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Affirmation

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Affirmation. The exercise for this week was to affirm that we are an author, and then post a video supporting that. It was hard for me to even take in the fact that I am writing. I guess up until now I just really wasn’t considering myself an author. An author is a person who has a successful book on the New York Bestseller list, selling millions of copies. That’s not me. I haven’t published one word yet. Then I started thinking. I have written a lot over my lifetime. I have not only written college papers, grants, lesson plans, programs, plays, devotionals, and presentations, but I have written stories in my diaries that no one else has ever read. Why would I not consider myself an author? Why is it that we don’t consider ourselves anything until we have reach a certain level of what others think of as success? Why do we not celebrate the starting of something as a step in the right direction? A beginning of something bigger, that may even go in a direction that we did not ant...
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In the Name of Clarity

Clarity So here is the start to my blogging reboot. I have now went through my first two weeks of the writing tribe I belong to, and am still feeling good about this journey. Right now I am working on the writing proposal which is an exercise in planning out how your writing goes. It is what Kary Oberbrunner calls getting “clarity”.   So even though I think I know what that means, I decided to look clarity up for a reference. Clarity means, “the quality of being easy to see or hear; sharpness of image or sound.”¹ This means that I need to focus my story and my message so that others will “see” and understand what I am writing. Okay. So what is it that I am trying to say? What profound, earth shattering message do I have for others? Then how am I going to take that message and wrap it in a fictional story symbolizing all the points I hope to make? Yes, this is proving to be a tall order for me. I have been carrying around this story in my mind for years, but now ...
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My Personal Journey....Reboot

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So here I am.... I am making some adjustments to my blog to reflect where I am three years after I started this journey.  I have adjusted the name for my blog to include where I am heading in the future.  I hope that my friends, family, and hopefully others will follow my blog, because I truly want to inspire, encourage, and maybe even entertain the world around me. The next few months will have to do with a literary journey that I am going on.  Yes, I have taken a step that I have wanted to do for a long time.  I have decided to try and write a book!  I have had stories chasing around in my brain for years, with vivid pictures and happy endings.  So now I have decided to try and write some of them down.  I am not going to do this alone.  I have actually joined a writing/publishing/marketing group that will help me get this done in a timely manner (because I know there is times I won't do it if I am not pushing a deadline). The group seems to be...
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Honoring James: Or As I Like to Call Him, Dad

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Twenty years ago this week my father passed away.  For 20 years I have continued to mourn and struggle with a story that questioned my right to call him “Dad.”  Last night I decided it was time to put all of that to rest.  What follows is my tribute to him as a person and a father; a man that meant and still means a lot to me. My father was not a powerful man, yet he was not without distinction.  He served his country for 24 years, fought in two wars, visited 119 countries, and received a long list of citations to reflect his honorable service. He produced seven children from three marriages, maybe not perfectly, but maybe without any regrets.  He was smart, witty, and a little bit funny, though you would rarely hear him laugh out loud (it was mostly a smirk on his face, with blue eyes dancing around).  He could argue a “blue” streak about politics (I only knew of him voting “red” but he still had a lot of “blue” ideas), but deep down inside of him ...
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Thanksgiving Tribute: Remembering Mom!

Having just finished the Thanksgiving holiday, is it any wonder that, while we are thankful for everything good in our life, we still reflect on who or what is missing.  Thanksgiving was the big holiday for my mother.  She pulled out all the stops to make it as special as she could, and woe to the person who would dare get in the way of making that happen.  For her it was a very important tradition of gathering family and friends near and far to feast and enjoy each other’s company.  Of course like many traditions in my family, this one also centered around good food.  With this in mind, my daughter this year insisted that we make what “Grandma always made.”  So I tried my best to do that.  And even though I know that I didn’t quite get there, I believe that Mom would still be happy with the effort. We always had turkey for Thanksgiving. We did not just have turkey breast, but the whole turkey.  God forbid that you even mentioned having ham at...
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Questions I Have

Have you ever woke in the morning really wondering what purpose do I still have for being here?  I know that this is a question that has plagued me since I passed the half century mark.  With my daughter leaving home and starting her own independent life (not totally because a good deal of her "stuff" is still here), I have been really struggling to figure out what to do next. The "empty nest" may have some shouting for joy because now it seems they will have so much more pampering time for themselves, a little more money in their pocket (since the kids are not dipping into it every five minutes), and excitement at exploring all those things they've wanted to do but haven't done in a very long time. But for me, it doesn't seem that simple.  Once I left the ideas I had in high school that I was going to go to a university, get a degree in science something or other, land a job at a research facility that was five years away from curing cancer, and have ...
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God is Love!

How do we define love?  1 John 4:8 tells us that God is love, and in verse 11, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.”  In chapter 3 of 1 John is also talks about how this is what we have been commanded to do, to believe in Jesus Christ and to love one another.  It sounds pretty simple, but not so easy to pull off sometimes.  When we think a situation is wrong or if we think that we ourselves have been wronged, it is hard to just love and let God sort things out.  But I am beginning to see more and more in my life how it is so important to just love people and situations in order to have peace in my heart.  It is a matter of giving to God and trusting him to work things out the best way.  This frees me to “sow to the Spirit” so that I can “reap life everlasting.” [Galatians 6:8] Two situations have brought this to my attention this week, and have caused me to deal with emotions that are very strong.  First was a situa...
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