Happy Ending

Gen. 6:13 "And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth."

A Happy Ending

Who doesn’t like a happy ending? We watch movie after movie waiting, wanting, expecting a happy ending. We go through life with the same expectancies and when we’re let down over and over we become pessimistic expecting the bottom to drop out.

I live in a house with two men, one my son and one my husband, both pessimistic. My son says he’s a realist! I say, “You’re a stubborn pessimist!” How is reality always seeing the bad? You’re looking to buy a new car, you wait expectantly for everything to go wrong, everything goes right, now you wait for the car itself to go wrong. There’s no end to everything going wrong in a realists mind! Then as soon as they expect something to go right, it follows suit and goes remarkably wrong.

Day after day you expect everything to go wrong? Well, no wonder your life is dismal. No wonder you’re a pessimist always seeing the wrong instead of the right. I am a full-blooded, passionate, optimist in every regard. When things do go wrong, I always see the good intricately tied in there. These things happened for a reason and I SEE the reason and embrace everything that is dished out whether to me, others, or the world. I might not like it but that is no reason to see the bad in everything.

While Christmastime focused on the Christ child, February is focused on a Saint Valentine, in short, he was a martyr all in the name of LOVE. I’m not Catholic so I really don’t follow saint days but here we are in the 21^st century and people, like with Christmas, have made February 14th more about materialism than for Christ/love respectively.

No wonder the suicide rate is highest in these two months; loneliness, shortcomings, unworthiness is at an all-time high in December and February because the pessimistic society sees everything wrong and none of the right in their lives. This saddens me because this pessimism and negativity have shaped our very world that we live.

I know I’ve said this over and over but I’m going to say it again. When I got this diagnosis, the doctors WANTED me to fear, they wanted to scare me into submission by telling me all that could go wrong, all that has gone wrong with millions of patients worldwide! When I threw optimism into the mix, they looked puzzled. This was one of those times that you look at supposed educated smarter people and wonder how they ever got by in life. I felt the thread of support from the doctor’s burning and singeing leaving me dangling.

Did that deter me from my positive route? NO! When I asked two doctors, that if I didn’t believe chemo was ever going to work for me, would it still be the cure-all they touted, they both said no, it would not work for me, the mind has everything to do with the outcome. I asked that if alternative treatment would work if I BELIEVED it will work, they buckled, searching their brains for what to say. Their minds were like scrambled eggs before being put on the hot fire. I knew right then and there that my alternative route was going to be my happy ending!

I know too many people who have gone the chemotherapy route and died. I know people who went that route and lived. Ask them what worked for them. I would bet money that they can say they believed their doctor, they believed in the system, they believed they’d be healed. Their mind healed them, not the radioactive chemicals coursing through their veins. What they believed was happening as the juice ran its course is what gave them a positive outcome. Had they pessimistically viewed the situation the outcome would have been markedly different.

Ask them what keeps them going; they’ll more than likely tell you the will and determination to LIVE! Their minds are defining their route in life. Our optimism and pessimism are shaping our lives. The over-abundance of pessimism in today’s society has shaped the angry world. Look at the earthquakes, tsunamis, flooding, devastation, murder rate, suicide they are all residual effects of the dismal down sighted pessimistic world.

I know quite a few of you who will say, “It was written in the Bible!” I believe that to be true too, I’ve never alluded to the bible not being prophetic. God knows what He created. He knew what our withered minds were capable of manifesting. Now you see before you how well your pessimism worked. It has BECOME your reality!

All that we BELIEVE will shape our happy ending! Remember that on your deathbed. Your pessimism will have you meeting the snake of fear, the fires of hell, the torment you put your mind through will carry you away. Your last breath of optimism will have you breathlessly meeting your Heavenly Father in a beautiful, painless, worry-free realm of possibilities conjoining with eternal living! You are in total control of your Happy Ending.

 Matt. 1619 "And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

Reflecting

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sad tree

Isa. 40:31 "But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

A Reflecting Post

I’m writing this on Monday, September 7th a day before the election that will change the world. I could already feel the rise in change at the beginning of the year and my fellow man didn’t let me down. They began the year consumed in hate and carried the angst all the way through to November and surely through December with the outcome no one will like.

I saw hypocrites crawl out of the woodwork like termites in dry-rotted wood all taking their place in the march to destroy whatever pleasantries one has known in America. I’ve been writing my heart out this year taking my stance with Christ and my love for Him, never to be swayed by the vermin of society who has taken a stance in the mire. 

Sadly, I can count on one hand the people who stayed true to their beliefs and didn’t succumb to the rallying cries of animosity. It is as if believers were on a collective conscious stream where we gathered together knowing the destruction had unfolded and they/WE were not going to be a part of it, they would fight against the flow and stand firmly with their faith!

I will add to this writing on November 9th when the shock of what the humans have done sinks in. Are they going to all stand proud? Are they going to rally together and continue with their bashing and displeasure? Are they going to boast of their love of God while raging at their brother?

My brothers and sisters in Christ, thank you for showing me that you CAN be stronger in Christ by not allowing the antagonism to wash over you and carry you into the swamp of a broken democracy, a shattered people. I am proud to call you friend as I’ve watched this entire year, as you stood separate from the indignation and finger pointers who added to the demise of our country.

