i want to begin by sharing our deepest gratitude to all of you for your encouragement & support of our online general store, freckled hen farmhouse. it’s been an absolute gift to share this project with you & one that i feel i have been preparing for my entire life. goodness, we are just so grateful for you & we cannot even begin to say thank you enough for an amazing first week!
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dear friends, i want to talk about fear.
i am no stranger to fear. as a creative entrepreneur, i balance fear & faith daily.
fear of failure. fear of messing up. fear of the unknown. fear of no retirement. fear of not being current enough. fear of being inauthentic. fear of being too authentic.
i juggle these fears with my truths, some days putting my faith into action & on the uglier days, allowing my anxieties to dictate the day.
i believe we all struggle with our own unique fears, anxieties & doubts. we believe we aren’t good enough spouses, parents, entrepreneurs, friends, humans. we place more value on our shortcomings than our successes. we shrug off the light & focus in on the darkness.
and although i firmly believe fear can cripple just about anyone, i do believe it can have a way of propelling us forward.
last year, with the future of luke’s job unstable & the rockiness of potentially depending on just one (self-employed) income to support our family, the fear began to set in. instead of allowing our anxieties to control our future, together we began dreaming up just what we always knew we were made to do.
dear friends, no part of that season was easy. we took on a huge financial risk & chose to fully invest in freckled hen farmhouse during one of the most difficult parts of our story. i’m quite certain luke was on the verge of divorcing me if he heard “i am so scared!” one more time. only kidding. but honestly, that fear pushed us to connect more deeply with one another & dig deeper into the next chapter.
truth be told, not all fear has such a picture-perfect ending & oftentimes our anxieties are not even based in reality, but i think it points to a bigger picture. it proves that we have this really amazing ability to triumph in hardship, make lemonade out of lemons & conquer even our biggest fears.
yes, we will fail. yes, we may lose money. yes, we might just lack security & yes, we won’t always be that perfect parent. but we will grow stronger, believe in ourself even more, gain humility & possibly set trail on a brand new – & oftentimes even better – path.
dear friends, don’t let your fears convince you that playing it safe is better than risking it all for a more joy-filled life.
tell me your thoughts on fear. let’s chat.
love,
natalie