What I Learned Moving My Website from Weebly to WordPress

Have you ever felt like you made a huge mistake? Yeah, me too. Many times. My latest huge mistake moment came when I realized I’d picked the wrong website server.

Some time ago God had told me to build a website and blog. I immediately thought, I can’t do that, I don’t know any of that technical mumbo jumbo. But I began researching and found Weebly. It’s drag and drop interface seemed like the perfect fit for my non-technical skills.

I spent months and countless hours building my website, only to find out that I really couldn’t get anyone to see my site or read my blog posts with Weebly. It seemed that I had missed the boat and was paddling my little website into the big black sea all alone. This is when I discovered WordPress and found out that everything I needed to do in order to see my little website get going was on WordPress.

Now, I had two problems. I didn’t know how to use WordPress and I needed to figure out how to move my website over to it.

Again I did some research and found out that moving a website from Weebly to WordPress is not an easy task. That was a real gut punch. I decided I had two options, give up or figure it out. Well, I’m no quitter, especially when God has told me to do something. So, even though it seemed like an impossible task, I resolved myself to the fact that it was time to make the move.

With a lot of trepidation I began by setting up a WordPress site where I could transfer all of my Weebly stuff over. Setting up the new site was the easy part. I had 115 posts and I don’t even know how many pictures to move. I thought it would take about a week to do it. Well, it ended up taking six weeks, a lot of headaches and some shear determination. In the process I learned a lot about WordPress, and more importantly God taught me some great lessons on following Him even when it seems impossible. Here are my three big takeaways from this experience.

#1 Be Patient and Persevere

Rejoice in hope, be patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

                                                 Romans 12:12

When we think of affliction it’s usually in the physical form. Someone who has a terrible disease or debilitating disability. Although I wasn’t afflicted in a typical way, I felt I was afflicted in a mental and emotional sense. The frustration I felt grew bigger every day until I wanted to throw my computer out the window. Mentally, I thought, I just can’t do this. Emotionally, I felt drained. About half the way through I wanted to give up completely. My normal “can do” attitude was gone. But God whispered from deep inside of me, “Keep going. Don’t give up.” I knew I had to finish what I started so, I put blinders on and pressed forward. I found a rhythm, get one post transferred and then the next and the next. Still it seemed like there was no end in sight. Patience and perseverance became my only goal. Patience because it was taking so much longer than I expected. And perseverance to keep at it no matter how long or hard it got. After weeks of endless hours staring at the computer screen, I suddenly realized everything was moved and it was time to make the permanent change over to WordPress.

#2 Trust God when change is scary.

Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in you.

                                             Psalm 56:3

I don’t know when or how but during this six week period my Weebly site became a security blanket to me. It was a backup just in case a transfer didn’t take. Now it was time to delete the Weebly site and make the move permanent. All of the hard work I had put into building that site was about to disappear with one click of the mouse and my security blanket was going to be pulled out from underneath me. It was scary! I hemmed and hawed about it and walked away from the computer multiple times. Finally, after much deliberation, I decided it was now or never. I sat at the computer staring at that delete button and prayed, “Please God.” Those were the only words I had in that moment. And with that I clicked delete.

It took some time for the new WordPress site to become active. That next day of waiting was full of stress and dread. Doubt filled my heart. What if it doesn’t work? What if I can’t fix it? But I put my trust in God and believed that He had it under control.

#3 God makes the impossible possible.

With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.

                                                 Matthew 19:26

I may have had serious doubts about my technical abilities going into this move, but I had zero doubts about God’s ability to bring about His will in my life. When I saw my new website up and running I can’t tell you how much relief I felt. God is good, always good. But it took me being obedient to Him and stepping out in faith to see the goodness of God in my life. I give God all of the credit. He did it. Without Him it would have been an impossible task for me to accomplish on my own. But with God the impossible became possible.

I know it may seem that this post is all about me, but in my heart it is all about you. I want to encourage you to seek God, persevere through the difficult times, trust Him when change is scary and see the impossible happen in your life too.

Has God asked you to do something that seems impossible? Are you thinking of taking that leap of faith? You may feel that the deck is stacked against you or that you’re facing an impossible task. But when you follow God you will never go wrong. May God bless you as you see HIs hand working in your life!

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