My brothers and sisters, you stood tall in the face of a challenge. You brought God to the world and were messengers of the Word and never let the hate filter in. You never strayed. Yes, we may all be sinners, but God NEEDED us to be strong for HIM, and so many in the world have let Him down but you, you stood firm FOR Him. For that very reason, I know you are truly blessed and will continue to be the Light the world needs to see in this time of darkness.

Words from my dear friend, Bob Hembree, the day before Election Day 2016:

“Most of us agree social media has contributed to the ugly current of distrust toward our social institutions, the foundations of American stability. This includes legitimate news organizations, the sciences and all three branches of the government. We pick our news sources based on our prejudices, blurring the lines between fact and fiction. Lies have more weight than truth if they agree with our politics. We create enemies on impulse, decide who is a criminal, then create the crimes. When legitimate news reporting disproves these charges, they too become the criminals, the accomplice’s, the co-conspirators. When the truth no longer matters, what's left but chaos? It doesn’t matter who wins the presidency tomorrow. The damage is done. My vote is not for the individual, but for the party best able to handle damage control. We need all the sanity and empathy we can get.”

I’ve been around for quite a few elections in my life but never have I feared one the way I do this one. Will we wake and act as if this year filled with angst, destruction, and chaos never happened? I don’t think so, I think they’ll wake with the same resentment that they carried all year. Will they accept change, male or female there IS going to be change. This sentence stuck with me from Bob, “Lies have more weight than truth if they agree with our politics.”

I now wait to see what the morning after brings. 

11 9 2016 ~ Reality sets in

the morning after

I’ll have to admit first that I did not stay up and wait and see what the people had done but I rose this morning turned on my computer to see Hillary’s smiling face in the headline. Oh, it was just a split screen picture; Donald Trump was squished to the left of the box that announced we now have a reality TV star for President of the United States.

The headlines down the google page read like this:

2016 Election: Donald Trump Wins the White House in Upset NBC - News.com
Featured: Donald Trump's Stunning Upset -The Atlantic
Trending: Donald Trump wins the presidency in stunning upset over Clinton - Washington Post
Live Updating: Election Night live blog: Trump's historic upset and the last cliffhangers --The Mercury News
Republicans keep control of Congress - CNN
Allies scramble after 'huge shock' of Trump victory – Politico
Trump victory sparks angry protests across California: 'Not my president' -Los Angeles Times

And don’t even get me started on the facebook wall.

The reality of all of this is that we are not United States, we are bullies and get what we want by bullying, misleading, lies, dishonesty. The Missouri pick three (obviously fixed and nothing random about it) 666? I question everything in my world.

What was once a world power has now become the laughing stock of the world! You did it people, aren’t you happy? You kicked, you screamed, you whined, you pushed, you shoved, you lied and threw a tantrum and now you’ve gotten your way. Does it feel good? I wouldn’t know because what I feel in the pit of my stomach is not a fluffy feel good churning. 

I woke to find a different world surrounding me. I see people are in shock for what they made into a reality. I feel tremors under my feet as the earth is quaking in fear. As we reflect on the year that could’ve been, make note of the year that was because the spinning of the globe has only just begun to collapse. Hold on tight to your loved ones, ignore the reality, as many people think I do, and realize this is the new world of Reality Television and we the people are the stars. 

I Stand with Christ!

John 11:35 "Jesus wept."

NFL ~ Losing Its Glory

NFL ~ Losing Its Glory

1 Cor. 9:24 “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.”

I used to enjoy football. Growing up, my dad would sit perched on the edge of his seat roaring mad at interceptions and cheering for the touchdowns. All the way up until a few years ago when his anger at the game would almost cause him a heart attack, more times than not, in the end, he would just check the score of the game. 

He was a big Baltimore Colts fan and he was a college football fan too, he loved Notre Dame! In later years he became a Ravens fans but was really saddened when the institution of football took on a new low. It was no longer, or so it seemed a sport.  

He remembered the days it was about football; playing in the elements like snow, rain, heat and cold. The men in those days were not thugs and today that is what teams look like, nothing more than well-paid thugs. Back in the day players never received millions of dollars to play a game. I know, the cost of living has risen so they NEED to be paid millions.

The very first Super bowl was:

On January 15, 1967, the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League (NFL) smash the American Football League (AFL)'s Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10, in the first-ever AFL-NFL World Championship, later known as Super Bowl I, at Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles.

Over the years football has taken on a new edge of competitiveness and with all competition, there is bound to be cheating. I’m not saying there wasn't any cheating back in  the day but with the rise of technology, so has the rise in KNOWN cheating. Cheating scandals have risen over the years and I’m not pointing fingers at the ‘who did what’, the point is cheating is present, period!

I found it interesting to do some research on the History of the Super Bowl. 
When reading the story of the history of the first super bowl you can see that Vince Lombardi was very much the competitive spirit! I did find it interesting the WHY it is called the super ball, I mean, Super Bowl. 

“The big game was a thrown-together affair, hastily organized. It was, in some ways, an afterthought to the merger (AFL/NFL) agreement,” writes author Harvey Frommer in “When It Was Just a Game: Remembering the First Super Bowl.”

Did you see that? It was JUST A GAME! Currently, it is one big multi-million dollar GIMMICK sucking off a materialistic society that thrives on big sex-filled musical lip-syncing shows, big million dollar ads, big boobs, sex and titillation, oh and a BIG GAME to see who is better!

