“I Have A Testimony!”

When did your “mess” turn into your “message”?

Regardless of your religious affiliations, I am sure you have heard somewhere, sometime in your life someone say “your test will soon be your testimony!” Or “your mess will turn into a message!” Those sayings are to encourage us to not give up, understand that we experience the valley before reaching the mountain top, and that one day we will look back on this “bad” moment and realize how it set us up for success and every other great thing we experience! It’s really hard for us to look at our current situation that is challenging and see the beauty from it. But if we just hold on, work hard, be genuine, have integrity, and follow our passion, the beautiful ending is inevitable!

Well, my fellow readers and supporters, I have a testimony! I wouldn’t necessarily say I was enduring a “test,” BUT I will say that one of my dreams is finally coming to fruition! I am still at the beginning of it, but I already know it’s going to be beautiful! Remember in last week’s blog post when I shared this:

As many of you already know, I write about different topics under one of my four categories each week (I recently added a fifth category, but a blog post on that will be coming soon!).

“Take a Deep Breath: Crushing fitness part 5”

Let me tell you a little bit about this fifth Off The Record blog post category! But first, let me tell you how this is a dream come true.

I launched this website and my blog on October 1, 2020. I launched it without much knowledge on how to run a website, engage with subscribers, or grow an audience, but I launched it. I had a vision, a plan, and I pressed GO! I was (and still am) so passionate about starting this blog that I got excited when I came across an article, post, or YouTube video that helped me get my website and blog off the ground. I am still learning how to make this hobby of mine better as an outlet for myself and better as a place for you to visit every week! I am mentally thinking back on the last 17 or so months and how many different blog posts I published, how many wonderful and uplifting comments you all shared, and how many moments I got to think outside the box and create something new, and WOW, I am amazed!

I am sure I shared at some point over the past 17 months, on here or on my social media pages, that one of my initial reasons for starting a blog was to receive extra income. I’m just keeping it 100! I tried the Amazon Associates Program, which is a program that I’m sure many content creators use because it’s an easy way to get compensated. Example: you write a blog post or post a picture on Instagram and share with your audience you got that cute awesome top from Amazon, link the cute awesome top to your personalized Amazon Associate’s page, and if the reader buys that cute awesome top through your personal link, Amazon will give you a small compensation. I did that in my first Crushing Fitness post! (I am no longer in the Amazon Associates Program, so I will not receive any compensation from those items that are linked in that post).

I realized I wasn’t super passionate about implicitly asking my readers to buy something so that I can get paid. Sharing is caring, and if you’re interested in where I got a cute awesome top, I’d be more than happy to share that information with you so that you can style that cute awesome top however you want!

After I ended working in that program, I stopped hunting for ways to get paid through blogging. I still got excited to sit down and write each week. I still got excited to get ideas for blog topics from my friends and family. I still got excited to try to maintain what I started which is to provide inspirational, motivational, and relatable content each week that falls within one of my OTR Categories.

But the way my God works! Without even expecting it, without even hunting for it, without even THINKING about it… exactly 1 month ago, a woman messages me on IG and tells me she has opportunities for me to get paid to write blog posts! At first, I interrogated her and asked someone about her to make sure it wasn’t a scam haha! But it was real, and ever since then, I have had another woman reach out to me to get paid to write more blog posts! I can still write authentically about anything I want on MY website under MY categories, but I will also then share information about the “client” (who has so far been a business in the Atlanta area) for the readers to experience. They have also shared some tips with me on how I can get on different databases to get paid to write even more!

So, that’s the fifth OTR Category: OTR Collabs! You will find that tab under the dropdown Menu. Because there are requirements and deadlines, these posts won’t be published just on Thursdays, so I will be generating more content each week! (Don’t worry, if you’re a subscriber and you get the weekly emails about my Thursday blog posts, you won’t be receiving an email multiple times a week haha! I will stay true to my promise to only email once a week, but be sure to check out the OTR Collab tab to see what else I’ve been working on! And if you’re not a subscriber, feel free to subscribe today!). I love the independence I have writing these posts for the clients and how authentic I can still be with the content!

Don’t give up on your dreams when you’re in the valley, because you’ll miss out on what’s waiting for you on the mountain top.

imani carter

That’s my testimony yall. And that testimony is yet again another reminder that God ALWAYS has our backs, even when we feel like we don’t deserve His love, grace, and mercy! That testimony is yet again another reminder to STOP WORRYING! Haha. Let go and let God. So long as we hold on, work hard, be genuine, have integrity, and follow our passion, the beautiful ending is inevitable! And this new opportunity I have received is NOT the ending. I have other writing goals, and I want to continue to expand my reach and grow my audience. I also want to continue to SERVE.

If you’re interested, you can check out the following posts I recently wrote for different clients (they are still about me and my life, just with a little extra flava!):
Where to Next?!
Yay or Nay?
Babygirl, You’re Beautiful!
Where’s The Wine?! – Part 2
Dance Like Nobody’s Watching!

I cannot express enough the amount of gratitude I have for each and every one of you! Whether you are a subscriber that checks in every Thursday, someone who just happens to come across my page and takes a second to give a post a read, or someone who is part of the collaboration world and sends me work to do. THANK YOU! This is just the beginning 🙂

“For with God nothing will be impossible.” — Luke 1:37, NKJV.

Moni Jay, Off the Record