Category Archives: Don’t Let Fear Stop You

These posts talk about the crippling fears that most people have that paralyze them into not taking action. The focus is on encouraging people not to succumb to that fear and showing that in most cases, the risks are worth it!

The Book, Modern Day Noah, is now available!

Posted on: May 12th, 2023 by Sue Anderson - Leave a comment

Modern Day Noah is my own powerfully dramatic “God story.” It is my hope that the book, and this blog, will motivate, encourage and inspire you in a relatable, down to earth way.

The book leads you through the emotional ups and downs of my life. From merely existing, and just doing my best to survive whatever life threw at me, to finding my purpose and thriving in life!

It is my compelling journey of “finding God” after a lot of heartbreak and hardships in my early life. And, how that completely changed my life. The book shares the many amazing and supernatural ways that He tested me, and slowly taught me that I could trust Him completely. Through the journey, I inadvertently discover what my true passion and purpose in life is, and I start to live that out. (Spoiler alert! It’s helping people get organized!) It’s a story of faith, and the power that God can have in our lives, if we let Him.

It was March 1, 2013, when I took a leap of faith and left all of my financial security behind me (by leaving my well-paid, full-time job) to follow God’s direction for my life. After years of struggle and prayer, I finally boldly walked into the unknown, to pursue what I had learned was my purpose in life. It made absolutely no earthly sense to do what I did. But I knew that was God’s plan for my life, and so I knew I had to follow it.

Today is May 12, 2023. That’s more than ten years later! Can I tell you that I have never once looked back with regret? My life has such meaning and purpose now compared to the life I left behind. I am not only thriving in life now, I also have the opportunity to change other people’s lives in a positive way – every single day. It doesn’t get any better than that!

We’re Not Promised A Tomorrow

Posted on: July 9th, 2014 by Sue Anderson - Leave a comment

One of the biggest battles I had when it came to quitting my job was that I had already invested 26 year there and only had 3 1/2 years to go until I could retire with a great pension check coming in every month for the rest of my life. It seemed so foolish not to wait it out after sticking it out there as long as I already had. Nobody does that!

On top of that, I’ve always been a very responsible person that does what I need to do and what I am supposed to do without any regard to how I feel about it. I had two children that I had to support solely on my own and so there was no room for questioning whether to continue working there or not regardless of how miserable it made me. I considered myself a “lifer”, like a prison sentence.

But once I realized about 15 years ago that we were all put here for a reason, for a purpose that is much bigger than ourselves, I’ve had a different perception of life and what it is supposed to look like. And it’s made just doing life status quo much harder for me. For the first 25-30 years of my life I focused all of my energy on just merely surviving this thing they called life. I was so consumed by the hurt, pain and confusion from all of the injustices bestowed upon me in my early life that I couldn’t see or feel anything past that. I was doing life from a reactive place not a proactive place, from a victim mentality. I didn’t realize that we could create our own lives!

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As soon as I understood that we have the power to create the life we want to live, it was much harder to sit in a job that I detested. From the minute I opened the doors to my organizing business, Simplified Living Solutions, and the phone started ringing off the hook, I’ve battled with staying where I was. Every time I would remind myself how lucky I was to have such a great job with wonderful benefits and I only had 3 1/2 more years to go, those thoughts were quickly met with thoughts of how I want to live my life now, not later. What if I didn’t live long enough to do it after I retired? We’re not promised a tomorrow. I knew with such a strong gut feeling that I didn’t want to leave this life without feeling like I had lived it to its fullest. I didn’t want to take a chance that tomorrow may never come.

I don’t mind working at all, I actually like it. So I knew that if I had to, I could always go back to working a “real job”. But I knew I had to take this leap of faith because I loved the feelings that helping others get organized gave me (in addition to what it gave them). I loved the satisfaction of knowing that I had made a positive difference in someone’s life and I loved encouraging people and reminding them of their greatness. I loved knowing that I was making a positive difference in the world in which I live, rather than merely surviving it. Life wasn’t meant to just survive, we are meant to thrive in it! That’s what I’d like to help more people understand earlier in life than I did so they can get to work living their life to the fullest!

Make Someone Happy

Don’t You See, We’re All Jacked Up?

Posted on: July 4th, 2014 by Sue Anderson - Leave a comment

There is nothing I love more than sitting down and having a real heart to heart conversation. The minute I meet someone, I want to know everything about them. I want to get deep inside their soul. I want to know about their lives, what makes them tick, what makes them who they are. I want to know about their hardships, their victories and how those have impacted who they have become. I love, love, love psychology and I think that’s why I find exploring everyone’s lives to be so fascinating.

Interestingly enough, because of this curious, direct and non-threatening quality of mine, people tell me things they have never told anyone else. I know that they do that because they feel “safe” with me because I am sharing the same type of information about my life with them. I have no secrets and often share stories of my challenges and how they have made me into who I am today to encourage and inspire others. Many times I share how those very challenges turned into blessings in disguise.

Blessings in Disguise

Throughout my life I have always gotten the impression that being an “open book” was not a good quality. However, I don’t seem to have the skill set to do life any other way. I’ve never understood why we wouldn’t all be an open book. Why wouldn’t we want to share our burdens, hardships and victories with one another to encourage, support and educate each other? Why wouldn’t we want to just be honest with ourselves and others?

I have found that by being completely open about who I am, why I am who I am – in addition to my own personal challenges and victories – that I have been able to help and encourage others. It has allowed others to feel safe enough to lower their guards and just speak their own truth without hesitation. I sincerely believe that is one of the main purposes of Modern Day Noah – to share my journey in a completely honest and vulnerable way including my own imperfections and insecurities, but with the ever resounding “they’re not going to knock me off course” attitude so that others are encouraged to go after their dreams with that same resolve.