It saddens me to say that I am no longer a fan. I’ve watched football excitedly for at least thirteen years now and only in the past three or more years have I seen the shift. Weekly football took on an ad filled presentation. A game that should take an hour and a half dragged out for three hours because of the commercials lasting over five minutes! It took on the looks of gimmicky reality television. It now reminds me of the WWF in all its hokey grandeur.

Imagine, the very first halftime show was marching bands, rocket men, balloons, and pigeons! Imagine that. No foo-foo frenzy, no boob show, no tacky wardrobe malfunction, just marching bands!

History of Football

History of American Football

All in all, the history of the sport is steeped in brutality all the way back to 1600 before it was Americanized. And boy did we do what America does best, glamorizes murderers, wife beaters, child beaters and cheaters. 

And we wonder why the world is the way it is? I’m sure we can justify brutality all the way back to the beginning of time. Now we just pay for it in more materialistic ways. 

* What you just read was written in February of 2016 when I KNEW who was going to win the SuperBowl before it was even played, just as I KNEW the Patriots would win the 2015 Superbowl. I guess you didn’t find it odd that the Broncos money-maker of the franchise, Peyton Manning was retiring at this time and it was the 50th SuperBowl? 

Pss. 106:20 "Thus they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass."

The entire game was about Peyton Manning. While I myself am/was a Manning/Broncos fan and wanted to see them win, from the first throw I could tell, this game was picked to win BECAUSE of the Manning love. Fans bought into the entire show but it was obvious that ref calls were playing favorites.

The NFL is now whining because of a hashtag BOYCOTT THE NFL they think is having an adverse effect on viewership. It is that or the million dollar players sitting out the National Anthem because of a Black Lives Matter movement is sweeping the industry. They don’t take into consideration the fans are tired of all the scandals that circle the entire industry like vultures just waiting for the NFL to take its last breath.

Scandals, whether true or false HURT. Take for instance, Deflategate. The Patriots are an excellent team but I think people were suspicious of the franchise long before the scandal arose. Then there is the murderers, wife beaters, child abusers, you name it, the NFL takes players knowing full well of their bloody violent histories. The debate on the entire franchise cheating is not funny because it is US the fans that get hurt realizing we’ve been bamboozled. Controversy after controversy we’re supposed to sit idly by while being taken. 

I personally stopped watching last year when I sensed the refs were up to no good, only for it to be verified by the league and later swept under the rug all for the love of money. Nobody wants to see America’s pastime go down the toilet so it all gets rolled over like gum stuck to the bottom of a pew, it stinks! Ninety percent of Americans feel the NFL is rigged. 

And I haven’t even gotten started on the sleaze fest they call cheerleaders? Why women degrade themselves for money is still beyond me (men like it)! I didn’t post a link to cheerleading COSTUMES over the years because quite frankly, it made me want to puke. Search for yourself at your own risk.  I think I’ll end the post here because I could go on and on…oops…I think I did. 

God Bless America! We need all the help we can get!

Heb. 12:1 “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,”

Growth

Rom. 2:19 “And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness,”

How can one expect to grow if they are always clinging to the negative fundamental seedlings of non-growth? I see it all too often; people I used to admire, respect and care for feeding off the vulnerable of society in hopes these folks share in their negative thought process.

I love reading people and their positive thoughts. They wake up proclaiming the love of God with WORDS, they continue on in their day with positive WORDS and for some reason, I’m drawn to them like flies to sugar.

On Facebook I have 86 friends. Wow, you might say, only 86? She must be unliked/unloved/unfriendly. Well allow me to tell you, I choose my friends wisely. I don’t just accept friendships to LOOK like I’m popular; I accept friendships of people I truly want to be friends with. That’s pretty hard when you have over 1,000 so-called friends and only a few who you are actually friendly with.

I used to have 89 friends but it is obvious that some have unfriended me because I won’t get on their Political Cruiseship of hate bashing, or their color/race bashing, or their sexual preference bashing. Nope, I am me, a happy go lucky person wanting and NEEDING to share love, period!

Out of my 86 friends I can honestly count on two hands how many of these people I would love to meet and have coffee with in a nice surreal atmosphere. A handful to me is pretty sad, you want to know why? If most of these folk are this political crazy and being the megaphone of injustices in America on facebook, what must these people be like sitting around a table?

Here’s a  meeting scenario for you:

You meet one of your online friends for the first time. Your excitement is building as you assume they’re at least right in the head, right? You meet at Starbucks.

You go to sit down and he says, “Not at THIS table, let’s sit over here.”

“What’s wrong with the table I picked?”

“Well you can see that gay couple can’t you? I won’t sit next to THEM.”

“Seriously?”

Or let’s take this scene:

You meet and want to attend a church service with them, assuming they are okay with a service.

“Not that church”

“WHY?”

“They allow gays, I won’t sit and worship MY God with a bunch of homosexuals! Or even attend a church allowing such!”

*scares me* "Who IS your God?"

Imagine my jaw dropping and my eyes about to burst out of my head as I rush to just leave the visit completely! Surrounding myself with people like that will have a negative impact on me spiritually.

Some will say, “I would never do that.” Wouldn’t you really? Why? As a show of how good you are for real? Then why would you show this sickening side of yourself on a Social media wall where you have hundreds if not thousands of friends looking at you?

Sure, a good post here, a funny post there, then WHAM ‘hate post’ threaded into the weaving of scripture and love. That’s the way many work these days. I’ve lost friends because of my love of Christ posts, but I’ve not removed anyone for their love of the drama posts. If they act this way on a Social Wall, what are they like in reality? Character is built by what you project.

