Jesus is for the Wounded

How NOT to start an online business!

Published on February 15, 2014February 15, 2014 by Jesus is for the Wounded1 Comment

Trinity Jewelry by Design has become a labor of love for me but it was not always that way! I started it six months after I was no longer able to work in my professional job due to illness. While I did all the planning recommended in starting a traditional business including writing a Business Plan, there were a couple of key elements missing for my success. I would not realize this until almost 2 years later! My “home business” is actually a hobby that has provided “occupational therapy,” not profitable income per se. This is still a good thing, good enough to continue for now.

Much of this blog will focus on Etsy since that is the venue with which I am most familiar. Sellers on Etsy, the largest homemade and vintage goods website on the internet, have valuable online training available for free via newsletters, tutorials, and a deep how-to directory all in one place. The cost is $.20 to list your first item and your sweat equity is free. Anyone can learn how to take a product from your living room to the world even if he or she had very little computer training like I did two years ago. Applying oneself to the process brings a better shop presentation, increased traffic, and sales. Most small business bloggers will tell you the elements for success. I’ll approach it a little differently here based upon my personal experience and observations: success in an online business requires knowing what not to do as well!

Be clear what you are doing.  Is it a hobby or a business? If it is a hobby, the details might not need to be as polished in the beginning as you learn. If you want to pay your bills as you learn, get a professional business mindset, plan, and presentation together before you launch. For example, in my business plan I calculated how many macramé bracelets I needed to sell per week to pay my medical bills and set this as my projected income goal. Two problems stopped me right away: 1) I only knew how to make the most basic jewelry from plain materials and 2) I didn’t know how to take great pictures to “sell” my jewelry in this extremely competitive market.  Sizzle and shine move the shopper to “add to (their) cart.” Identify your purpose and plan accordingly.

Start when you are not distracted by personal and financial stress. Rushing to get something going, skimping on materials (such as packaging to save money that really should go towards gas in your car), not taking the time to check the endless details (e.g. typos in item descriptions), and a tense mindset can kill the excitement of a new venture for you and your customers. Also the creative process needed to make handmade items will be altered by a chaotic home office when burdened by illness of a family member or 24/7 caregiving responsibilities. Going through a significant life change? I offer that it might be a great time to brainstorm about the new venture but might not give you the grounding you need to present yourself to the world with confidence.

Starting when you have not done your homework will waste time and money. Every business requires some level of market research. This might include something as simple as systematically “Googling” your product or service on Etsy, Google and Bing, to see what else is available out there. I was delighted to discover that the search process can lead to identifying trends in my business sector, spur new design ideas, and even help begin networking with other business owners. I also realized that my simplistic designs in the beginning were priced way too high for the value presented. The joy of discovery and creativity go nicely together in the beginning; they are needed periodically to keep things fresh and pertinent as the business goes forward.

Use a limit of funding as a challenge to identify new resources. It can be fun to spend money on a new venture. Whether we have secured a business loan, siphoned-off some income from our 9-to-5 job, or withdrawn money from our savings it just might be the limits of our funding that will help us to be the best stewards of our resources.  One area many home based business fail to budget for is marketing. Yet with just a little reading on Etsy, LinkedIn, and various social media avenues, we can find lots of FREE advertising.  Hello Facebook and Twitter! Search ads on Etsy are great for a launch of your business or a new product and worth a few bucks until traffic increases. The same goes with supplies, print services, and so on. On a smaller scale, I remember discovering lovely new color combinations when my variety of beads and income dwindled!

Dig into social media and link them together. Those entrepreneurs who are already savvy with social media have a huge advantage over casual users. Many of us who use social media to chat might not realize its potential to impact our businesses. For example, I know an Etsy seller who never posts her products on Facebook despite her huge Friends List; she is content to have sporadic sales that barely cover the listing costs. She owns a hobby business. I know another wildly successful online fitness trainer who has paid for training to make daily, seamless pitches to her key customers at the right time with the right message. Others simply hire a marketing company (aka SEO services). You decide.

Forgetting your baby will make your baby go away.   Even a hobby business will eventually fade away if there are no new listings, website updates, or other activity going on. How fun is that?

