Mistakes

Pss. 19: 12 “Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.”

I’ve made quite a few mistakes, I’m sure we all have and usually ones that we have to live with the rest of our life, like it or not. Since I began writing, well no, since I began blogging, my paintbrush of mistakes is in vivid color here. I hold nothing back and my truth is my healing place.

Some people deal with their mistakes, some timidly live with them, some take the mistakes they made in life by the horns and wrestle them to the ground and shed them from their life never to be seen or heard from again. 

To me, mistakes we made in our past shouldn’t be forcefully thrown in our face so that we have to live with the pain on a daily basis. Some people don’t deal with their mistakes very well and they live in denial as if the mistake is a joy in their life, never to be admitted as a mistake, but the pain, the pain is so evident when people live in denial. 

One mistake I made, was not getting an abortion at 16 and spending nine agonizing months pregnant only to give birth to a stillborn child whose memory still haunts me to this day, some thirty-odd years later; then marrying the guy at 17 and spending 20 years of my formative life owning up to a pledge I had made more to God than my husband.

Looking back at my mistakes helps me to see God’s hand in shaping me. I was the clay and he was the potter molding me into the woman I am now. I don’t have regrets in the choices I made and some may say I’m in denial but really; the CHOICE was mine, an act of free will that God gave to us all. 

Isa. 64:8 “But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.”

Have you ever lived in a moment of should’ve, could’ve, would’ve? I normally don’t but as flashbacks come back to haunt me, writing about what could’ve been helps me for some odd reason. 

It helps me because with all of the looking back, I see myself exactly where I should be and any amount of changes in what ‘could’ve been’, only changes segments in the here and now. At this juncture, I would not want one thing to change. My pain and my suffering, (that of which no one understands except myself) is what helps me to be non- judgmental to others who are suffering through their own mistakes.

I do believe that our mistakes are little tools in our life that carve out who and what we become. I need to see that living with no regret is where my mind and body is supposed to be at this moment.

Job 19: 4 “And be it indeed that I have erred, mine error remaineth with myself.”

Mistakes should never be used to make people bend to your whim, they should be treated with the soft-skinned hands of a person who has grown and learned from their mistakes. A mistake can be seen as a work of art instead of a hold-over-your-head lifetime of remembrance.

I think what I’m trying to say in short is this: Mistakes are sometimes blessings in disguise. Not that they are rainbows and unicorns and should be seen as such but that they are clay and mistakes are what molded you.

Blogging

Observe, don't imitate.
~John M. Ford

Blogging is a tool in the writers arsenal. We as bloggers, either have something positive to say or something negative to say but always, a writer has SOMEthing to say; and a blog is a nice way to say it.

I remember a couple of years ago when my beau was losing his sight, I made the suggestion that he might try blogging, to tell his story of going blind. He put together Drums in the Deep, and was well on his way in the blogging community, sharing his journey.

Well like most people, he got bored quickly as his sight diminished with every day, and he was becoming discouraged. Then he started a new blog about audiobook reviews and he has found a nice niche which he can enjoy writing and enjoy reviewing, since audiobooks became the norm in his sightless world.

Many of you know that last year the miracle of sight was given to him, and then he finally got the chance to SEE his blogs. It didn’t take him long before he revamped both blogs and made them more appealing to the reader, who may have no clue that he went blind and got his sight back three years later. Blogging became a part of his life.

He has such a nice voice I had suggested and tossed around the idea of him becoming a narrator for audiobooks but that seed fell by the wayside as we both have been dealing with our health issues first and foremost. But now that he can see, (still not 100% yet) he has begun to think ahead for the future, HIS future. He is now thinking also about how cool narrating would be and once he starts watering that seed, you just never know what will flourish!

Just as the writing sites used to be a part of my life, blogging has been a way to communicate with my reader and teach them a few basic points in writing. I’m not a college scholar but my tips are tried and true to the best of my knowledge and is what gives my life purpose. To teach a newcomer some basics to get them started on their own journey of writing is my gift to you.

Throughout my life, I’ve realized a few things, (haven’t we all?) I realized I have a purpose. No my purpose isn’t to become a millionaire, be president, or to become the the first woman to venture onto Mars surface. Nope, my purpose is to plant seeds in everyone’s life and give them that little grain of seeing hope in their lifeless world. One day the seed takes root, once they’ve watered it, and has the possibility of growing into great things.

