I experienced a social media catastrophe this time last week…I lost access to my Instagram account for 5 DAYS! I still don’t understand what happened. All I know is that I recently hit a milestone of 8K followers, which came to a screeching halt when my account was wiped off the face of the digital earth.

Okay, maybe I’m being dramatic. In the grand scheme of life, yes…this is a minute problem, but in my little world, I’ve been pouring my heart and soul into building and growing! 8K was a big deal for my 8-month blog baby. :)

This experience put a lot of things in perspective for me. After all, I had 5 full days to reflect on the many questions I had…most of which starting with “WHY?”

Why did this happen? Why am I pouring my heart and soul into platforms that could potentially crash at any moment? And ultimately, why am I blogging?

Since these are the questions I’ve been answering for myself, I think now is the perfect time to also answer these questions for you—my readers—the ones who are riding shotgun in my adventurous journey.

My Instagram Crash & Your VIP Status

I believe influence is very important. What you allow your eyes to see, your ears to hear and your heart to believe can have a life-or-death impact on your earthly and eternal life. With heartache, tragedies and bad news ever present in our world news, I believe in being a positive influence.

Why? Because I believe every person is very important. You matter, so that makes you a VIP. :)

Losing my Instagram platform of influence for an unknown amount of time meant losing connection with the very important people I interact with on a daily basis. Not only do I love sharing my life with you, but I love jumping into your world, too. I’m not sure if it’s sad, silly, embarrassing or just funny…but regardless, my family knows some of you by name. I talk about what Leah’s doing today, where Brooke’s having dinner tonight and the sweetest thing Ruthie DM'ed me. My social media community has become more than digital to me, it’s personal.

With every passing hour, the thought of being forced to start over with a new Instagram account was ever present last week. I was hoping and praying for my Instagram account to be recovered!

It was day 5 and I was on a flight back to Dallas. When I landed, I turned airplane mode off and my screen loaded up with notifications and messages filled with good news...MY INSTAGRAM IS BACK! Woohoo! I’m so excited to be back on the grams and sharing life again with the VIPs in my world.

I’ll say it over and over and over and over…thank you for joining my journey! I'm so grateful for the support of my friends, faithful followers and blogger buddies...you were all amazingly supportive throughout my week of unknown!

Soon I'll be talking about why I'm blogging. Stay tuned!

Romper (on sale $21.50): ASOS | Hat (on sale $9.50): ASOS | Shoes: Betsey Johnson (similar here) | Backpack: Loungefly

Much love xo

Jess

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