“It is one thing to live, another to philosaphize. When therefore the question is about the conduct of our lives, and the performance of our duty, we cease to be philosophers, to be opponents, doubtful or uncertain; and become poor, simple credulous idiots; we call things by their names, and re-assume our understanding and manners; we conform our manners to those of other men, and to their laws and customs” ~ Pierre-Daniel Huet
Nothing about the journey we have been on these two years, matches up with that quote. Oh, I’ve longed at times to take the easy way out and treat my faith as a philosophy, but then I would have missed what only God can do. Like bringing Glory to Himself through our Cupcakery.
Moving forward in faith can be frightening, and it was for my wife and I. Neither of us had ever been in business. Now we were giving up 40,000 real dollars for a great unknown. We had launched forth, head long into a dream my wife had kept in her heart. Our business, Pink Champagne Cupcakery, had taken on a life of it’s own even before we made the decision to pursue it.
We invested more money than we were giving up, but we had come to the conclusion, with the events that lead to our decision, that this wasn’t going to be about money, but more so about following God’s lead, and for His use.
Michal kept saying, “how can I serve God baking cupcakes?”
We were moving against conventional reason. This business made no sense for our family financial state. It made no sense business wise either. Franklin is a great town, but the County is very territorial. People from other towns in the county don’t travel 6 miles for anything, especially cupcakes. The economy was lackluster, and we were so specialized.
It took us less than a month to get the store remodeled and open, thanks to the help of some great friends. The first day we opened up we sold out of cupcakes in 1 hour. We sold many more that day after successive baking. The response was overwhelming!
We were in business!
We set the business up specifically to be relational with our customers and built a quick and solid following. In less than 2 years we had a Facebook following of over 2,300. That’s big, like huge big!
Our shop was a cozy place, which featured words such as; peace, serenity, grace, mercy and an unidentified scripture on the wall.
whatever is pure lovely and true, think on these things.
~ paraphrase of Phil 4:8
We wanted our customers surrounded by the goodness of our God who calls us to love. We wanted them to feel that love from us (without us bashing a Bible into their foreheads)! And they did. Time and time again, we were told that there was something different about our shop.
We never saw a profit financially because we had our loans to pay back, but that debt was being faithfully paid back, while so many we saw weekly, shared their hurts and needs with us, often asking for prayer.
Our house hold never took money from the shop, yet we were fine. The business at times needed funds and each time God came through!
I remember one Saturday we needed sales in excess of $1,500 in order to pay our bills on Monday…. We prayed that morning and then went on a shopping trip (for the store), leaving our employees to man the fort!
By 2 PM we wondered how it was going back at the store, so my wife called. As she began to cry, while talking to the girls at the Cupcakery, I readied to console her.
She hung up and asked me how much business I thought we’d done? I guessed $1,500 just because, not due to any super faith, and she said $1,700! That was our second busiest day ever, to that point Saturdays averaged around $700.
Faith is rewarded, mostly within, not without! What I mean by that is my faith was rewarded with…. Greater Faith! Not physical wealth.
We saw many customers start showing up at our church.
Early on we had two wonderful ladies, praying and studying their Bibles, at one of our tables. A young man came in and realized rather quickly he was in the wrong store. He asked us how to get to his “true” destination and he turned to leave, but something stopped him in his tracks.
He saw one of the ladies with her Bible and asked if she was a Christian. He told her as he came into the store he felt, different, at ease, and wondered if she could talk? Two hours later he left and that weekend he was in our church service.
We always paid our bills, we saw many come to a better understanding of and relationship with God, and my wife and I grew in our faith.
In Part I, I said the journey is not ultimately about us, it’s about God and His purposes! The shop truly was and is Unexplainable Apart From God! Not only was our faith built, but so we’re many other’s faith. All because God used a Lil cupcake shop to draw attention to Him.
We sold the business in August 2012, after almost 2 years of an amazing experience. We miss the people daily and our friends we worked with, but when you decide to trust God you have to go when He says go. And late June 2012, He hollered pack up and move out!
That’s Part III of the journey.
I’ve learned that what seems right to man, can be and in our case was an impediment to journeying the way God desires us to journey.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.~
Isaiah 55:7-9
My faith, my wife’s faith and that of many around us has been bolstered because we allowed God to finally lead.
Thought to ponder as you journey today : Is your faith just a philosophy? If it is what are you missing? Faith is meant to be a relationship between you and God, are you allowing customs of man to interfere in that most important relationship?
Thee Bloomin Idiot 
Can’t wait for #3