Episode 04: My Story - Beginnings & Beliefs

Episode 4: My Story - Beginnings & Beliefs

In this episode, host Amy LeSage shares snippets of her personal journey. She delves into the pivotal moments in her life where she felt deeply connected to God, recounting how her faith has guided her through various hardships, including addiction and self-doubt. 

Amy discusses her background in a Christian household, her early love for music, and her journey into furniture refinishing and interior design after her divorce. She talks about the challenges she faced in growing her business and her venture into podcasting and YouTube as solutions.

The episode sets the stage for future discussions on overcoming adversities with faith.

In This Episode:

00:00 Welcome and Introduction

00:32 The Power of Music in My Faith

02:09 God's Presence in My Life

03:46 My Christian Upbringing

05:32 Marriage, Motherhood, and Divorce

06:20 Building My Business: FOUND & REFINED

08:17 Challenges and Growth During COVID

09:04 A Deeper Connection with God

12:30 Venturing into YouTube and Podcasting

14:04 Reflecting on 2023 and Conclusion

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🎵 Check out these songs

➺ “Glory Bound” Eli Gable

➺ “Learning How To Love Myself” Katy Nichole

➺ “One Call” Lecrae & 1k Phew

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 TRANSCRIPT - Ep. 04

Hey guys, welcome back. I'm your host, Amy LeSage, and it's great to have you here. Thank you so much, thanks for joining me.  This episode is going to be just tiny bits and pieces of my story. So, you have some background to who I am, and then we'll get into the nitty-gritty of when I started this specific journey with the Lord. And that was to give up my control and follow him, which this podcast is part of what I feel he's having me do.

Okay, I keep forgetting to put this in, but I want to start adding this element to the podcast, so I want to make sure that I talk about it, and I'm just going to go to it now because otherwise my brain forgets, and I'll get carried away in this conversation.  But I Love music.  

I love, love, love love, love music!  I am so connected and always have been since I was a little girl to music.  That being said, Christian music throughout this period of time has been imperative to the way that I praise God, to sometimes even my communication. I'll hear Him in some of the songs.  Or that song will maybe even speak to me… it’ll come on out of nowhere and it'll speak to that exact thing that I'm feeling or struggling with.  It has been, and this isn't just now, this has been throughout my whole entire life - It's just a huge source of connection between God and I.  And so, it only makes sense to bring that here as well because it's definitely part of this journey - and part of who I am and my story. So, I'll always have it in the notes. Um, but maybe I'll even mention it in the actual recording. Like, this is the exact song that brought this podcast topic to me.

I'm just gonna put those in there because there are some amazing songs out there right now...Christian, praise, worship songs out there right now. Contemporary... I mean, they've got every genre of Christian artists and musicians. And if you haven't checked it out, you’ve got to!  They’re all so cool.

Alright, so let's dive in.  Um, basically, throughout my life, the Lord has met me in hardship, in heartbreak, in heartache, in failure, in weakness, in self-doubt, in self-negative talk. He's lifted me up. He's held my hand. He's wrapped his arms around me. He's literally, I feel like, sometimes at my worst; I can go right back to the moment when I literally would ask him to fling me over his shoulders and just get me through the day. Like, how I would picture it is that my feet were dragging as he was walking me through my day, at my lowest of lows.

He's taken me… he's never failed, never failed me, ever.  He's taken addiction that I've been battling for years, away from me in a matter of days. Done. Just gone. The urge, the desire, the want, the need…Gone.

I'm gonna graze past a lot of that stuff because I'm definitely gonna do episodes like on that specifically. But I just want you to know, like, that's where I'm coming from. This isn't just like one thing he did, and now I’m waiting for the next.  My life is nuts! And he's been a part of helping me through all of it. So this is just the snapshot to better understand who's speaking to you.

I would like to say that this journey with the Lord officially started in August of 2023, but in reality,  it's been in the works. As I look back, I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that…Like, that makes total sense! You know it's been in the works for much, much longer!

I grew up in a Christian household. I went to Christian schools from K through 12. I attended church every Sunday with my family. God was always a big part of my life because he was in my life so much. His teachings were in my life so much - from Sunday school, to VBS, to church services in private school, we would have Wednesday chapel, there was a religion class. My foundation was, in my mind, extremely strong.

And in a lot of ways, it really was.

I believed all the stories I was told in the Bible, in Sunday School, VBS.  I never questioned any of them, as farfetched as some of them sound, like Jonah and the Whale is always like, WHOA, that’s crazy! But I truly believe God can do anything. Like, I don't doubt that for a second. And I think the minute you start pulling out pieces of the Bible, saying that that part is probably just a story, but not real. And that part probably didn't actually happen… you’re mucking, mucking with an M. You're mucking up the Bible. You're making it your own.

I think people do that to the Bible the most. They pick it apart, or they choose what they do want to believe, or what they don't want to believe, or what really did happen versus what didn't. And I… you just get… help me with the words, Lord. You get into a space where you're rewriting the Bible …for yourself.  Like, it's written. It’s kind of an all-or-nothing thing, in my opinion. Um, you start meddling in that kind of stuff, and I feel like Satan's got you in a good place.  That's just a side note. 

Anyways, I've always talked to God, but I probably asked more than I thanked at that time. After high school, I went to Michigan State University and graduated from there. I was married at 27 years old. By the time I was 35, I had four adorable, beautiful children, ranging from five years to newborn.  And by the time I was 37, my divorce was finalized.

