Welcome to Yellow Butterfly!
My desire is to see women of all ages find hope, help, and healing through this blog, writing, and speaking!
I want to tell you a little about myself:
I grew up on a small farm in Wichita, KS., living there the first 18 years of my life.
Right out of high school I went to Friends Bible College in Haviland, KS., now Barclay College and met my husband there, Tony Wheeler. I loved it when he would see me in the library and yell out “Stacey Long!”
We waited a long time to marry after our first date on December 6th: a whole 8 months! In our case, Friends Bridal College lived up to its name!
He was a senior and I was a baby freshman.
We were in love, and we’re still in love 32 years later!
We have three amazing kids and my two daughters married incredible men themselves and now each has one child with my youngest daughter pregnant again in December of 2019.
I’ve always loved reading and writing, but what I really wanted to be growing up was a broadcast journalist. I am naturally curious and interested in people and how life works. I like to help people learn new things. I’m wired to be a researcher. I’m also the baby of my family, if you know anything about birth order. . . .
I majored in Mass Communications at Friends University in Wichita my junior year until my advisor called me into his office and told me the college was shutting down this degree.
What?! NO! This was my dream!
But God had other plans for me.
“How do you feel about reading and writing?” my advisor asked. “I feel great about it.” “Then the only degree you can get and stay within your four-year goal for college is a degree in English.”
So, that’s how I became an English major. Man plans his ways, but God directs his steps, or in this case her steps.
Tony says all he remembers about that year was me reading Shakespeare in the bathtub. HA! That’s the only place I could be alone! I was taking 18 credits of English courses and had two kids under the age of three. Where would you study?!
Fast forward to 2009 when we moved back to Haviland, KS., where Tony and I met. We had come full circle, 21 years later. Tony had been asked to join the faculty of the undergrad department and would eventually help develop the grad department. He has a Ph.D. in Family Life Education and Consultation from Kansas State University.
Somehow Barclay found out I had a degree in English, needed an English teacher, and asked me to get my Master’s in English. Easier said than done, for me, I’ve found; but, I did it!
I graduated in 2013 from Fort Hays State University. Now I can REALLY read English, speak it, and write it! I taught college-level English for seven years. I’ve also done some ghost writing, editing, and written a book about how to plan a wedding for an every day person, not for Princess Diana.
We all have a story to tell. Here’s a small part of mine: For four years in the late 80s I wrestled in a severe and dark battle for my life with bulimia (speaking of Princess Diana. . . .). For those of you who don’t know, this a type of eating disorder, addiction, and personal hell; and, with God on my side, and the extreme love of my husband, Tony and my God: I won this battle.
As you can imagine, I don’t normally lead into a conversation with this dark bit about my former life, but this time it’s okay. The last time I struggled with this eating disorder was in 1988, so it’s been a while since God healed me. This part of my life doesn’t define me except as an amazing piece of my testimony of God’s healing love to this orphan girl who became a daughter of the King, a testimony I’ve given to him to use as he will.
I love being a wife and love being a mom, but many times as I was raising my three children I would compare myself to other mothers and find myself greatly lacking. Or in meal planning, fashion, the size of my waist, or take-your-pick in the ways we women compare ourselves to each other.
It seems I had to learn how to do everything the hard way, putting one foot in front of the other hour by hour and day by day! How does every other mom make it looks so easy? I would wonder.
Now I would love to use some of my wisdom to help even one mother feel more confident in motherhood, in marriage, in decorating, in a career, or in planning a wedding (not as easy as it looks, I’ve found!).
I have a passion to see women know they are beautiful and loved, to help them find the same hope and healing I have found in a real relationship with a real God.
If I can help one person feel a sense of hope or find some kind of healing to face a new day then this site is a success to me!
The symbol of a Yellow Butterfly is a picture of my life. The name was given to me by God and then confirmed three different times through an actual yellow butterfly flying near me and circling around me. It is a picture of hope for me, but not just for me– for other people, too, who want more in this life.
Yellow Butterflies are creatures of mystery, beauty, and complexity.
Did you know, (because I certainly didn’t) that butterflies use four different types of skillful wing motions to keep themselves above the ground by masterfully using the air that comes at them, flying gracefully in the sky, with a delicate precision?
My hunch is that if you’re a woman reading this right now, you’re doing some crazy juggling in your own life to handle what’s coming at you.
Choose joy today. Choose life, because you are unique, you are talented, you are dazzling!
Stacey D. Wheeler, M.A.