Remember the power of the personal connection. I’ll end with this: when I wanted to explore an online business and couldn’t handle the hassle or expense of developing my own website, I called my Aunt Patty. She sold patchwork purses and vintage fabrics on Etsy. I had never heard of Etsy! She taught me some basics and then I was off and running. This personal connection that got me started continues with my customers, neighbors who “Like” my listings in our homeowner association Facebook page, international sellers in a jewelry forum on LinkedIn, and so on. Networking with others who share our passions softens the 2-dimensional stiffness of the internet.   It’s good for business and good for our humanity too.

“How NOT to start an online business with Etsy” goes beyond checking your level of inspiration and available perspiration! I offer that if you begin with where you are and what you have, clarifying where you would like to go, and developing a love for the learning process then lots of fun possibilities await including success. I am grateful for this part of my journey while recovering from a serious illness. The future is brighter now and I’m just getting started! How about you?

A Heart Message from Snoopy and Woodstock

Published on February 14, 2014 by Jesus is for the WoundedLeave a comment

And in the meantime . . .

Published on February 13, 2014February 14, 2014 by Jesus is for the Wounded2 Comments

November 20, 2011 around noon. I was alone when my body began shaking uncontrollably. I was having difficulty thinking clearly and my speech was strained. All kinds of fearful, crazy thoughts ran through my mind including blaming myself for what was happening! It was the day after travelling about 16 hours to see family out of State and my husband had gotten up early after just a few hours of sleep to go to church and out to lunch with everyone. Having never fully recovered from viral hepatitis 1 1/2 months earlier and somehow surviving the extended car ride, there just wasn’t any strength left to get up in the morning and join them. Now I was immobilized and terrified of what was happening to me. Somehow I figured out that low blood sugar was worsening the symptoms. Finally I figured out that I needed to call Steve: he could bring home a take-out lunch for me from the restaurant and I would hang on until he got home. The only problems is that everyone was stuck on the other side of town anyways, with the drawbridge up that connected the roads between us! Flash forward about two hours and the episode was over. I fell into a fit full sleep and showered much later that day, pretty beat up from everything and quite embarrassed too. What had happened to me?

April 15, 2012 at 3:00 a.m. I awakened on my birthday with a nightmare and unusual shaking. The nightmare wouldn’t stop even though I was awake, whether or not my eyes are closed. I remained awake a long time, unable to fall back asleep. This incident occurred nine days after beginning to use a Rife machine, six days per week. (A Rife machine generates wavelengths of light and sound in program sequences designed to match the vibrational frequencies of various tissues and organisms in the body.) Treatment for Lyme disease had begun in January with a 5-week course of antibiotics then continued with Rife treatments late in March when I could not tolerate the antibiotics.

April 18, 2012 at 9:20 a.m. After running 15 minutes of various Rife programs, I was shivering uncontrollably. My hands and feet felt extremely cold. Fatigue overtook me and I napped almost two hours. I woke up feeling somewhat rested until crashing after additional treatments including the beginning of a series of magnesium injections.

April 19, 2012 around 5:20 p.m. I am suddenly awakened from a post-Rife treatment nap with the barking of our dog. I am unable to move for almost 30 minutes. My mind is dull yet rested until the second Rife treatment two hours later when I felt depleted once again. I learned that this can be a typical response to various treatments for Lyme disease and is often called a herxheimer reaction.

April 21, 2012 around 3:30 p.m. From my treatment journal I note, “moderate then moderately severe tics as I went to take a nap. Cast out with calling out the name of Jesus. Calmed. Re-started. Called out 2-3 more times and stopped.” A two and one-half hour nap followed shortly thereafter! Napping became my pattern after running Rife programs; my days were consumed with managing all the aspects of treatment.

The attacks of tic episodes continued every other day or so, mixed with nightmares most every day through the rest of the month of April. Beginning May 5th, the low grade and severe tic episodes ramped up to virtually every day. Most often they occurred when falling asleep after a Rife treatment or when trying to fall asleep at night. The first extended episode that appeared to be a full-blown waking seizure was on May 12th after a nap. It lasted 1 1/2 hours! I struggled to keep myself from hyperventilating or stop breathing altogether. Talking or voluntary movement were extremely difficult and made the attacks worse when attempted. I cried! My body temperature dropped and both thirst and hunger pangs increased dramatically. I was miserable, exhausted, and terrified all at the same time. While the nightmares would continue most days for another two weeks, they generally ended and recurred occasionally when taking a new medication or supplement.

