Today we’d like to introduce you to Christina “Chrissie” Anderson.
Christina, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
As a young girl brought up in a church that was apart of the dance team, church choir, and bible study for my age group, I began writing verses as daily inspirational to help me remember the bible.
After joining the military after my high school graduation, I didn’t feel much connection still due to my being homesick and church sick but as training went on I began to reconnect and find an on based church to attend at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri on my Sundays. Even though it wasn’t home, it allowed me to restore my relationship with God and get back ok track. Later after arriving at my first duty station at Fort Carson, CO around November 2008, I began to stray but yet continued with my daily inspirations. It wasn’t until my first abusive marriage as a young soldier and new mother of a three months old in May of 2010 that I started to develop a new desire to strengthen my relationship with God to be a better mom and wife. During the domestic violence in my marriage, I found a church home in Colorado Springs, CO and began to learn how to fight back using prayer as a defense mechanism versus vengeance for vengeance. I prayed more, wrote more, and took responsibility to make myself accountable for the trouble that was happening in my life, my marriage, and my army career.
Shortly after my divorce and return from Afghanistan, I was retired in August 2015 in Fort Rucker, Al after serving nine years and 11 months as a Human Resources Specialist in the United States Army. After my transition to civilian lifestyle again I found myself lost and having a hard time connecting with people because I realized I was only used to the military lifestyle. Granted, I was back in college attending Virginia College in Savannah, GA studying to be a medical assistant but yet my 2nd marriage and my self-care were still at risk. I started A Fistfull of Prayers in January 2017 as a new year’s resolution to share my journey and inspire others along the way. My ultimate goal was to lift, encourage, and shed light on that we veterans also have dreams and goals outside of the military. After graduating as a Clinical Certified Medical Assistant in January 2017, I began my research on blogging to get my messages and prayers out to the world. A Fistfull of Prayers became my blogging business to share my prayers with others that didn’t know how to pray or wanted to but didn’t know where to start. After so much feedback, recognition, and support A Fistfull of prayers was turning not just my tears into prayers but also my readers. Blogging was not just my outlet for cooing it was also my way of expressing my feelings and emotions on paper.
Around November 2018, I wanted to make an even more impact to increase my gift so I made A Fistfull of Prayers an LLC in March 2019 to expand my brand. July 2019, I published my first testimonial novel under my A Fistfull of Prayers, LLC brand as an independent self-published author. SHIFTED: From Pain to prayers” was #26 in Amazon’s top 100 free kindle edition in the Mental Health category after running a domestic violence promotion for the month of October in 2019. In my book, I also included various stories from battles I served alongside that suffered the same abuse in silence. I wanted to bring awareness to everyone globally that just because we go to war for our country does not mean we don’t go to war at home. In May of 2019, I released my A Fistfull podcast under my brand to share more inspirational messages being that I started to draw listeners now so why not actually give them a voice to my writing. My A Fistfull of Prayers helped me turned my turned into prayers to be the prayer warrior I am today. My blogging was a pen and paper. My book gave me writing a face and my podcast gave me writing a voice. I am glad to share my story and live my truth versus someone or the news doing it for me.
Has it been a smooth road?
The road has not been smooth. I’ve stumbles along the way with questions of criticism as feedback. My merchandise ran into production errors that have now been corrected and released. I still face troubles in my journey the more courage I get to share but as long as I am inspiring one reader at a time, I know my help comes from the Lord.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
A Fistfull of Prayers, LLC specializes in providing a positive impact on how to look at any kind of situation spiritually versus for what it may present itself at that moment. It is a faith-based business that uses writings of inspirational messages, prayers, verses of the day, and words of encouragement to inspire you to never be ashamed to tell your story, start your own journey, or live your truth even if facing judgment. It is veteran owned and founded so it makes the diversity to be versatile a smoother process when reaching my audience.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Yes, I think our city is a good place for A Fistfull of Prayers, LLC but also for any other city. We all need prayer. We all need an extra dose of encouragement. We all are human with different struggles to be the best version of ourselves mentally, physically, financially, or emotionally but we tend to forget that the one that covers all these areas is to be spiritually fed. Everyone has room for improvement but it starts with self and its a personal choice.
Pricing:
- Shifted: From pain to prayers book $19.99 on Amazon.com
- T-shirts $24.00 on chrissieshifted.com
Contact Info:
- Website: Chrissieshifted.com
- Phone: 9124369842
- Email: afistfull18@gmail.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/afistfullofprayers
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/afistfullofprayers
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/afistfullofprayers
- Blog: Afistfull.com
Image Credit:
Canva & Jeff Stone
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