St. Bonaventure once wrote, "the world makes its choices in one way, Christ in another, " choosing to employ our weaknesses rather than our strengths, and our failures far more than our successes.

Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace

Whosoever is a failure. It's one of my biggest and most expensive failures, in fact.

I always wanted to start a magazine for gay and lesbian Christians. I love reading Christian magazines, but I could never make it through an issue of Christianity Today or Moody's without being hit over the head with some Bible verse or article. It became impossible to take the abuse with the blessings. So, since no one else was doing it, I decided to start a magazine exclusively for gay and lesbian Christians.

I majored in management in college. I have a degree that says I know how to start and run a business. I even took classes on how to write a business plan, secure financing, the whole nine yards. But, being the impatient upstart that I am, I forgot my training, and plunged head long into a venture to put the magazine into print. I thought, I'll put an issue or two out, try to recruit a few sponsors, get it in some bookstores and it will just take off. Wrong.

After four issues in print I was broke. I realized one person did not a magazine staff make. It was impossible for me to sell ads, recruit bookstores, find writers, write stories myself, layout a magazine and deal with the printer all by myself. Something suffered and it was the sales end, because I hate that part of the job! Unfortunately, selling ads was what would have kept the print version of Whosoever alive!

So, Whosoever failed. The print version died an untimely death.

But it was during this time that I was in a job where I was learning how to build and design web pages. Despite the death of the print version of Whosoever, I discovered the internet would be a perfect place for such a publication. It had several advantages but the two main ones were low cost, and worldwide reach.

In its print form, Whosoever only saw the light of day in a limited number of bookstores. Here, on the web, it's available to everyone. I've even had a couple of hits from China! The letters pour in everyday from people who have visited the site and been blessed.

Who gets the credit for this? God. By using my colossal failure, God has created something good. My weakness caused the print version to fail, but it is God's strength through that weakness that makes the magazine a success today.

That's why I consider Whosoever one of my finest failures.

Blessings,
Candace