Flash forward one year. We remediated our home for mold early in 2013 and both my medication and supplement regimes had changed many times. The seizure attack episodes increased to a couple of hours on a daily basis with some patterning in addition to after exposure to noxious stimuli. I stopped attending worship services at our church since it is a water-damaged building with mold. A recurrent urinary tract infection required treatment with a series of different antibiotics. The seizure attack episodes escalated into convulsions 1-2 hours after taking an antibiotic. My world continued crashing in on me as I began reacting to more and more foods, supplements, and types of noxious stimuli including loud music and bright lights. The tic and seizure attacks ramped up in the summer of 2013 to 3-4 times per day for a total of four hours per day and continued at this level for the next EIGHT MONTHS UNTIL JANUARY OF 2014.

In January of 2014 I was very beat up from the wretched seizure-like episodes. Remarkably they generally decreased to three hours-per-day in February after a series of extremely strict dietary regimes: a stricter, no-low-starch-veggie-Candida diet; Candida and mold-free diet; Candida, mold-free, and low sulfur diet; and finally where I am right now: Candida, mold-free, and low oxalate diet. I have religiously documented my treatment protocols and responses to them, tracked trends, consulted with neurologists & a pulmonologist, networked in numerous online forums and support groups, and researched every angle of this illness to no avail. Overall these days, this sickness is looking more like a biotoxin illness than Lyme Disease as evidenced by some genetic testing of late.

As of February 2014, some improvements have come including being better able to stay asleep and having stronger nails! My hair is thinner and so am I! However, I am largely deconditioned from intolerance to a full daily schedule of activities including exercise; headaches, global pain, ringing in my ears, and more have worsened. I haven’t worked in two years and am homebound much of the week. Concentrating on my hobby jewelry business is extremely difficult. Somehow I have still continued to blog and am grateful for a two-week improvement in my cognition long enough in October to publish my eBook: Hope Beyond Lyme: The First Year. I am grateful for all of the wonderful fellow sojourners I have met these past 2 1/2 years and have made some new friends too. When I see that a non-believer has read this blog, my spirit soars to think maybe the Lord is using my trials to reach others with hope for His glory! To see the Lord, Jesus Christ, as my sustaining grace and a source of hope for enduring the trials of this life makes this blog more than a journal and for that I am humbled, grateful.

And in the meantime . . . I am ready for the seizure-attacks to stop, of course! My neck is killing me from all of the thrashing about you know! I grieve the loss of time, the thousands of dollars, the stress, the isolation, and the strain on my beloved Steve. Will I become disabled or return to work? There is only One who knows the answers to that question and another big one, “why?” Gentle Reader, if you have read this blog before, you know what I am about to write here: it’s o.k. I’m going to trust the lover of my soul anyways, no matter what happens. I may try another treatment approach before I can see the doctors in a new clinic up in Michigan next month. High CBD hemp oil (legal in all 50 States) has been shown to work well for both children and adults with seizures and who knows, it just might help me too. However, I have been down this road of hoping for a cure before, only to have things worsen. Yeah, supreme bummer for sure. Sigh. It takes what it takes. Sometimes we wait and sometimes we go backwards. If the Lord leads me to some new information and gives me the ability to search it out . . . if my husband agrees . . . if the resources present themselves . . . and if there are no barriers after prayer and sleeping on it . . . sure, Ima gonna try it.

So when it works, Lord willing, you can join me in rejoicing for having hung in there with me along the twists and turns of this difficult journey. I hope I remember to lean on the Lord when times are good as well as when they are bad. Please help me keep my Jesus in front of me as He goes before me each day. Now let’s all get ready for some good news, k!

Some things remain a mystery, some not.

Published on February 10, 2014February 11, 2014 by Jesus is for the Wounded3 Comments

An instant later, both Professor Waxman, and his time machine are obliterated, leaving the cold-blooded / warm-blooded dinosaur debate still unresolved.

Today I am recovering from a terrible setback. Turns out the herbal remedy from New Zealand with promising research is horrible for me in my battle with Candida Enteritis. Will go back to my gentler protocol while I await results from testing that I will submit this week. Thereafter I will schedule with a new clinic and in many ways, start over.