You Make The Choice

Do you realize that there is not one among us that is perfect? Do you realize that we’ve all had our fair share of heartache, pain and hardships? Do you realize that each and every one of us is “jacked-up” as a result of those things? Admit it. I’m jacked up, you’re jacked up. But the reality is that if we are open enough to look closely at the situation, we can find the blessings from the pain we’ve experienced and use it for good.

As I mentioned in another post, I was sexually abused several times by several different men. Would I like to have that horrible, horrible experience again? Heck no! Did I see it as a blessing when it happened? Heck no! But when I look closely at it, I’m able to be thankful (well if I’m being 100% honest, I’m only a little thankful) that it happened because it has helped to shape me into the person I am today. Because of those experiences, I truly understand pain. It has given me a compassionate heart that wants to help and encourage the hurting. I understand how it feels to have your own feelings and needs ignored – trampled on. I understand the impact that pain is having on them. I understand what they need to feel built back up again. I am able to use my own painful experiences to help others change the direction their life is heading in a positive way. For that, I am thankful.

No Need to Fear

Posted on: June 9th, 2014 by Sue Anderson - 2 Comments

Back in April, I blogged about my nest egg shrinking and shared that my natural inclination was to worry about that. I talked about how in those moments of fear, I have to remind myself that I should not worry about such things. He’s in control. Since I know with 100% certainty that I followed His direction for my life when I left my financial security behind, I just have to trust that everything will be OK. I also talked about the way that I combated my insecurities about my nest egg shrinking was to tithe 10% of my monthly income.

I ended the post by saying that I know that when you tithe faithfully, it all works out somehow. And I promised that I’d be blogging in the very near future about the way(s) in which He would blow my mind to provide me with very clear proof that tithing during times of fear was the right decision. I said that He would do that strictly so I would be encouraged, and so that I could share the story with you. I ended the blog post simply by saying “trust in Him” and honestly that is the bottom line in anything you’re dealing with.

So here’s the icing on the cake or the proof in the pudding as they say. It’s been almost exactly 2 months since that post and as I suspected when I originally wrote it, there have been so many “God Taps” to indicate He is in control and I have nothing to fear. Here are just a few of them:

The proof is in the pudding

#1: My organizing business, Simplified Living Solutions has been so busy since then that I have not even had any “free time” to blog on Modern Day Noah. From April 6th (when I tithed) to June 6th, Simplified Living Solutions sales represented 121 times more than what I tithed that one time. Yes, you’re reading that right – one hundred and twenty one times more!

#2: Although there are very few people that even know about this blog, I received a call from a friend within 10 minutes of the post going live who said at the very moment she received the post, she was reading a book that said the very same thing – how important it is to contribute 10% of your income.

#3: Someone whom I had only met once before said that the post inspired her to help sponsor a local Christian radio station that is only on the air thanks to the generosity of their faithful monthly supporters.

#4: I wrote my first book over 2 years ago and it’s been lying on my desk ever since because I have felt stuck about what to do next. I’ve never written a book before, I’ve battled with my own insecurities about it. Is it good enough? Am I explaining things properly? Is it in the right order? And the list goes on and on. One morning when I woke up, I immediately got down on my knees and asked God to give me direction and the words I needed to tell the Modern Day Noah story the way He wanted it told. Without even connecting this prayer originally, I received an email the next day from my new friend, author and speaker Connie Cavanaugh. (How we came to know each other is a God story in itself. You can read more about that here.) She wanted to let me know that she was willing to read through my book and give me feedback and direction that would move me closer to finalizing the book so that I can get to work on the Modern Day Noah book! I never even asked her to do that! She said that she felt God’s prompting to help me and pay it forward like others had done for her when she was writing her first book! Tell me that wasn’t God’s hand in this situation!

The moral of this story is to always battle fear and insecurities with faith in action.

My Nest Egg is Shrinking

Posted on: April 11th, 2014 by Sue Anderson - 2 Comments

When I was busy preparing to leave my full time job (and secure financial future) to follow the path in which I believed I was being directed, I saved enough money to pay my house and car payments for a year. It was a nice little nest egg and made me feel very secure because I knew I wouldn’t have to worry about the two most important things getting paid for a year.

That year has now come and gone now and my nest egg has shrunk. In addition to that blaring reality, I had to pay thousands to the IRS that I hadn’t expected to pay and I have a very, very large unexpected medical bill in excess of $10,000 hanging over my head! I’m not going to lie, it’s scary. I had been very financially secure for the 5 years before I left my job and so it’s odd to find myself in this position again.

Shrinking Nest Egg

The natural part of me wants to panic, but the spiritual part of me knows that I was very clear that this was God’s direction for my life before I took the leap. Knowing that, it would be silly to panic and worry – but I still find myself panicky at moments until I remind myself that He’s got this. I don’t have to worry about it.

The intent of this blog was to share my story and the various ways in which God spoke to me and showed me this was His will for my life so that I could encourage and inspire others to not let their fears stop them from being all they were created to be. However, I felt it was very important to not only share all of the BIG WONDERFUL moments with you, but to also share daily examples of living that faith out even when the sun isn’t shining so brightly. This blog post comes from that place.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel discouraged. But now the true test of faith begins when I don’t have that security nest egg. Can I tell you the way I handled that fear? I tithed 10% of my monthly salary last weekend. I know that sounds odd and maybe even foolish to some. But I know that when you tithe faithfully, it all works out somehow. I’m so secure in that knowledge that I’m making a promise to you right now that I’m confident I’ll be blogging about the way in which He blew my mind in that respect in the very near future. What I mean is that I don’t know what He is going to do, I just know He will provide me with very clear proof that this was the right decision strictly so I’ll be encouraged and so I can share that with you. Stay tuned.

Bottom line, trust in Him.