Handmade Hope

Oh my handmade ladies. 

My heart is so broken for you right now. 

After my last post I have had so many ladies message me about their brokenness and frustrations in this handmade world. The pains they have gone through in their business, their creativity, and their sense of betrayal when finding a copy. 

Oh ladies, I have been there. I have created for hours, felt the excitement of giving birth to a new creation, only to find the newness isn't as new and shiny as I thought it was. I have meet other ladies that created things just like I did from other parts of the country and quickly did the math too see who started first. I've cried over a Etsy page as I saw something that I created in memory of the children we had lost to miscarriage, copied and sold by some one else. 

I feel your broken creativity.

I know there is fear, there is hurt, there is anxiety. I know what it is like to sit down and stare at the stack of bills and your bank account and wonder how this is going to work. I know the panic when you put everything you can on sale to try and make more money. I know what it is like to feel threatened. Threatened that this other shop could take your sale, then you wont have money for diapers or formula or the power bill. 

I know the panic, the anger, the frustration. 

I know all too well. 

I walk that path all too easily.

Ladies please listen.

You are so much more then what you create.

You are more unique then the uniqueness of your goods.

You are more then your bottom line.

You are more than your Etsy stats.

You are more...... Because He is more.

He is more than your bills.

He is more than your hurt.

He is more than your fears.

He is more than you need.

I am not by any way trying to diminish your hurt. I know that hurt. I would want nothing more then to sit down and hear everyone of your hurts and hug you ((even though I am not a huggy person, I have that urge)). I want to buy you a cup of coffee, pray over you, and tell you this.

You are a beloved daughter of God. Given a gift. A gift of creativity, a gift of a skill.

Just like the proverbs 31 women, you create for your home.

But did you know there wasn't just ONE proverbs 31 women.

There wasn't just ONE women selling her goods to the merchants.

There were many. 

Many women.

I have this image in my mind.

A dirty, hot market. Little wooden stands waiting to be filled with merchandise. Just bit of crispness coming off the ocean with the light is slowly beginning to break, as the merchants fill the area. Some men, some women, bringing their goods to be sold. I see two women, both with yards of gorgeous purple linens. You know that deep beautiful purple, that purple that is set apart from all others? I see that purple, I see those women, I watch as they walk to two different stands.

Two women.

Two creative hearts.

One product.

One God blessing them both.

I see these two ladies, smiling at each other, thanking God for His blessings, and praying for the blessings for the other. I see these two ladies, going about the business day, buying, selling, praising, happy to be used by God and looking for yet another way to serve. I see at the end of a long day, them packing up, nodding to one another and walking home.

Happy and content. 

Content at what God provided them that day. Not running through a list in their head of how many sells they had. Not spending the day with one eye on the “competition” making sure they did better. Not wondering who started their shop first. They kept their eyes on the one that Provides, and out of that the joy in their hearts over flow.

Handmade ladies, please don't forget Gods promises. He promises to protect you, to provide for you! He promise to not leave you. He knows the pain in your hearts, the tears in your eyes, the aches in your soul. Please ladies, please, we are all daughters. We are stronger with Christ and with each other.

Ladies, I leave you with this. I pray that God blesses not just your shops but your whole life. I pray that your creativity flows, I pray that God ministers into you pain. I pray for this community to be strengthen, not in shop sales but in love, in praise for God, and for total joy for each others blessings.

I pray that is Godly handmade community can be radically different. That we help each other, bless each other, pray for each other, in a way that doesn't make business sense but makes total loving Godly sense.