I had to actually deactivate my family facebook account for a few weeks where I have even less friends. When did facebook go from a friendly place of life event sharing to a world of a political platform, drama of everything wrong with this or that party (note: more this party than that party), or everything WRONG with the world??? This is people and their daily lives, really?

I sit back and watch the soap opera Facebook Unleashed, in slow motion and am just left wondering, ‘and they wonder what is WRONG with the world?’ I find myself looking within on many levels and share only the positive things I see and feel around me. Anything negative I might glance at, I don’t allow it to sink in like a sponge and spew venom day after day. Boy, that must be a boring and unfulfilling life that one must lead.

I’m from the old school of you reap what you sow. If all of these people are reaping in the hate, they must be sowing it too. I can only pray for them and try to emit Light and love to the world in hopes one day someone will grab onto it and hold it in their hand and rejoice with it the way I have and try to do daily; not just for show for REAL!

To the few that I would love to meet – keep your light shining bright, I see it and feel as if I know you already on a much more personal level. God has blessed your hearts and souls and I am honored to call you friend. I can only hope that my light will shine as bright as yours one day!

To the others – keep working on it, you might get there someday. God bless!

“6+3= 9 but so does 5+4. The way you do things is not always the ONLY way to do them.

Respect other people’s way of thinking.” A Message of Light post on FB

I will truly keep that in mind.

1 Cor. 4:5 “Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.”

Good Things Happen

Gal. 5: 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

We spoke of bad things happening this week. While we know bad things happen, we also know good things happen. It seems to me, being an optimist and all, good things happen for me all the time.

I listen to people complain about things over and over again. The same things they complained about last year are still the same things they complain about this year and will complain about next year too. They never try to change.

People flee from the optimist because they’re always applauding the good things happening; people flee from the pessimist because they keep harping on the bad things that are happening. But people flock to the realist because, let’s face it, they embrace the good and bad things and just go through life accepting the fact that good and bad things happen, deal with it.

Let’s pick these three apart:

There is the optimist, who when something bad has happened, chooses to see it as a bad thing but something good is about to happen, or something better is yet to come. It’s not bragging when something good has happened, it’s sharing. I like to share with people (who may be going through the same thing) that while I was on a darkened path, something in the form of a ray of light came through and Lightened the way. And more often than not, it happened by way of Divine Intervention. That’s just the way * I * see it, the optimist.

Then there is the pessimist. While he or she is on the darkened path, they feel the need to share that pain and anguish. It is as if they are wallowing in the pool and waiting for someone else to throw them an anchor to hold onto, preferably from another pessimist.

They scream and wail for help and the bystander pessimist announces to the sufferer, “Here’s the anchor, just claw your way to shore and I’ll give it to you.”

Or they’ll scoff and say, “Well I told you so. You got yourself in that mess, you can get yourself out of it!

The pessimist takes a negative and amplifies the situation with more negativity. That’s just the way the pessimists work.  Negative people feed off one another. Not much good can come from two negative people! Put an optimist in the path of the pessimist and guess what, we toss that anchor of hope out and reel in the pessimist.

Then there is the realist who says ‘Deal with it.’ Yup, they’ve been dealt a raw deal and they just shrug and deal with it. They don’t seek promise, hope and faith. They just deal. They don’t trash the situation, they just deal. They see things as they ARE not the possibilities of what could BE.

I guess that’s an okay kind of merry-go-round sort of life but in reality it is no life. They just circle the days and deal with whatever comes; they don’t strive to become anything more than what they are dealt, they just deal. TO ME, a realist has covered his tracks in rose petals and lies to himself that a swift wind won’t blow them away. And remember, a liar always believes what he sells himself; and usually more times than not, the lie catches up, a gust of wind blows all the rose petals away and they are made to see what reality they have created for themselves.

I’m not ragging on the pessimist and realist of society, I’m just enlightening the fact that they’re out there. Society is made up of billions of them actually and basically that is why the world is in such disarray. We optimists can’t carry the world, you know, but we do keep it spinning. Why? Because we see HOPE in tomorrow, no matter how  bad it is today.

What I’m trying to say is this: pessimists survive, realist live, while optimist have hope. I have friends in each of these categories and I don’t judge their choices. I try and give them hope in turning that negative into a positive, even when they SWEAR there is not a problem, I extend HOPE! Call it the optimist in me trying to see the good in everything.

Good things happen to me because you can throw all the negative crud you want at me, and somehow, some way, I’ll make it positive and good will flow like living water from me! It’s all any of us can do to make it in the world today.

Maybe try looking up > optimist, instead of down > the pessimist, or side to side > the realist. Walk with a clear conscience and embrace the good about to happen, the hope that the best is yet to come.

Amen! 

Was I missed?

Luke 15: 9 And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost.

* or peace which I had lost

Was I missed?

A few days without internet, for ME, was like a time of fasting. You know, when you do without something for a time, things you didn’t see before becomes clearer? That’s what my four days without this virtual world did for me, and I loved the experience.

I didn’t do much on the net on Saturday and by Sunday the net had disappeared not to be seen again until Wednesday afternoon. Was I missed? Would my online friends even know I was gone? Sure I’ve left before but usually I’d give a clue that I’d BE gone for a couple days, but this time I/they had no warning.

