Sparrow Hopes: God’s Provision in the World of Freelancing

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” – Matthew 6:25-26

When I was younger, I had no idea that I’d be a freelancer and own my own videography business. Freelancing is such hustle-oriented business—you have to consistently make sure that your product or services are up to date, and also that they are seen by the right customer. As a business owner, you constantly juggle all of these different categories in your mind to ensure that you are constantly luring a consistent consumer base.

While each freelancer’s profession is different, mine primarily thrives in the media world. I’ve worked on film sets, assistant jobs, and videography gigs all without knowing month to month—and sometimes week to week—where I’ll receive my next paycheck. This doesn’t mean that I don’t plan or book clients or seek out work. It just means each job search is almost like throwing a pair of dice. You never know what you’re going to get. However, there is one source of income that has proven to be the most consistent: wedding videography. I always love to tell my family about the secret world of working weddings and how almost everyone’s job is gig-based. From the venue, to the cake maker, to the photographer, and to myself—the videographer. After years of working freelance, I’ve come to think of working gigs like a farmer tending crops. There are certain ways in which you plant seeds during certain times of the year, to help grow the healthiest plant, then, you must tend to the growing plants to make sure they become the best product they can be. Finally, you harvest your crop once they are about to become ripe. Believe it or not, this process can be found in freelancing as well.

I’ve worked on film sets, assistant jobs, and videography gigs all without knowing month to month—and sometimes week to week—where I’ll receive my next paycheck. This doesn’t mean that I don’t plan or book clients or seek out work. It just means each job search is almost like throwing a pair of dice. You never know what you’re going to get.

One of the unique things about the wedding world is that there is a specific time frame in a year in which the potential of booking couples is higher than the rest of the year. This season is often called “Engagement Season” and it’s the time when you could potentially harvest the most number of clients for your whole work year. These months normally come between Christmas and Valentine’s Day. After that, the opportunities slowly decline throughout the year. Yet “planting seeds” and preparing for clients come through the work of advertising your services, which happens almost all year round. As a young freelancer, I began to learn this ebb and flow of when the most clients would reach out to me, and I began to feel confident that I could do this. Yet with all of the juggling to make sure my business was the best it could be, I began to make worrying a habit. Worrying if my logo looked professional enough, worrying if my website was the cleanest it could be, worrying if my footage looked cinematic enough.

Little did I know that over a few years my worry would reach its pinnacle. I was sitting on my couch in my apartment in Pasadena at the time and wondering how I was going to pay rent after Christmas. For some reason, that year had been the sparsest for weddings I’ve ever done. Maybe I didn’t advertise enough or didn’t gain as many reviews as my competitors at the time or maybe it was any combination of any part of the “seed planting” process. I’m not quite sure why, but I just didn’t have as many clients as I thought to financially sustain my living expenses for the rest of the year. It was October, and I still had at least four months until my next booked wedding. I knew the season for booking was done and there were no more opportunities to harvest clients that year. I distinctly remember walking over to my fridge in my worried state to grab some comfort food only to find my side of the fridge empty. My heart turned to ice. How in the world could I afford rent for the next few months? Groceries? Utilities?

I was the only freelancer I knew at that time, and I have never felt more alone in that moment. I immediately felt regret for all the times I should have tended to my “crop” more. My thoughts raced—“I could have done more Instagram videos” and “I could have taken better photos” filled my mind throughout the night. I began to worry not just about the next few months but about the next year. I started to think that my efforts weren’t enough.

Then I did something I had never done before. I prayed over my work and gave everything that I had worked for to God.

In all of my time living gig to gig, I never thought to stop and pray. I had never connected the world of freelancing with asking for God’s provision. Of course, my human efforts weren’t enough. They could only go so far.

When I asked for income or just a client—just. one. more. client.—I laughed at myself and felt silly asking God for what felt like such a frivolous need. I wasn’t homeless. I wasn’t starving. I wasn’t near death. I felt like my needs were silly and basic compared to what I felt prayer should be used for—deep and powerful requests that could change someone’s life.

In all of my time living gig to gig, I never thought to stop and pray. I had never connected the world of freelancing with asking for God’s provision. Of course, my human efforts weren’t enough. They could only go so far.

But then my phone rang not long after I prayed, and it was a couple whose videographer just dropped out. They were in desperate need of a replacement and wondering if I could do the job.

There were many verses that popped into my head that night. But the loudest one that kept repeating was Matthew 6:24-35. How many times had I worried over the number of clients I had? How many times did I overwork myself just to make sure I had enough money to survive? I found myself caught in the uncomfortable reality that my actions reflected someone who didn’t believe that God could provide in the unknown answer of “what’s next?”.

I realized that I liked worrying about what I would eat or what I would wear. I liked “gathering into barns” because it made me feel powerful. Like I was in control and could navigate the seasons of life on my own. But I was wasting my energy, my best, in worrying the entire time. I wasn’t giving God the rightful glory that He deserved for so many things He had given me in my life.

Finally wrestling with myself to trust Him with the ups and downs of my business caused me to look back at how God had been faithful before in previous unknowns.

When I look back at Matthew 6:25-34 now, I smile and remember that season of fear with hope. When I feel like God wouldn’t hear me, or even provide for me in that time—he provided three more jobs for me to work at the end of that year, and I had even more clients the next year than I knew what to do with! This is not to say that if you pray, that God will make everything perfect and you won’t have to work or go through difficult seasons. But rather, that night, I learned that maybe praying to God about my work and giving it over to Him is one important part in growing a fruitful crop for the year to come.

Tiffany Castro-Tremblay, an L.A. native, is a multi-racial Hispanic writer who has been writing stories since she first learned to spell “piano” in the first grade (and is still super proud of that). Tiffany has worked in the film industry for the last six years with experience of working in music videos, shorts, and numerous feature films. The owner of her own production company, Morning Peak Media, she captures anything from weddings to directing promotional material for companies and non-profits. She currently writes for the podcast, Shuddersome and The Good Fruit.