The idea for Staghorn Jewelry was born on a beach along the Texas coastline. This is the story of how it all began.
My Background:
I worked in the corporate field for 7 years, working banking, accounting, and account management. I started working in high school to put myself through college, getting a degree in Ecology and Environmental Science. After graduating I wanted to work with wildlife as a wildlife biologist or something similar, but I soon learned how hard it was to get into this field without having connections or experience from unpaid internships and this girl had bills to pay. Unhappy with where I was, I left my corporate job of 6 years to go to another corporate office, only to be more miserable than I was before. I knew I was meant for more but didn’t know what for.
My Testimony:
I grew up in a strong Christian family, but as I grew older, I went my own way, focusing less on building a relationship with God and more on what I wanted to do and what I felt like was important. I would go to church on occasion but wouldn’t really take much away from the sermons. After not attending for a while, my husband decided he wanted to start going again, so we attended the service that Sunday. They had a guest speaker who was preaching on fasting. They talked about fasting bringing you closer to the presence of God and that you were able to hear or feel him more closely while going through this process. I think to myself, hey maybe this is what I need to do to figure out what I’m doing with my life and what direction I need to take next. I had thought of so many different things that I could do to more or less run away from my current problems, but I wanted to know what direction God was trying to lead me.
I’m just going to go out there and say I had never done a fast before. I was nervous about doing a fast because I get HANGRY and I didn’t want anyone else to have to deal with that, especially in a professional working environment. The church body was going to do a 3 day fast, Wednesday through Friday. So, I figured If I’m gonna do it I’m gonna go all in! Before the fast I write down some of the key things I wanted to get out of it, and number one on the list was I wanted some kind of direction. I wanted God to speak to me and tell me “This, this is what you’re supposed to be doing”. I was tired of fumbling around trying to find my own way. The fast wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Besides a pretty nasty headache the first day and just missing the taste of food, I felt fine. The whole time I had been praying for God to show me where I needed to go, what direction I should take.
My husband and I had been talking about taking a weekend beach trip and camping in the car but hadn’t made definite plans yet. After work on Friday, we looked at each other like “so we doing this or what?”. We packed up the car and headed out around 11pm. We had an option of a 3 ½ hour drive to Galveston or a 5 hour drive to Port Aransas. We already had a beach pass for Port Aransas, and we knew we could park the car on the beach overnight to sleep so we picked the longer drive.
I ended my fast at midnight on Friday and was honestly disappointed. I hadn’t felt any kind of nudge one way or another, but continued to pray that God would open my eyes to his vision for my life.
A Walk on the Beach
The next morning, I take our 78lb pitty on a walk on the beach to stretch our legs and collect seashells. He decides it’s too hot for his AC loving self, so I take him back to the car to cool down and go back out on my own to just think and enjoy being outside. As I’m walking, I start thinking of all the different things that I could do, from starting a travel bog to just running away and doing a thru hike. I mean I had gone three days without food, I could go a couple days here and there if I needed to. As I was walking and thinking I was looking for shells. But I wasn’t looking for the perfectly shaped, pristine seashell that most people search for. I wanted the broken shells, the ones that were different, those were the ones that caught my attention. As I was picking up these broken shells, I came up with the idea of using these shells to make Jewelry. This was accompanied with the thought that even things that are broken can be beautiful. They can be valuable. They can be loved. I kept thinking about this as I walked along the beach and kept thinking about the different ways I could create these “pieces” and the ways I could incorporate my love of nature, the ocean, and conservation into it. As I kept walking, I kept thinking of more and more ideas that I was starting to getting really excited about, from making the jewelry, to beach cleanups, to educating people on marine life and conservation issues.
I get back to the car, excited by my new ideas, but also aware of the effort and commitment it would take to start my own business doing something I had no experience in. As a kid I loved drawing and designing clothes, but had never attempted to make jewelry before. I ask God for a sign, a physical sign, that would tell me what I was supposed to be doing. What his plan for me was. I said “God, you know I have all these different ideas in my head. I need a physical sign from you so that I know it’s you placing me in this direction and not just me blindly following my own crazy ideas”.
We made a quick lunch and then drove to another spot, under a bridge just outside of town, so my husband could fish. The tide was very high that morning, covering the area that we usually fish from so we went to the opposite side of the bridge to see if we find somewhere to sit. As we were walking to our new spot, my husband looked down and saw a charm bracelet laying on the ground. He picked it up and handed it to me. I looked down at that bracelet, looked up and say “okay, I hear you”. I got my sign. I asked for a physical sign and that’s exactly what I got not even 30 minutes later.
It’s so amazing how God works. And I’m so grateful watching how he has been working in my life the past 2 years as I make this dream a reality. After returning home I was so excited to get things started I put my two weeks in that same month, devoting myself to 1) learning how to make jewelry and 2) learning everything else. From learning how to start a business, to website design, to marketing, to researching nonprofit organizations to partner with, everything was new to me. There were some days, especially at the beginning, where I would be so overwhelmed and doubt if I was really doing the right thing. I would pray asking God for confirmation that this was really what he wanted me doing. And he answered EVERY TIME. I would get my confirmation, a sense of peace, and thought of “Yes, this is where you need to be” or “Yes, keep going”. It hasn’t been easy but it has been so rewarding and I can confidently say it is my calling. I’m so excited to see where he continues to lead me and see how this small jewelry business grows.
