Do what you love?

Do What You Love, and Let God Send the Rest

I always believed that if I do what I love, the money will follow.

Not because it’s a cute quote for a coffee mug. Because I’ve lived it

The things that I love I am incorporating all this in a nonprofit business where writing, speaking and other things are needed.

Writing — one chapter a day of the book that’s dear to me, my laptop open in coffee houses across Oregon, born here, loving this state. Speaking — learning to use my voice as an introvert who loves being an extrovert too. Teaching young women they don’t have to rely on family or a man for support. Running seminars on scholarships because that is free money and there are millions of opportunities. Camps for girls in their cocoon stage who think they’re not strong. Programs that say: “You are enoughl.”

It will take me about 5 years to complete my PhD and I know with this project and the PhD I will be able to work on building a life for me that I can only imagine.

Five years sounds long until you’ve lived 51. Until you’ve spent a silent year becoming strong with yourself. Until you know God has given you so much strength that what anyone says about you does not matter. Five years is just the next chapter.

I’ll file the Articles of Incorporation. Apply for 501(c)(3). Build the board. Write the bylaws. Open the bank account. Chase the grants. And study. Word before world, water before worry.

50 is the golden years where you still have time to change your life and do things that matter.

Golden doesn’t mean finished. Golden means refined. If I do what I love — writing, speaking, teaching, lifting — the money will follow. Maybe through scholarships. Maybe through donors who hear my story in the community. Maybe through a grant that lands because the right person read the right sentence. I don’t know how. But I know Who.

God puts the opportunities in my life when needed. My job is to stay ready. To keep the curls if it rains. To straighten my hair if I feel like it. To smile wide. To show up.

In 5 years, I’ll have a PhD and a nonprofit. In 10 years, I’ll have stories of young women who stood on their own two feet because someone told them they could.

That’s the life I can only imagine.

And I’m already living it.