Sometimes, the dinosaur wins.

We all have but one past

Published on February 9, 2014February 9, 2014 by Jesus is for the Wounded2 Comments

“We all have one past, but many possible futures,” stated Canadian hockey player Guy LaFleur, in an interview at his retirement (as quoted in the February 2014 newsletter of RZIM ministries).

²⁴However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace. (The apostle Paul speaking in Acts 20:24)

Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. (Proverbs 4:25-26)

Oh to be able to empty myself of yesterday and walk forth into tomorrow with great expectation! To live in the moment with hope that what comes will be filled with the Lord’s tender mercies and grace is to really live freely in Christ. And to know that the struggles of the day will work itself into a beautiful tapestry of my eternal life that has already begun, well, that’s really head-y man!

When I was researching yet another new dietary approach to the illness I endure, I realized how many times I have done this work before. Over and over again I have sat here at our computer and continued to research solutions to the treatment failures in the past. I admit that the new ideas don’t always come from the Lord, however. Who else would come up with a way to make turnips to fit a Candida, mold-free, and low oxalate diet? (Chuckle.) I believe it is the Lord who inspires the best of what comes from me through the Holy Spirit and then provides just enough energy to get me there. For example, I had an unexpected, Divine appointment with a friend who happened to be in the lobby of our doctor’s office on Friday. She needed prayer badly! The Lord in his mercy used me to step out in faith and pray with her right then and there. The fellowship moved each of us. The moment would have been missed if the Lord had orchestrated the events for me to leave the building just a few minutes earlier or later . . .

But really, until I started writing this I always thought that deep down inside I was someone who carried the events of my sordid childhood on my sleeve. My utility to this world was somehow limited because of my past. I thought that the facts that I came from a broken home, witnessed and experienced abuse, grew up lacking basic provisions at times, and didn’t find Jesus Christ until I had spiraled out of control as a young adult limited who I would eventually become someday. Even if my outward appearance showed a measure of success, the inner woundedness kept me from enjoying it. For example, I have had to remember to smile: the joy just isn’t there a lot of the time to beam out from within me. This should have changed when I found Jesus and entered into a personal, saving relationship with Him. He redeemed my sin and began to fill the emptiness in my heart reserved only for Him. Why wasn’t it enough?

I’m not sure I have the answer to that just yet. I do know that sometimes we are our own worst enemies, eh? We get in the way of what the Lord has planned for our lives, the opportunities he places before us and noticing the lovely little niceties he sprinkles around us to show us His love. His love is always around us. It’s my opportunity to let more of it dwell within me and let my eyes find it around me too. And when that happens, more of Him flows through me to others, to my work, to my walk in this life with Him. I can see that it is happening despite my weakness; I just haven’t recognized it enough. I’m worried about appearing humble and making sure I “keep the gate closed” on the sordid remnants of my past. Maybe I don’t need another few years of psychotherapy to figure it all out. I just need to wait on Him. He is leading me more than I realize! And if that means anything to you, well let’s give God the glory! Like Patsy Clairmont says in her book of the same title, God Uses Cracked Pots (1991) like me.

We all have one past. Healing the hurts from our past requires grieving, reflection, restoration, and the passing of time. But carrying it around and letting those wounds drag down the current day that has enough challenges of its own is a mistake. Cut the ties to the past and live mindfully in the present. Don’t deny who you are or your unique story. Tell it to others who need to hear . . . talk about it with your heavenly Father who has sustained you to grow you into the man or woman you are today. The possibilities of an amazing future awaits, adventures big and tiny, and we don’t want to miss them do we?

Say, I saw a gathering of robins (that signal the first sign of Spring in the Midwest) playing in a couple of feet of snow the other day when I was coming home from that doctor appointment. I was exhausted as I turned the corner in my truck and some yucky stuff happened later that evening. All of these events were in the mix of the activities of my day. The bottom line is that the robins are back! That is just sweet enough to warm my heart and the tips of my fingers in my fingertip less gloves as I type into the wee hours of the morning (until it’s time to take my final saliva sample for a lab test at the correct time interval, that is!).

Talk about cracked pots . . . JJ