So while I may not seem to have accomplished much in my life, know that I am a Master Gardener, serving a purpose for the Almighty. What the individual does with that seed is totally up to them. I’ve given it to them, they can either plant it or toss it, the CHOICE is up to them.

Blogging is a seed that I give to you, my readers. Use it to the best of your ability and make something flourish from it!

Quotation Saturday

Psalm 143:1 Hear my prayer, O LORD, give ear to my supplications: in thy faithfulness answer me, and in thy righteousness.

***

FEAR~

I won’t allow fear to win over my being as it tugs on me. FEAR? Get over it!
~~ joni, as she moves on to the next stage

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear. ~Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797)

Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed.
~Michael Pritchard

To use fear as the friend it is, we must retrain and reprogram ourselves...We must persistently and convincingly tell ourselves that the fear is here--with its gift of energy and heightened awareness--so we can do our best and learn the most in the new situation.
~Peter McWilliams, Life 101



FAITH~

I will carry my faith tightly clenched in my hand, and permanently engrossed in my soul.
~~Joni, as she heals

“Faith is the ‘eternal elixir’ which gives life, power and action to the impulse of thought! Faith is the starting point of all accumulation of riches! Faith is the basis of all ‘miracles’ and all mysteries which cannot be analyzed by the rules of science! Faith is the only known antidote for failure!”
~Napoleon Hill

“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith.”
 ~Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Work as if you were to live a hundred years. Pray as if you were to die tomorrow.” ~Benjamin Franklin

“Fear of failure and fear of the unknown are always defeated by faith. Having faith in yourself, in the process of change, and in the new direction that change sets will reveal your own inner core of steel.”
~Georgette Mosbacher

Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.
~J.R.R.Tolkien (1892 - 1973)


LIFE ~

I will live life to the fullest and take nothing less than what is waiting for me out there. ~ joni, as she finds the healing tree and eats of its fruit

A person’s life is not a series of dramatic events for which he or she is applauded or exiled but a slow accumulation of days, seasons, years, fleshed out by the generational weight of one’s family and anchored by a land-bound sense of place.
~Gretel Ehrlich
 

Life offers no obstacles, only challenges.

Life is just a mirror, and what you see out there, you must first see inside of you.
~Wally Famous Amos (1936 - )

Writing is my healing tool. Thank you all for partaking of my journey. ~joni

Writer's Write Right

Vocabulary...an essential tool to writing right.

Vocabulary is the use of words in language. Not everyone masters language and vocabulary and often writers try to hard to make their writing sound better. A note of caution: Use words you know and understand before trying to pull off a philosophical sounding piece that you know nothing about it.

If you’re going to use words like affinity, assiduous, conferred, deferential, definitive, dissident, finesse, infinitesimal, insidious, insufferable, sedentary, vociferous, make sure you know what each and every one of these words mean.

I often read beginners work that sounds over-worded like a shadow covering. The grayness of the cloak hides what is really secretly within the writer. I have a book titled 1000 Most Important Words by Norman Schur. I flip through it daily and study some of the words. I try (notice I said TRY?) and retain the meaning of the word and sometimes knowing these words helps me in my writing.

There are times that words allude me. That is why I used the metaphor shadow because words can sometimes linger in the shadows or be right on the tip of your tongue and you try to spit it out (or type it) and the little speck of a word hides like a child playing a game. Did you ever have the word decide to pop in your head right before turning into bed?

Ha! A notepad beside the bed will help you there. Write the word down and in the morning look it up in the dictionary and see if it is the word that you were looking for. Don’t use words you have no idea what the meaning is.

The man was inoculated as he got behind the wheel to drive. (I think you meant INTOXICATED)

His behavior was vociferous and annoying. (Vociferous meaning: crying out noisily; clamorous)

Oh dear are you going to need to look up clamorous too?

Whatever the case may be, do your homework! What? We’re grown-ups? Who needs homework? All that I can say to that is, we ALL need to do our homework. Learning is a never-ending part of life. Once we stop learning, we stop growing. And when we stop growing, we might as well roll over and order the casket now!

We, in the 21st century, have too many tools within our grasp to NOT learn on a daily basis. So what are you going to do? Learn a NEW word or two a day and watch yourself bloom into the writer you always dreamed of becoming.

Proliferate:
1. to grow or produce by multiplication of parts or cell division, or by procreation.
2. to increase in number or spread rapidly and often excessively.

I’ve started you off with your first word…Now grow my friends!