Saturday, April 26, 2014
The End of a Chapter
God works in mysterious ways. For months I've been praying for direction from God regarding my jewelry business. I wrote about feeling led to teach. I felt it was God leading me to inquire at Hobby Lobby if they offered classes. It seemed like a door opening when the manager told me they had all kinds of classes, but none in jewelry. So I began a journey of preparing classes to teach at Hobby Lobby. I scheduled classes, both evenings and weekends, to work around people's busy lives. They didn't call. They didn't email. Nothing. The flyers I prepared were disappearing from the store, but yet the phone was silent. One day this past week I was in the store and saw the store manager, Natalie. I told her things were not going well, people just weren't interested. Natalie told me she had a new Wilton Cake lady who came in on a Saturday, sat near the front of the store, and talked with people to tell them about the classes on cake decorating. Natalie suggested I do something similar. So this morning I packed up some samples of pieces, some materials to work on as a demonstration, plenty of business cards, flyers, the works. I told myself I would give it four hours, and today was make it or break it - either the door was going to open, or it would shut once and for all. I sat there for four hours, smiling, nodding, working. I talked to probably only half a dozen people. Nobody was gushing like they were wondering where I had been all their life. After my allotted time, I packed up my case and told the manager that was it, I was done. People just weren't interested in classes at Hobby Lobby. I hauled my case out to the car and got in. Then I remembered that I wanted to browse in the clearance aisle, so I went back into the store. I browsed through the racks, but my heart just wasn't in it. I was feeling defeated, anxious. Then I happened to catch a glimpse of a key ring. On the key ring was a charm that read "KEEP CALM & TRUST GOD". Thank you God for that gentle reminder. I may not know your plan or your timing, but I know it is perfect.
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2 comments:
Maybe you need to look into doing something within your church community? Or another avenue is local community center. I know the ladies that offer jewelry classes at our community center are ALWAYS overbooked. We've been making a joke that there isn't enough teachers to go around.
I hope to hear soon that slowly more and more people are interested. I, too, am just starting to teach and one thing I keep remembering is my old boss talking about a conference he used to run every year. By the time I was working for him, we had hundreds of people at the conference every summer, but he said the first year he did it, there were less than 10. I was astounded. But knowing that something can start SOOOO slowly and build to great heights is very encouraging to me. Can't wait to follow up with you this time next year and see how it's going.
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