The Passing of a Beautiful Poet

My mother, Dorothy Pugh Poole, passed Thursday, February 23rd. This week, I have the horrible duty of planning my mother's funeral. Last week, I had the horrible duty of choosing to discontinue treatment. As you can imagine, I'm all torn up inside, but that doesn't mean I can stop.

Of all the parts of a funeral, the obituary is most important to me and I want my mom's obit to be the best thing in the world. I've done several before but never for family and now here I am trying to put one together. The first step for me was finding my favorite things about her. At the top of the list is her poetic skills and that is going to be the focus of her funeral.

Please continue to pray and keep my family lifted to the Lord. We need strength right now.

Me-Ness

If you settled it in your heart and mind to make this the year that you actually invest in yourself, then this short morning starter is for you.

Today, we need to get up and tell ourselves just how special we are. Pick one aspect of your personality today to celebrate and let everyone know what you're making a big deal of. My choice for today is persistence. I will keep trying and trying and adjusting to try again. I love that I'm like that, even though it is a nerve-rattling trait at times. So I celebrate me right now and am about to give myself 10 minutes to revel in my me-ness. I suggest you do the same.

Make it a great day!

For Writers

Generally, writers must be a bit reclusive, at least sometimes. We need time to cultivate ideas in our heads and/or hearts. We need time to develop stories, plots, etc. We need time to write, re-write, edit and obsess. The problem, though, is balance. Too much alone time, too much brooding, too much thinking and we find ourselves with a gigantic case of writer's block.

Today, I challenge all authors and writers of all kinds to get out and find something different to do. Go speak to someone you hadn't talked to in months or years. Fresh perspective keeps our writing fresh and exciting, or at least interesting.

Just a sweet little nibble today to let my faithful readers know that I'm still here. The writing spirit lives on!

New Life-New Outlook-New Me

I never thought of myself as the person who does the sympathetic shoulder to perfection. But I had a friend tell me to stick to doing the sad, heavy-hearted stuff that I’m so good at. I didn’t quite know how in the world to take that comment. I mean, who wants to be known for making people cry or making people think about stuff they’d rather forget? I didn’t set out to build that kind of legacy. But, I suppose God had other plans for me.

Well lately, I’ve been living a totally different life, getting completely new and sometimes fresh perspective, and rethinking some of my prior decisions, goals, etc. I find much more comedy in things than I ever did before. I’m realizing how circular the world is and what that means for my own joy, peace and contentment. And now, I can understand how to calm my mind and heart when tragedy strikes or hard times persist. For one thing, the sun keeps rising and setting. The days are going to pass and the struggles will change. Life truly goes on. And anyway, if I could stop it, it wouldn’t be in the middle of a painful episode. And since I know that whatever comes will also go, I learn to enjoy every aspect of this brilliantly created masterpiece that God left for me to navigate. He has the book of my life with Him, already written, already edited, already a bestseller. He’s read it so thoroughly that He knows every word of it by heart. Of course, I’m only on chapter 36 and like a soap opera character, I don’t know how this thing will end for me yet. But, I know who knows and I trust Him implicitly. Embracing a new me fully without question.

Pleasure Reads

Reading is probably one of my favorite hobbies, but then sometimes it feels like a task. I suppose it gets like that when I have to read for edits versus reading for pleasure. I finally got my tally for last year and I'm so very proud to announce that I read approximately 43 books in 2011. So you know I have to take it up a notch for 2012. I think my goal may be 50 books, but with all the writing and deadlines I have for this year, I'll be lucky to get in 10 pleasure reads.


I will post a list of last year's reads within the coming week so that you can see what kind of material has warped me. ROTFL!

Don't Be So Rigid

Sometimes when we feel worn down, mentally exhausted, slightly dejected, those are signs that there is something foreign in our lives that need to be purged out. For sure, purging hurts because normally we need to release something we want to keep. But part of maturity is learning that God knows what's best for all of creation, and He sees much further than we do. It's better to listen to what He says and tune in to the subtle cues He gives us when change is coming.


I'm learning to be more flexible. I figured out that the rigidity that I've always had has also been the cause of a lot of my pain. I'm resistant to change at times and it only ends up making things worse. So, I'm still on the path of learning. Amen to that!

Prophetic Appreciation

There are very few things in the world as amazing as the gifts of the Spirit. Nearly every Christian has read about the 9 spiritual gifts given by the Holy Spirit for the edification of the Body of Christ. Yet, those gifts are still misunderstood and abused, some more than others. But of them all, the prophetic is perhaps the most abused, the most overused and the most misunderstood. Somehow, the prophetic went from always 100 percent accurate in the Old Testament to seemingly less than 10 percent accurate today. We make every excuse in the book when a prophetic utterance is off, but ultimately it comes down to the prophet. This is why when we find someone who truly speaks the words of God, we must appreciate them and be grateful to God for actually speaking through them to us as the Body of Christ.
One such man of God is Apostle K.C. Sparks. Since our meeting in 2008, I’ve watched his ministry very closely and have learned a great deal. The biggest part of his ministry is healing and restoration, but almost always through prophetic utterance. In our first meeting, his first prayer for me was for my books, businesses and the family I so desire to have. Having that prophetic guidance from God changed my life permanently. It gave me some foundation and direction in a time when I had an abundance of ideas, but no sure plan or path determined to bring them into fruition.
Apostle Sparks gave me the Word of God and told me in May 2008 that I’d get international coverage for my bestseller and that he saw movies and television spots. Months laters, I met some officials who were interested in making my book into a small, independent feature film and that was the first fulfillment of what God had spoken through Apostle Sparks. Since then, we’ve become friends and co-laborers in the Kingdom of God.
Like many reading this article, I’ve experienced the pain of having false prophets sell me dreams, but I’ve also experienced the blessing of having God truly speak over my life through another human being. Meeting real prophets who truly serve God is an honor and a privilege. When God sent Apostle Sparks into my life, I learned how to distinguish true men and women of God, learned to hear from God on a deeper, more personal level, and learned how to keep myself covered under the blood of Christ when it comes to idle words and word curses, the biggest enemy to the prophetic.
This is my salute to a man of God who walks, talks and teaches the truth, someone who has forever altered my understanding of the magnificent love and graciousness of God. To Apostle Kenneth C. Sparks, keep speaking the oracles of God because hungry souls are listening!

Chances

This is a little off the mainline for me, but today I wanted to talk about chances. This isn't biblical law, but personal musing. I hope you can enjoy it and maybe lend some much needed feedback.


It is true that most people get multiple chances at most aspects of life, but that isn't always the case. Sometimes opportunity knocks only once. The prepared open and reap the benefits. The rest spend months or years or a lifetime pondering how life could be different if only.


Sometimes, when I have nothing else to do... okay, who am I kidding? I always have something else to do. But sometimes, I get into a reflective mood and I begin to think about my choices and how my life could be different if I'd done something differently in the past. Each day, I make more choices, all of them leading me somewhere, and often not quite where I intended. But no matter what happens, I can never undo prior decisions. I can only correct what I can and move on. That is what life has taught me... we all get chances.


Each time we make good decisions, we have the chance to learn about the benefits of good decision-making abilities. Each time we make bad decisions and live through it, we learn what to avoid and how to make better decisions. We always have a chance to learn as long as we are alive. Age is not a deterrent. Socioeconomic status, family ties and history are merely road bumps. They cannot keep you from living and learning if that is what you choose to do. Take every chance afforded to you to better your life, not by the material and temporary only, but emotionally and spiritually as well. I know I am. I made a decision to stop fretting over what is and what isn't in my life. I choose now to learn what I can by the things that come and the things that go.