Storms are like that you know, they swoop right in sometimes with little warning, shake the trees, rearrange the view, then leaves with a clearer sky than when it all started. Much like life.

Often times we meet storms in our life and we squirm at the thought, Oh no not again. But did you know that if you looked at the storm differently you’d weather it much better?

The storms of the 14^th scared the dickens outta me. The strong winds kept pounding and pounding on the rooftop and windows. I prayed and prayed and prayed some more then I woke up and we found our internet was out of commission. We didn’t call anyone because on Sunday you’d never get an answer so we waited.

Monday came and they said they’d send someone out on Wednesday to take a look at it. I know everyone will think me crazy but I felt no internet was for a reason. You see, any time something happens I believe there is a reason it happened no matter how big or how small, there is always a reason.

Wednesday came and the guy was on the roof for about an hour hooking us up a new cable wire, which apparently was dry-rotted from the sun, and the rain had seeped into the line, thus rendering us with no connection. All fixed right? Wrong.

I went onto facebook and let all my friends know I was still alive because I knew many are weather bugs and keep an eye on crazy weather. Some thought my internet was out, some thought it was due to the storm and they were right. The rain had seeped into the line, so the storm was the cause but was it really? Is that the reason it went out, really?

By Wednesday night it was gone again. Not totally gone just splotchy. You can get to Yahoo but it takes a long time to get to mail and even longer if you try opening different tabs. By Saturday when Steven got home, he was back on the phone because we had had some interesting storms the night before, again.

The tech guy had mentioned that the tree (which fell months ago in high winds that the landlord has never removed) was blocking the connection. Remove that limb there and you’ll get better reception.

Steven, determined as ever to get the internet back, decided to go out, hook the tree limb up to his truck and PULL the limb off. The entire tree moved and the limb was repositioned, but still, shotty internet connection.

Sunday’s sermon kind of had me thinking of the REASON we were getting no internet. It really became clearer for me.

1)     You really tend to see who your REAL friends are.

2)     You now have time to focus on better and more important things. (God)

3)     You now have time to Glorify God!

That’s it! Sometimes we put too much time into the net. Sure we justify it by: “But there is a lot of good.” Or “It isn’t all that bad.” Or “I’m using it for good.” Yup, justifying your actions. Let me ask, are you glorifying God in all your actions?

For ME, being away meant refocusing on more important things in the physical world. My friends will always be there, but my physical world, it is going to go one day and there are real things that need tending to AWAY from the internet, climbing inside my mind, I’m finding the REASON there is no internet.

My God given talent is poetry and writing. Whenever I veer from those two things, the internet seems to blank out. I can do a few facebook posts but veer away from the intended posts, poof, it disappears MAKING me focus on HIM!

So yes, I was missed and I missed my friends, but really what I needed was time, time away from the net to focus on life, on my reality, and that is truly what I’m getting from the lack of internet reception. I wonder if Steven and Adam are learning the same thing about their over indulgence in YouTube? Probably not. But 'I' AM growing and learning and I praise the Lord for that! AMEN!

Photoshop - Believing is Seeing

Have you ever seen a photoshop picture? They can be pretty realistic can’t they? 

I was thinking about writing and how we embellish the truth, make up stories, color it with vivid imagination and call it fiction.

How come people can take beautiful pictures and get away without telling others that the photo is photoshopped? Is photoshopped even a word?

What IS photoshop?

“Photoshop is the leading digital image editing application for the Internet, print, and other new media disciplines. It is embraced by millions of graphic artists, print designers, visual communicators, and regular people like you. It's likely that nearly every picture you've seen (such as posters, book covers, magazine pictures, and brochures) has either been created or edited by Photoshop. The powerful tools used to enhance and edit these pictures are also capable for use in the digital world including the infinite possibilities of the Internet.”

With today’s technology, there are numerous things you can do with photoshop. I’ve seen pics of elephants walking on water, I’ve seen clouds turned into a monster storm-looking thunderous cloudburst, I’ve even seen Jesus in toast, clouds, trees, you name it, all thanks to the artists who can work photoshop.

If a writer took someone’s work and twisted it, and worked it into a totally different story, I do believe a lawsuit would ensue. But with pictures, it seems the norm to take someone’s picture and embellish it to their liking, put a caption on it, and maybe the original photographer doesn’t even recognize the pic as his/her own!

Now I’m not talking about someone re-inventing the Cinderella story, I think every writer has dappled with that tale as well as Snow White and many other fairytale's passed down through time. But when I see Lord of the Rings taken and re-invented into a “similar” story, boy it grates on my nerves!

We’re writer’s and we have our very own creative genius in our brains. We can create stories that might be general matches to other stories like say vampire stories. They should and WILL all be different from what is on the shelves now.

I’m so glad that photshop hasn’t found a way to doctor MY work, although, sometimes it does look like it needs a doctor. I’m just saying, as a photographer, a person works their tail off to capture beauty, the same goes for writer’s , we work very hard at our words so that we capture the beauty to tell a riveting story. A doctored pic to me says the photographer is too lazy to capture the REAL beauty and has to embellish it to make it shine.

If you’re a writer, you will not settle for anything less! You will make your work stand out and preferably stand alone. Sure magazines abuse airbrush, novel covers need a tricky photo to grab you, but writer’s? They walk along with only the English language (or whatever you speak) to carry their words.

