Hello, my friends! I am reflecting on my two year anniversary since I began blogging, also known as a bloggerversay, on April 19, 2018. On that date, my first article on my own website was published. At that time, I was blogging under the moniker, Ms. Fiology. If you are here, you know I now blog at Recovering Women Wealth.

I’m a fan of celebrating milestones and/or anniversaries. Earlier this year I celebrated 10 years of sobriety and just before that a little birthday of 47 years. It’s amazing how the birthdays keep coming every year, but I swear I’m getting Younger Next Year. 😉

While I do stay active and fit, it only takes one weekend with my niece & nephew to remember, the years are stacking up!

Anyway, as time continues to roll forward and I’ve kept up the habit of blogging, I naturally have some reflections. Future directions? I am not so sure about that but I do know one thing, I’m called to write and teach.

If you will, please journey with me on this post as I share my reflections, lessons learned, intimate thoughts, and prayers for an uncertain future.

Revelation Through Writing…

When I moved out of my parent’s house (for a second time) after paying down debt, I found a bunch of my old writings. I unpacked boxes of childhood diary entries, poetry, plays, teenage angst journal entries, and young adult ponderings. It was then that I realized how therapeutic writing is for me.

Writing for me is not really always about knowing what to say (sometimes it is) but rather a chance to express and process to a new revelation. Occasionally, I hear from God in my writing.

As an extrovert, I do my best processing out loud with other people. However, in the COVID-19 pandemic, I’m finding myself with more alone time. Writing is one of the things keeping me sane and expressive. It’s healthy for me.

Writing for revelation

Sometimes I sit down to write (type/blog) and only loosely have an idea of what I am lead to write on. Once I begin, the words, emotions, and moreover the revelation pours out of me. I believe this is one of my best ways of hearing from God. Spirituality is such a personal journey and I believe we all hear/see differently.

As a person of Christian faith, there is no doubt the main way I connect with God is through the bible, prayer, meditation and worship. However, I’ve personally identified that I connect more naturally with God in either of these two:

1. Nature
2. Writing

As a daughter who wants to connect more with her heavenly Father, I spend as much time as possible in both.

I’ll be the first to admit, I know so little. Sure, I’ve gained some wisdom through the years about recovery and financial literacy. Wisdom is gained by living through some stuff. We all, hopefully, are wise with our own lives.

Although, I do believe we stand in a position of strength when we recognize how much more there is to know. By that, we can remain teachable.

Sharing my experience on the canvas (my blog) allows me to process externally, I get the thoughts, which may be swirling around in my brain, out. Sure, I go back and clean things up and edit but in my blogging, there is often a new revelation. My hope (and prayer) is that there is a revelation for you too. I share so much of my personal journey because you never know what’s going to strike a chord with someone. May we all glean from another and grow together.

Writing to teach

Other times, I sit down with clarity of what I want to teach on. In these episodes, I’m feeling called to share what I’ve learned with a strategy for you to potentially learn about the thing too.

When I was getting my education degree, I had a professor tell us that a good teacher is one who can take a complicated subject and present it simply. That is definitely easier said than done. However, when I teach that is something I always strive to accomplish.

Therefore writing to teach, always involves making a plan of presentation. It involves knowing the overall objective. For example, when I wrote a post about becoming an investor, my objective was to empower others to become investors.

Once I know my objective for a lesson, everything I write and teach is focused on achieving that objective. I work to break down the concepts into bite-size topics that are approachable.

I’m also learning the more specific the objective the more I can narrow in on the topic at hand.

Finally, I like to wrap everything up to make sure I drive home the main points.

The more I teach, the more I learn. Some of my education professors also told me that there is no better way to learn a subject than by teaching it. I agree. As I teach through writing, the revelations keep coming.

My advice is if you want to learn something, teach it!

Always telling a story

There is one common theme through it all which is what I believe makes it enjoyable to read – I’m always telling a story ♥.

I’m an open book and have been through some things. We all have! Our experiences are unique and distinctly ours; however, there is also nothing new under the sun. Ideally, we are all open books for the greater good of the whole.

I have a good friend who says,” it’s not your story not to share; it’s God’s story.” Love that ♥

When I got sober and started to unearth my issues and their roots, I gained more freedom. This process is never-ending and I’m always peeling the onion so to speak.

One thing became very clear to me upon getting sober. The years of my life which were lost to addiction/alcoholism could be redeemed if I was willing to share my testimony with others.

As the years go by, I’ve gotten better at sharing my story. Additionally, God has/is teaching me to really discern my audience, in particular when I’m sharing it live. Different audiences need to hear different parts of my story.

I have so many stories to share so I’m not stopping any time soon.

Closing Thoughts

I titled this post revelation through writing because that is mostly what occurs whether it be through myself or my readers.

Blogging is a lot of work and takes discipline. There are probably many reasons to blog but for me, it’s a calling.

My audience has grown over the past two years. Certainly with no small thanks to other bloggers featuring me on their site!

Speaking of being featured, I was interviewed this past week on a friend’s Australian blog, Late Starter FIRE. It’s always such an honor when another blogger shares my story. Late Starter FIRE is a woman who discovered the concept of financial independence late in life like I and has a great series where she features others in the same boat.

Lastly, I want you to know I do not take the responsibility of having an audience lightly. I consider my audience a gift and I’ll continue writing quality content with care and concern in prayerful hopes of inspiring revelation. Be blessed everyone!