People sometimes ask me why I named my company Upstormed. The answer is simple. I have been through storms. Not one storm, but many, one after another, some of them before I was old enough to understand what was happening to me. And every time, by the grace of God, I came up out of them. That is what Upstormed means to me: rising up through the storm, not around it.
I want to share a few things I have learned on that road, from a boy who never knew a mother’s love to a man who builds books, music and a business with his own two hands. I share them because I believe somebody reading this is in the middle of a storm right now, and I want you to know you are not alone.
Where I started
My earliest happy memories are with my grandparents in Jamaica. Those years were a gift. When I was six, I came back to the United States to live with my mother, and my life changed in ways I have written about in my memoir, Neglected But Undefeated. By fourteen, I was homeless. In 2005, I had brain surgery for a disorder that caused seizures, and God brought me through it.
I do not tell you this so you will feel sorry for me. I tell you because every one of those chapters taught me something I still use every single day.
“Faith is why I’m here today and faith is why I made it through.”
— Jonathan Anthony Burkett, Neglected But Undefeated
Lesson one: Faith is not a feeling, it is a foundation
There were nights when I did not feel strong and did not feel hopeful. But faith was never about how I felt. Faith was the ground under my feet when everything else was moving. When you build your life on God, the storm can shake the house, but it cannot take the foundation.
“And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.”
— Matthew 7:25 (KJV)
Lesson two: Forgiveness sets you free to build
One of the hardest things I ever did was forgive my mother. I did it through faith and through writing, one honest page at a time. Forgiveness did not erase what happened. What it did was give me my hands back. I could not build a future while I was still holding on to the past. Once I let go, I had room to create.
Lesson three: Start with what you have
When I started writing, I did not have a big platform or a team. I had a story and a pen. That story became Neglected But Undefeated, then the Friends 2 Lovers novels and Fighting To Become Champions. Later came the music. Then came Upstormed.
Entrepreneurship taught me that you do not wait for perfect conditions. Farmers who wait for a perfect sky never plant. You start where you are, with what God already put in your hands, and you keep going.
Lesson four: Build something that helps somebody else
I did not start Upstormed Family Magazine to talk about myself. I started it because I know what it feels like to need a word of hope and not find one. Every day, this magazine tries to give people something real: good news, practical help for families, health and history, and the stories of Scripture that carried me. If one article helps one person hold on one more day, it was worth writing.
Lesson five: Family is bigger than blood
I grew up without the family I needed. So I learned that family can also be the people God puts around you: friends who stay, readers who write in, and a community that refuses to let each other fall. That is why we say, “Through every storm, we rise together.” Together is the most important word in that sentence.
If you are in the storm right now
Please hear me. Your story is not over. People may know your name, but they do not know your story, and the next chapter has not been written yet. Keep praying. Keep working. Keep forgiving. Keep showing up. The storm came to test you, not to keep you.
Thank you for being part of this family. I am grateful for every one of you.
— Jonathan
What storm has God brought you through, and what did it teach you? Share your story in the comments below.
Learn more about Jonathan at www.jonathanburkett.com · Follow him on Instagram and Facebook · Read Neglected But Undefeated on Amazon
Sources: Jonathan Anthony Burkett, Goodreads author page and quotes; Neglected But Undefeated (Jonathan Anthony Burkett Publications); King James Bible, Matthew 7:25.
Leave a Reply