MY FOOLISHNESS SAID GIVE UP

Before we get into it. I have a vision to take the intent of these blogs, partner them with some of my fiction writing and hit the road on an empowering one woman tour, that will be a show within a workshop or vice versa. Being completely honest, I need your help to do that. Please donate to the effort by clicking here, any amount. Your help will help define the number of cities and the number of people this show can reach. This is an out of the box unusual request for me and way out of my comfort zone (that's the next blog); so I hope you feel me and I hope you donate.

NOW MY THOUGHTS THIS TIME....

I am just going to admit it. There are sometimes, a lot of times, I just want to give up. I just have to admit that I have messed up royally. I can not fix the mess that I created. I feel like the rope of help being thrown down to me in my hole is still six feet too short. There are times, a lot of times, I just want to give up. There are often people around me who encourage me to give up. I tell myself it would be so much easier to just throw in the towel. I had one of those times yesterday. Then, after those two to five seconds of pity, I got excited about my vision again.


In what a lot of people have called absolutely crazy and not faith, about three years ago I stepped away from a position as Station Manager of a gospel station to move into writing. The truth of the matter is, more than faith, God had begun to show me clearly that I was out of place there and while I could not communicate so much of it to anyone; I had to go. Now, almost three years into owning a business, can I just be brutally honest here? I HAVE MADE SOME HUGE BLUNDERS AND MISTAKES! Some of them led me back to my former boss to ask for help. I have considered (and am considering) going back into the workforce (to some degree) to correct some of those mistakes. Yet, I have not lost sight of my vision. That vision is something I have talked about before - BIRTH.

When I began my solo writing career; it was about me. I was going to produce my plays and get them produced and write these books. Ladada Ladadee. That is what I was going to do. Then suddenly I had this business of coaching people through their writing process. BIRTH. Then I found myself with this small publishing company that now has this grand vision and about six authors waiting to launch their books. BIRTH. Then there was this blog where I would talk about the stuff in my head that relates to you and offer you writing exercises to work your way through life. BIRTH. I have not lost sight of my vision. Yet, I think that the mistakes, blunders, poor choices, poor stewardship and absolutely stupid moves that I was trying to hide were beating that vision down. So I decided that who the Son sets free is free indeed and I am releasing all of it. I just gave birth to freedom.

I have screwed up! I have had some holes in money bags (from the Biblical passage)! I did not count all the costs personally, familially, socially, financially nor spiritually - but unlike Florida - I have done better in the recount. Still I could not allow the stuff I did not want people to see to continue to block the view INTO MY VISION. I could not continue to see my vision around those errors. So there I have spilled the beans. I screwed up and I wanted to give up because of it, time and time again.

I have wanted to give up; instead of giving up - I keep getting up and as long as I do I know that everything will be okay. It may not be okay in my time. But it will be okay. I may get some more nasty emails, harassing text messages and threatening voice mails - but is is okay. All of those things are the remnant of the old creature's habits and that good sister can not abide in my vision any longer!


So be honest. Haven't you ever wanted to give up? Write down the last three times you have wanted to give up and why. Now pull from the power that is deep inside of you and pull out three great reasons that have to do with what you have to offer to this world, your family, your church, your friends and your self that defeat that desire to lay down in the battle.


I messed up some money. Well, yes you did, but with the abundance you are positioning yourself to receive you will be able to give away double the amount you messed up. I didn't spend enough time with the kids. Well, what time is it now? Seems like a good position on the clock to spend time with yours and maybe two others whose parents are working hard to make ends meet. I didn't honestly do everything I could have on that project. Still, the next project gives you the opportunity to do more than you ever could have before on any project and it will allow you to mentor someone along the way.

I wanted to give up. I wanted to just lay down and cry. I wanted to wail like a big spoiled baby until God waved His magic wand and made it all go away. It just does not work that way and I am glad it doesn't. While the lessons have been hard, OH BOY THEY ARE HARD, I did not give up and there is a blessed assurance in me that may get rattled but it will not be defeated. DO NOT GIVE UP!

OH YOU ARE JUST TOO EXCITED

I have the privilege of helping people birth books. I call it a privilege because I learn so many wonderful and amazing things from these authors. What I have found is that what is intended to be a simple literary coaching session often becomes times of empowerment and therapy for them and for me. That is so cool! I am also privileged to be able to be on the perimeter watching the dreams of people touch the rising sun. That is something to behold.

I will say that with some of the my clients, I am often overwhelmed with their excitement. To answer a phone call and a voice has risen two octaves higher or a speech pattern that is normally very deliberate is suddenly fast paced throws me. I get distracted by the excitement and I get so intrigued in it, that the reasons for the excitement are sometimes lost on me.

I realized that I get a kick out of that adrenalin and emotion that pulsates through people when they are genuinely and wonderfully excited about something that is happening in their life. That thing is so absolutely amazing. Life can be so very enchanting and embracing that it urges a typically slightly tenor voice to become more alto-soprano; and a normally mousy personality is suddenly giggling loudly like a school girl on the merry-go-round.


