Creating a Ripple Effect – A Letter from Katrina

Shedding Light on the Humble Beginnings and Vision of B.L.O.G  Magazine™

By Katrina Smith

2/29/2012

Thank you for visiting B.L.O.G  Magazine™ Online!   We are so excited to present you with our vision and dream that we have worked on so diligently over the past three months. The most wonderful feeling is to see your vision come to fruition after so much work. We have such a phenomenal team. We all live across the nation and some even across the globe but somehow we all still came together in unison to get this launched. We communicated via phone, email, text, phone conferences late at night, recorded them and then re-listened so we didn’t miss anyone’s input. It really goes to show how when a group of concerned people come together with the same passion and goal in mind, they can accomplish anything.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” -Margaret Mead 

Although BLOG is still in her infancy stage, as any mother understands, patience, determination and lots of TLC will help our little seed bloom into a beautiful flower. We first wanted to first shed light on our vision. We felt it important for women to understand that success rarely comes without many struggles and challenges. The most beautiful stories of hope and inspiration start out with a series of stormy seasons.

Being raised in and out of foster care, due to having parents who were addicts and felons, I had a wide variety of influences in my life, both positive and negative. As my sisters and I were reunited with our mother, she later married an atheist. My natural childlike faith was often squashed like a bug on a windshield; its lifeless corpse wiped away as though it never existed. But God still intervened by often sending people to step in and stand in the gap to resurrect my spiritual decay. They were people who were soft in their words and bold in their actions.

As I grew older, I went on a downward spiral of self-destruction by making poor choices that would bring serious consequences and repercussions.  After attempting to fill that spiritual void with relationships, trends, ideologies and a career, I still felt isolated, broken and alone when I hit the pillow every night. That I didn’t realize was that nothing could fill that gaping hole where my faith should have been. It was then that I finally found God through desperation and fascination. I went on a journey of seeking God with all my heart, to find out if Christ was actually who He claimed to be. As I questioned my purpose for being, as well as God’s very existence, He made His presence known. I not only found the answers to what I was seeking, but I also was faced with the most painful thing there is to face–the mirror.

All of my iniquity was uncovered and I had a choice to make: deny the offer of the free gift of grace and go back to the rat race of life, or accept this beautiful gift and respond to it. I hated the mirror. It was a painful reminder of so many things that I tried so hard to run away from. But the mirror was much like a surgeon’s scalpel cutting deep into the marrow of my bones, removing the festering disease of self loathing that kept growing and spreading. I always pointed the blame, played the victim and made excuses. Introspection was so painful and far out of my comfort zone. But I soon found out that in order to progress, I had to first regress to uproot the false beliefs that I had about myself, the world I lived in, and the God who had created me. The beauty of holding that mirror is that I eventually started evolving. I was starting to transform into something else. I started feeling a flickering light within and, over time, growing stronger and brighter. I was no longer this scared little caterpillar crawling on my belly; I was transforming… into a beautiful butterfly.

I started coaching a little league cheerleading team in a dilapidated community in the inner city. The girls reminded me so much of myself as a child. I vacillated between inspiration and frustration, but in my frustration, I reacted to a greater need. It was then that I fully understood Jesus. We are not called to become comfortable,but disturbed. My discomfort caused me to take action. The community was predominantly abandoned women and children. Fathers were absent and the children were neglected, exploited, heavily sexualized and objectified. There were not many role models to guide them in a positive direction. Their influences were mainstream media, other broken children, and broken adults. But as I stepped in (mirroring those who stepped in when I was a child) and saw the truth. They just needed to be shown another way. They loved to feel empowered.

I then put my gift of writing to work and published my first book and workbook and released them in June of 2011, launched a ministry and workshops for broken women and girls. I then started sending freelance articles to mainstream outlets shedding light on the regression of our families, neighborhoods and communities. I often challenged the media, churches and communities to an urgent call to action. I received no response or replies that my articles were not “headline newsworthy.”  Many editors advised that I research popular trends for story ideas to cater to the demand. Of course, the popular trends in the news and magazine headlines were celebrity gossip, sexual innuendos, battle of the sexes, airbrushed images, instant gratification, designer clothing, among many other topics that contribute to the deterioration of humanity. Tabloids, music videos, commercials, billboards, women’s magazines and even teen magazines promote an absurd amount of sexualization, objectification and degradation. This tends to break down self-esteem in the female population by shifting their focus to correct their physical flaws in an attempt to uphold this impossible standard of beauty that society has painted in Photoshop.

Once you breach one’s self-esteem, you can alter their morals, values, beliefs and behaviors.

It was then that I met a powerful group of women across the country. We decided that instead of being reactive by boycotting, protesting and debating with the mainstream media, we would be proactive by creating our own magazine with our own headline topics. We will take over mainstream. We will get back to the basics by helping women and girls understand their true value and worth by helping them lift their veil by holding that mirror of introspection in hand and tapping into that light and power within, beneath all of their false beliefs. We wanted to touch on every area of our lives and touch on issues that are often pushed under the rug without sounding too “preachy.” We want to connect with one another through sharing our trials as well as our triumphs. We also created a special area for teens to express themselves so we can nurture and develop their gifts, talents, goals and dreams. Studies show that there is clearly a limited amount of positive influences that help them channel all of that energy in a positive direction. The teens represented here may very well be the next Diane Sawyer or Oprah Winfrey.

Our goal is that our magazine helps contribute to your growth in mind, body and spirit and empowers you to take a stand in your own neighborhood, community and families. We, women have so much power in this world. Many of us waste much of that beauty, workmanship and power on trying to become someone else’s ideology of what it means to be a woman. We often attempt to take on too much on our own and soon feel drained, running on empty fumes. When we begin to embrace merging our ideas, talents, gifts and abilities for the elevation, advancement and development of the next generation, then we can begin to see a true change in the world that we live in. That is what you call a revolution!

Again, we thank you so much for stopping by to visit us. Every single click counts. Just imagine the impact that we can make if we promoted causes such as this as much as society promotes new seasons of reality TV, political scandals and celebrity divorces. I would like to leave you with this video from my own ministry in my hometown of Indianapolis, IN. It shows how every move we make creates a ripple effect in the universe, much like a vibration. Enjoy!

Please leave comments, concerns, share your testimony, connect with other women and spread the word to all of your friends, family and co-workers!

With Grace,

Katrina Smith

Co-Founder, B.L.O.G Magazine™

The Co-Founder of B.L.O.G Magazine™, Katrina is a simple mid-western girl from the inner city of Indianapolis, In where she is  an army wife, army mother. After teaching financial literacy in underserved communities for eight years, she is now the author and workshop facilitator for The Butterfly Movement book, workbook and workshops and is currently working on the production of her upcoming ‘twin’ books ‘Cinderella No More and ‘Independent No More’, both due to release simultaneously in the Summer of 2012. You can find her on Facebook and Twitter or contact her by email at katrina@blogmagazine.org