Don’t photoshop your writing. Remember, you’re an artist of a different caliber. No technology is going to assist you in making it better. Use your talent accompanied with your mind to airbrush and dazzle, with WORDS!

Quotation Saturday

OPTIMISM

"Life is too short to spend your precious time trying to convince a person who wants to live in gloom and doom otherwise. Give lifting that person your best shot, but don't hang around long enough for his or her bad attitude to pull you down. Instead, surround yourself with optimistic people."
~Zig Ziglar
 
"I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter."
~Walt Disney
 
"Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many, not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some."
~Charles Dickens
 
"You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses."
~Ziggy  

PRAYER

To the lamp of love: may it burn brightest in the darkest hours and never flicker in the winds of trial. 
~Author Unknown

When we talk to God, we're praying. When God talks to us, we're schizophrenic. ~Jane Wagner

The Lord's Prayer may be committed to memory quickly, but it is slowly learnt by heart. 
~Frederick Denison Maurice

Prayer gives a man the opportunity of getting to know a gentleman he hardly ever meets. I do not mean his maker, but himself. 
~William Inge

REALITY

Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.
 ~Sigmund Freud

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
~T.S. Eliot
 
To treat your facts with imagination is one thing, but to imagine your facts is another.
~John Burroughs

Listening to both sides of a story will convince you that there is more to a story than both sides.
~Frank Tyger

It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought.
~John Kenneth Galbraith

 POSITIVE

"A strong positive attitude will create more miracles than any wonder drug."
~ Patricia Neal
 
"Our attitude toward life determines life's attitude towards us."
~ John N. Mitchell
 
"I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination."
~ Jimmy Dean
 
Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies.
~Erich Fromm
 
I have a simple philosophy: Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. Scratch where it itches.
~Alice Roosevelt Longworth

What a difference...

Rom 13:12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.

...a day makes.

Wow, all I can say is, WOW! I said I wanted change, and I just can’t stop looking at my blog page and thinking, Wow! Now this is change! Many years have passed through in my life and many have been full of change, but this one has to be the one that will stand out as one of the most exciting years of change. This is why I wanted the drastic overhaul of my blog, so you all can change with me.

I decided a few months back that things needed to change in my life. After I made that decision, oh about the end of September I’d say, that was when things began to swiftly change. I peeled off layers of pain, let go of the darkness that tried to swallow me, left it to build it’s own little playground of dark matter and I moved on, at a snails pace.

I was consumed with life! You know this thing we must live, in a physical world. Life, the reality of things in real-time happening, not virtually. I got off of the maypole, slid across the sand on gravel-burnt knees and embraced, LIFE.

Have you ever read a book, gotten so consumed with the character(s) that you lost track of time and space? That’s a writers job, to make sure you are consumed with their characters so much so that you forget your reality. That is exactly what the virtual world holds in its clutch. Sure, some folks will say, “There are some good things too, that the computer holds.”

Sure there is, and just like God himself is a struggle to find when you are in the pits of darkness, the computer wraps you in its tentacles, squeezes you real tight, until you are gasping for breath, never really knowing who you are or the insanity that has taken over your life. You dig and plow your way though the mire, stab through the muddy waters, and find pieces of the light as you surface.  What am I saying? That the computer, IN MY OPINION, holds more dark than LIGHT!

In October, a realization hit me, that it isn’t about consuming myself with the virtual world. Life is not about building walls of defense to protect yourself. You should be able to freely live and appreciate the snowballs that are tossed in your face, and with great strength, brush away the powder!

Life is about change, characters are about transformation, story line is about variations, so why would we not take the precious care of our lives as we do with the characters and worlds we form? You can not produce something of context, if you haven’t taken the time to shape the content of your life.

It’s not about consuming all you can of the virtual world, because change only comes when you’re brave enough to tackle your inner world.

Air-brushed

Proverbs 17:22 A merry heart does good, like medicine, But a broken spirit dries the bones.
***

Have you ever heard of the term air-brushed? That’s what is done to pictures whether in magazines, or photography studios. You go in, they put tons of make up on you, embellish you quite a bit, then aim and shoot, process, air brush, then print. The picture is then a perfect image, no lines,wrinkles blemishes. That zit you went into the studio with magically disappeared, and you are delivered a perfect picture of yourself.

Editors are the air brush experts of the writing industry. We writers write and it is their job to embellish and make the writers work nearly perfect for the publishers and then it is on to acceptance.

I was reading a King novel and his editor missed an air-brush moment. The characters name was Tad throughout the whole book and in one sentence he was called Ted. You know, an error like that can really make you trip over words.

You expect the errors from small time publishers but from big time publishers that are making millions from an author such as King? I expect perfection! Well, now I know not to because there is nothing perfect in this world.

Did you ever wake up to face the world feeling airbrushed until you smile at someone and they look at you weird, point to your front tooth and say, “Got a little something there.” You then feel awkwardly embarrassed and remove the chunk of yesterdays broccoli that you THOUGHT you had brushed away, (but broccoli is a stubborn veggie.)

Or did you ever wake up with a song in your heart and you just start singing it, not even caring if you’ve got the words right, or if it is in tune, you just want to rejoice in waking up, only to be told, “What is that?” By someone who doesn’t like your singing.

What I’m getting at is that the simplest of moments can ruin the bright and glorious ones. One comment can leave you bruised, one correction can almost shatter an already unstable personality, one incident can change the world you live in.

