wasn't easy, and we didn't have a lot financially to speak of, but none of us were truly unhappy. In fact, those are some of the best times of my life.

My life was balanced back, and from 2021 through 2023, I learned to shift my focus and find that balance again. In a time that was truly terrible, I was bringing a smile to someone's face and able to make someone's day just a bit brighter by doing things I've done most of my life. I was sharing my faith and seeing it change others around me. Even in the hardest times, I'd felt calmer than I ever had before, and I wasn't worried about how I'd provide for my family.

When things started opening back up, I found myself going back to work, and in the last three years, realized how miserable doing eight hours a day for company who can replace me tomorrow is. I'm finding my way back to where I'm happiest, where I know I'm supposed to be, and that's the reason I'm here today, writing this blog. (A first for me)

God didn't give up on what He'd started doing within me though during 2019, 2020 and 2021. He kept going, even when I fell back into that same ole routine of working 40 hours 'for the man'. He kept moving things around me, sometimes even moving me to different places and putting me in situations I wasn't used to. He put people in our paths that led us to leave the church we had been attending for two decades, to a place where He could use me to help others. It's there that I met my best friend, who read a story I'd written decades ago, and decided we needed to stop letting them live solely on my PC and in my head.

I'd created so many 'almost novels' and we'd started with the one she read first, and she helped me put the finishing touches on it, making it worthy of being put in the hands of other readers. As she was doing the final edits on A Soul's Reflection, I was pulling A Soul's Embrace together. From there, the All Good Souls was birthed into existence, as was Wyld Romantic Skies.

So-- WHY AM I HERE? WHAT IS MY PURPOSE?

Easy-- To use the talents I have, in all their variations and in combination along with Crystal's to shine a light in an otherwise sad, brutal world. We have big plans to reach as many people as we can, and to do so with our priorities right. We are balancing faith, family and everything else, and letting God do what He will with us.

That is the reason this blog was created. Why this website, and the various books and crafty things you'll see on it was put together and are being made available to the masses. It's why I'm willing to put out every story I've saved on my computer over the years, knowing I'm opening myself up to criticism and ridicule. I'm letting everyone see ME as I am.... the good, the bad, the odd and weird... the entire enchilada as the saying goes. I'm not an eloquent public speaker, but I can do pretty good from behind a keyboard.

At the end of the day, we all want love.

The next series we have in the works, Love Unstoppable Series is one that we feel needs to be put out for the world to see. We have the first book in the series dropping at the end of APRIL, and a second book in the process of being drafted. These stories need to be told, and because they are real, and heartbreaking, and uplifting, it's taken us a bit longer than anticipated to get them completed. As the title suggests, the focus is the unstoppable force that LOVE is. These books are going to include hard things but also uplift and inspire us all to do better, to be better. That's the reason I'm here, using my many talents, and most of my college degree to reach people who might not see the light at the end of their tunnel. To illustrate faith in action, the way it's meant to be done, and to provide a glimmer of hope to an otherwise divisive, dreary world.

Stay tuned! We're just getting started!

~ Erica