From the time I was married to my divorce (within that nine-year time frame), I went from a store manager at Anthropologie to a stay-at-home mom after my firstborn. And then, kind of took on my passion in interior design and got into a hobby of furniture refinishing.   That eventually grew into a side hustle. After the divorce, it became like my personal goal to make furniture refinishing a thriving business

That's where FOUND & REFINED, my company name, was created. This is what I'm saying, like, God's plan has been intertwined in all of this… because the play on words with my company name is super cool!    But with FOUND & REFINED, I specialized in custom furniture refinishing. God is so good and had connected my path with a really talented interior designer, Debbie. And she was looking for someone (for her clients) to refinish pieces in their home. So, a partnership began. Her belief in me at that time in my life was so impactful. She really helped me find some confidence in myself and in my skills.  Really, without her, I don't know what I would have done at that time of life.

 I began to start pushing boundaries with which type of furniture or surfaces I could manipulate. I just was driven to find a solution to any and every problem that a client had.  I love helping people, even at Anthropologie. I love helping people find or get what they wanted.  I love seeing people walk away happy.  Whether it was with clothing that they just put on and felt beautiful and really great in. Or, if it was refining furniture - bringing this one piece that had no hope and was sticking out like a sore thumb with all the other beautiful things that were changing around it, from Debbie and her interior design aspect. I could come in and make that fit with it all and be a loved piece again.   It hit so many different points of what I wanted to do, and I loved it. I loved every second of it.  It was a match made in heaven, really.

So, this all started in late 2019, that's when my divorce was finalized and my partnership with Debbie had just started. With 2020 right around the corner, and COVID just sitting there waiting to make life hard on everybody. I pretty quickly found myself in an uphill battle because most of my work was done in home, and with three kids in virtual schooling and a toddler running around, while processing how to live on my own, along with a whole slew of other things, it was pretty overwhelming, to say the least. Those years were kind of a blur. 

Religiously, during this time, I was clinging to God on the daily with like conversations and prayer, and I would say that was when our relationship really began to grow.  I was confident he had me through all the hard things that I was facing. I was confident he had me.

One thing really quickly, in 2018, end of 2018… doesn't really matter. While my divorce was finalizing,  I had the most amazing interaction with God... Conversation/Interaction.  Never had I had anything like this before. But it was like He and I, set aside time, I knew it was time to speak with Him, and He spoke. Loudly. I wrote all of that down then and I really tried to believe what he had told me, but I couldn't at the time. I just couldn't. I think what I got from that was just the complete connection that I had with him, and I needed that.

Years went by… Years. Where I would have that type of communication again. I would hear him in small ways.  But never such an intense conversation. It wasn't until the moment that I went back for a conversation like that. I sought out another conversation like that. I needed it. Desperately needed it. And that was at the beginning of this entire journey. And I've heard him ever since.  I feel incredibly grateful to hear him speak to me. It just has gone to show how important communication with God is. As I look back, He’s, He's been my friend and Savior.

Before I would say, I probably went to him more about what he could do for me I would say That has changed into what I can do for him, entirely.   That's what's changed.   And our communication and connection and partnership has grown SO much more. And not that I don't ask for things and not that I don't pray for things to happen, but it's just different. It's in a different way.

Um, difficulties became a lot more extreme and required a lot more attention as years went on.  I was finding it difficult to grow my business to a place where I could really start living a better life, financially.  I continued to find that there weren't enough hours in a day to personally do more work and earn more money. Because it was such a physical, laborious job. There's only so much you can do in a day. It was around this time that money began to like move into becoming my number one focus.

 I invested in courses, marketing courses, in hopes to start to provide courses of my own. Ideally, to make more money, teaching other people how to, um, do furniture refinishing for themselves. But what I didn't realize is the amount of work you need up front, in order to obtain, like, trust as an expert in your field. And at that time, social media posts were the best way to do that. You had to build all of that. You had to post all the time. You had to learn the algorithms, have the right hashtags. Like, for me, I was already working every hour that I could in a day. I would work entire days anytime I didn't have the kids, and they were with their dad. I just needed a solution… Well, I wanted a solution like fast. I needed money, fast. And it was becoming more and more difficult. 

I decided YouTube, along with a podcast, would be my best choice. I constantly at work, would just have like, boop-boop, headphones in, educating myself on business and growing a business and all kinds of things. So, I decided from that, podcasting seemed to be like a really good way, and YouTube seemed to kind of go along with that as my best choice in growing my audience. I thought, I'll set up a camera while I'm actually like doing the work at people's homes. Kind of, kill two birds with one stone. That’s what I had felt like was my best option, um, and quickest option, because there wasn't enough time.

 I was always on a time crunch; it was time and money constantly. I set up a podcast room and had recorded a couple videos, tutorials on YouTube, and I was excited. I thought is the route that I'll probably go. People can see exactly how to do this for themselves, and then I'd be on my way to making more money and having courses.  It was becoming a point like, if this didn't work, then I'm gonna have to let this dream go. Like, if I can't ever get past making this amount of money, and I'm never gonna go beyond that, and sometimes even fluctuate below that, I'm gonna have to pull out of this. I'm gonna have to find something else to do. Which was just really hard because I loved furniture refinishing. I loved of making something old new again.

This was my last-ditch effort to try and do YouTube and podcasting. And then came January of 2023.  If I literally could have skipped a year, that would have been one of my top two.

But the thing about that is I probably wouldn't be where I'm at today, here with you, had I not gone through 2023.   A year from hell, I felt like.  I'm going to pick up there next episode.

Thank you, guys, so much for being here and stayin with me on this journey. I appreciate you, and I'll see you next time.