I think it is okay to not focus on the reason for the excitement - instead focus on the joy. It is the thing that tickles your spirit - that emotion of contentment - that will hit the ears of someone who has been crying all day and softly dry away their sorrow or discouragement. The reminder of what tears of joy sound like, brings a smile to a temporary dark moment and now there is the thought that I can reach for some of that excitement too. There is sweetness in the belly laugh of achievement that a friend shares with you and I am appreciating the blessing of someone sharing it with me.

There are times when I am sitting in a waiting room at a doctor’s office or even in a meeting and I feel a little excitement tickling that spot right behind my navel and right next to my heart. Yes, I’m sure it’s not gas. When it happens, I cleverly move my hand over my mouth to refrain from just losing it in laughter. I believe that God tickles me from time to time, just to remind me that He wants me to be happy, He wants me to smile and He wants me to be excited about everything that is me. He wants me to laugh at my joy and at my pain; because in both things I am yet alive and able to feel and able to wait for Him to tickle me so I can smile.

God tickles you too. Tell me today in your writing, when was the last time you felt God tickle you? Your tickle may come when you suddenly find a candy bar you haven’t seen since you were five (for me recently it was finding a box of Boston Baked Beans - OMG!). Or your tickle may be in a silly joke that keeps playing over and over in your head. Sometimes a tickle can come in those most unusual things that kids say - like when my four year old niece told me that she would not push the skateboard beyond the fence, because "we don't to have a situation, right auntie?" (Well okay then!)

There are little tickles that happen in our lives that say you have the right to laugh, to dance, to giggle until you have to run to the bathroom, to cry at the touch of a little ones hand on your face. Write about the tickles you have encountered, smile about them, laught about them and then rest your head on the Father’s chest and tell Him thanks I sure needed that.

I MAY NOT BE A FIST-TO-FIST FIGHTER, BUT I SURE THINK LIKE ONE

I am not a street fighter. The more accurate statement for me is I really am not a fighting type of person; though I do have a fighter’s personality. While in my high temper days I would quickly grab someone – actually hitting them was never necessary. It is all in the way you grab and look! Aside from childhood tussles with my sister, I think I have actually only been in maybe three school-aged fights and none as an adult. I mean after all you do have to grow up at some point.


One fight sticks out in my mind. This girl, who had been a friend since elementary school, decided one day in eighth grade that we needed to fight. To this day I do not know why and I do not know if she even offered a reason. Well, the bell rang, my sister our usual crew and I headed home. This trip however we were accompanied by my sudden and new rival, who was taunting me to no end. I ignored her and kept walking. This I assumed enraged her even more because out of nowhere she produced a knife and told me if I would not fight her she would cut me. THAT WAS IT!

Books hit the ground. My oversized purse hit the ground. I started beating her like a crazy woman. Then everyone encircled us and our normal walking crew was trying to pull me off of her. There is a certain point though in rage that makes pulling back difficult if not impossible. My sister was yelling for me to get off of her. Everyone was yelling for me to stop. I do not remember asking myself if I was really inflicting that much damage or if somehow she had in fact managed to cut me and I was bleeding horribly over every crack in the sidewalk.


I do remember my sister finally yelling something about the truck. I had seen the truck heading towards us but still in the distance. In fact, I remember pulling my opponent into the street so that the truck would help me stop her from ever taunting and tormenting me again. My sister was yelling for me to let her go and move, because if the truck hit her it would hit me too. Well, that was not the plan. If I wasn’t going to let her cut me, I certainly wasn’t going to let her make me get hit by a truck. So I instead slung her to the other side of the street and when the truck passed, I picked up my purse and my books and went home.

Like I said, physical fights are not my thing. But I do have a fighter’s personality. Even when an opponent comes on them suddenly, that personality will move into a course of action: face the opponent, size them up quickly and do your very best to get on the offensive not the defense – if you take control of the attack you can determine the outcome or at least force the attack into a more positive outcome for yourself. A true fighter approaches each and every opponent with a winning mindset; being defeated - even if they have never one a bout - is not a possibility.

My life has presented enough battles for me to hone my fighter’s personality and has taught me to do whatever I can to strategically and purposely keep my life on the offensive. It takes losing some fights to learn those lessons. It takes getting some foul punches. It takes you initiating some fights that never should have been. It takes you jumping into some fights that were none of your business. It takes you getting a knock out here and there. But developing that fighter’s personality also means you condition yourself, you train yourself for the fight. That for me has meant re-aligning my spiritual, emotional and mental thought and behavior patterns. Talk about some tough conditioning and training! Yet, I have had to realize that the tangible things that happen in my life could not be purposely designed for my success until I believed with everything in me that they could.

You know I think this kind of training is even harder than the bag, rope and running drills that championship boxers undergo. This is the kind of training that makes you beat down some inside stuff that keeps allowing the outside stuff to knock your behind out. This is the kind of training that will make you stagger but not fall and most importantly keep punching.

I am KID EC, the HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION of my battles. What are you? Who are you? Today, define your fighter. Is he BEATSTREET PAUL or SHANTE THE BRUISER JONES? What is the inside stuff that you finally have to condition and train yourself to defeat and what do you know about these opponents? Study them and then get on the offensive, so you can move in victorious circles around the enemy and no matter the attack you will be okay. By the way, I am not putting on any of those shiny shorts – oh boy!