I’m in an airbrushed moment of my life. I feel like God is up there with a big eraser and saying, “No this isn’t right. How did I mess THIS up so bad?” And I know it is just my own insecurities seeing things that are not there.

God makes no mistakes! Life cannot be airbrushed into perfection. As much as we want this or that different, this is just the way God wants us. And as I set my priorities straight, facebook will fall to a glimmer in my eye, the writing world will dim to a low light in the fog. I will rise above the ashes and move on in the direction God intends for me.

Editors aren't perfect, publishers aren’t all that perfect either, and certainly authors are just human beings with flaws. Whether in words or in pics, we’re not perfect, life isn’t perfect.

I think I’ll climb into my airbrushed magazine and pretend all is right with the world out here.

Burnout

Revelation 13:18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
***

Well I have two posts today for a reason. The one below is post number 666 and as much as I know it is just a number, something about it screams out EWWW! to me. So today you are blessed with TWO posts by me, how lucky is THAT?

I’ll finish what I started on that ‘other’ post.

F2k was draining. I have loved and been committed to f2k for some years now, but as the format changed, the guidelines altered, the reading and reading fell upon us, the choosing and deciding, this was all too much for my brain, with reality slapping me upside the head on a weekly basis.

So I decided to take a break. We have a lot of mentors in place for just this reason. We call it burnout when we over do it, and many of the mentors don’t get it because they have lots of time on the computer to dedicate to the course, even though life is slapping them in the face with illnesses, deaths, and hardships, you would never know it. We’re troopers.

We go on and on like energizer bunnies, tossing reality to the side and voluntarily diving into the assistance of the writer. It is what we signed on for and we are a dedicated committed bunch of folks.

I’ve decided to focus on my first love, WVU. I’m going to facilitate some courses and hopefully together with a bunch of other facilitators, we can get the course registration up and maybe even keep the people IN the class for the duration of two weeks. This is much less stress than the weekly demands of the f2k.

You have to remember, this is all volunteer work and I watch each session as mentors struggle with their lives, stay strong and commit to this seven week course. That is almost 2 months. So next round, I need a break. I’m honest enough to admit it and brave enough to stop my own downfall.

The next f2k course is April 6 I believe. That is a four week break? I can not commit fully at that time, with possible Dr. visits, hopefully eye surgery for the beau, the arrival of Spring and my New Year, and life wrapping its arms around me, drinking me in like a morning dew on grass!

Foresight is good to the extent you can know your limitations and act on them. That is what I’m doing, thinking ahead. My presence will still be felt, and I’ll miss the course, but this gal needs time to BREATHE!

Crash and Burn

Luke Luke 7:13 And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not.
***

Yeah that basically sums up the week I’ve had. In the writing world, the f2k class has come to an end and I have to admit, this was one of the busiest sessions that I’ve lived through.

When normally the classes drop to a smidgen of folks hanging on by week six, this session saw all the classes at almost full capacity for the duration. We lost a few due to circumstances: colds, flu, pneumonia and life grabbing hold of them and carrying them away from us. But for the duration, it has been post after post, reading after reading, lesson upon lesson, feedback and more feedback.

I’m drained. I have to admit, this session took it’s toll with all of the drama in my reality grabbing me by the throat and trying to pin me down. But I kept persevering. I think June would have told me, “Keep it up, Joni, You can do it!” Funny how I keep hearing June’s voice in my head. lol That is not a bad thing because she is MY mentor when it comes to getting sidetracked in writing!

This week was no different than the other seven weeks of f2k. Monday as we were driving home, Adam and I spotted a burning house. I didn’t have my phone on me and mom was wondering if it was a barn or a controlled burn. At eight thirty in the evening, I’ve never really witnessed a controlled burning taking place.

We stopped, backed up, almost into the very ditch that tried eating me alive last year, and we approached the house. Easing into the driveway, we saw that the HOME was well on it’s way to burning down. From behind us, a truck raced onto the scene into another driveway and he went around to the back of the house.

Flames lapping up the wall as if to drink every last fiber of the wood’s moisture, crackling embers were flying all around. I couldn’t sit and wait. I jumped out of the car but I couldn’t get around to where the man was, he was on the phone calling 911, I shouted out to him with small flames dancing from the second floor shooting chunks of embers, “Is there anybody in the house?” He was rubbing his forehead with pain written all over his firelit face. No answer.

Tears forming in my eyes. I assessed the house and knew this was not a safe place to be. The entire second floor was being eaten by flames! Not hearing any screams, cries, or whimpers from animals, trembling I got back in the car and we drove home. I stood on my front steps and almost a quarter of a mile away the house was burning. I waited to see flashing lights come to the scene and what seemed like an hour but was about five heartbreaking minutes, the flashing lights appeared.

The next day, to get those haunting images out of my head, I had to go back to the scene to see the devastation. A total loss. The entire upstairs of the house as well as the back wall were gone. I looked through what once was the door I was going to bang on and saw complete emptiness. Chunks of burnt wood layed strewn about, brown water marks running down the front barely standing wall, all windows shattered and the house, now a lost ghost town where once stood a families home.

Drama seems to follow me...what with my dog getting hit by a truck, the month long of nursing her back to health, the joy of seeing my family via a webcam, the hectic f2k, and the house burning down. All a day/week/month in the life of Joni.

On Writing...

Ex. 23: 7 Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked.
***

A writer’s life is a world in which reality and fantasy collide. Imagine if you will, your real world has everything you could possibly have imagined; a luscious home, a fancy car, friends ‘to die for’ and a perfect little family; everything moving along at a pace of normalcy.

Now imagine if you will the writer’s life/reality. Your home is lost, your car runs in a ditch, family is so far away the only contact is from a facebook message or email, and friends? Friends can be counted on one hand, minus the fingers.

Writer’s need to add to their writing many twists and turns; hills and mountains, sunny days amid the stormy gray days. That is what builds a story and wouldn’t ya know, it is diversity that strengthens your reality.

If I asked you to define me, normal would not be your first choice of words. When I’m writing, I don’t want my words to say ‘normal’ either. I want their to be as much conflict and bumps in the story, well planned I might add and well written, but not normal. Normal is almost an ugly word these days.

I want my writing to emulate my life, but I don’t want the facts to be so close to reality, that family members are screaming at you to take their character out of that story. Or to stop it right there.

We writer’s need to know where the line of fiction is. If we want to tell a bit of our brothers story, make the character a distant friend and toss in some grand fabrication and hopefully our brothers won’t see themselves in the character!

Now if it is non-fiction, then you better well be on another continent, so when your family reads it, there are no lines of communication open so they can lambaste you for all your ‘lies’ that you told about them.

It’s ironic, I’m putting together my memoirs, and even I think it is far fetched and I lived the darn life! Life is stranger than fiction is a quote I often think of as I continue the memoir. I have to keep in mind what reality has done to me, how it affected me, and the atrocities that entered my life, shaping me to who I am today.

I’d much rather shape a world of fiction, write out the highs and lows of a character, have her/him face challenges and hopefully in the end, triumph. Now that’s another question to ponder, should you always have a happy ending? I don’t know if a happy ending is what sells a story, but a complete story with a believable ending, one that fell into your lap and just had to do to make the story whole.

Not all endings are happy...just as in reality...not all decisions result in a happy ending. Writing is never cut and dry. It is write and write some more...

Job 21:34 How then comfort ye me in vain, seeing in your answers there remaineth falsehood?

The Morning after...

NEWS FLASH: ...car swerves on gravel road, does a rollover and swerves into a ditch. 13 year old girl dead, sixteen year old brother driver hospitalized! NEITHER WERE WEARING SEAT BELTS!!!
***

Well after I came home, settled down, somewhat, I had to return to reality. I wrecked the truck. My face was burning, Adams eye began swelling, and I began feeling fortunate for not being killed. I was alive but I felt I had walked through a portal and wasn’t coming back out.

I guess it was just a simple enough accident, slick road, swerving, pounding into a ditch. Simple, right? Wrong! Anxiety swept over me like a dense fog. I could not look out the window without crying. The incident kept playing over and over and over again.

BOOM went the airbags. FISSSSSSSSS went the smoke. Ears ringing, tears falling. It was a horrible experience.

The sobbing would not stop, I’d be fine, then it would hit me in the face and I’d  begin to cry. I felt alone, in pain, ashamed, hurt, sore, weary and uncertain.  Stevens mom came over, dispersed hugs, and offered her car. “What?” I thought, “DRIVE?” Oh dear, I dread driving, dread dread dread.

All of my friends were giving me warm wishes. Isn’t it funny how the people on the computer can be more consoling and understanding? Tuesday my rest day, I checked this thing two or three times, and each time I checked, my writing friends were there hugging me, and caring for me like a mom dog with her puppies. Let me tell you, the writing community is awesome! When something happens to one of us, we circle around for support to our injured comrade. My sister called, and we both agreed, I shouldn’t tell my mother.

Steven asked his mom if we could borrow the car to go to the library/food shopping on Tuesday and being the loving woman that she is, she brought the car out here. I would have to drive her back home and then drive back here. *sob* *cry* I really wasn’t worried about food or anything else for that matter, I just wanted to rest.

I got in the car, shaking, she wanted me to drive so I could get familiar with the car. Low to the ground, feet barely reaching the pedal, eyes could hardly see over the wheel, I started the car and off I went. I drove about 10 MPH up the dirt road, 40 on the asphalt.
Great, I’m driving. Get me back home now, my brain was screaming.

I made it home and the next day, Wednesday, we went food shopping. I said if I was going to go, Steven had to come too! I won’t be alone! Another 10 MPH for two miles, passed the ditch where all this occurred, hands trembling, chest tightening, tears rolling, I made it to the asphalt! Made it to the stupid library, made it to the store.

A lot of eyes looked at me sympathetically as I passed, black eye shining, obvious pain written on my face. Adam looks no better than me but his bangs can disguise his cut up forehead. We were in the public, just two days after this life altering event. Well life altering for Adam and I. We arrived home and tears came like a flood.

Today, Thursday, I have to drive about 30 miles out to his brothers house so he can look at the truck. Me? I’d much rather take it to a garage, but his brother is a mechanic and wants to look underneath the thing. Let’s see, the headlights are dangling like eyeballs hanging out of a socket, grass clings to the underbody and all through the engine, the truck smells like a swamp, mud clings to it like a silk scarf and I’m afraid driving it, is going to do more damage since it took on so much water. Does it really matter what *I* think? How I feel? Me, me me? Well the roads are wet and slippery today, so good luck me!

Rest? No, not me. Back in the saddle once again. I’ll rest when I go home.