My Take
DiVoran Lites
“Be happy in your faith and rejoice. Be glad-hearted continuously-always be unceasing in prayer.” I Thessalonians
When we moved to Titusville, we had a dear neighbor whose husband worked at the Space Center, or the Cape as it was called in those days. Her name was Shirley, and she was a decade older than me. She and her husband had three children, two were older, and one was closer in age to our children. Shirley and I used to stand on the sidewalk in front of her house or mine and talk. She introduced me to Guideposts and the book, The Power of Positive Thinking by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. She knew Dr. Peale because he was pastor of Marble Collegiate Church she attended in Manhattan.
Next to the news that Jesus loves me and wants me to be his child, learning to be grateful and positive is the most important idea I ever received. That is truly the way to be happy. It’s good to keep negative thoughts away because mostly they come from the accuser and are tremendously harmful. I’ve recently taken a course online by Christian brain specialist Dr. Caroline Leaf that teaches positive thinking. She demonstrates, in a graphic how negative thinking actually shrivels the brain.
Shirley encouraged her children, her neighbors, her friends, and lonely people in the neighborhood to cut out negative thoughts and think about the best things that could happen in any situation. Because of Shirley’s interest in me, I went back to college and got my AA and, I decided to keep my living-room a place for adults with plenty of other places for the kids to play inside and outside. I read all the Guideposts magazines, and my life was completely changed by the opportunity to think positively instead of mimicking the negativity all around us. After the kids got bigger, we all sat in the living room while we all had Cool-Aid and talked. Shirley’s son, who is just a bit older than the rest, learned his mother’s ways and became wise. When he went to a new school where our kids would soon be going, he counseled us on everything we would need to know. He did the same when it came time for our young folks to go to college. He lives in the Atlanta area now and has a beautiful wife and a son and daughter. His calls always lift my spirits.
I was delighted when I read that Dr. Peale was also Trump’s minister when he was growing up. No wonder our former president is so confident and forward thinking.
DiVoran has been writing for most of her life. Her first attempt at a story was when she was seven years old and her mother got a new typewriter. DiVoran got to use it and when her dad saw her writing he asked what she was writing about. DiVoran answered that she was writing the story of her life. Her dad’s only comment was, “Well, it’s going to be a very short story.” After most of a lifetime of writing and helping other writers, DiVoran finally launched her own dream which was to write a novel of her own. She now has her Florida Springs trilogy and her novel, a Christian Western Romance, Go West available on Amazon. When speaking about her road to publication, she gives thanks to the Lord for all the people who helped her grow and learn. She says, “I could never have done it by myself, but when I got going everything fell beautifully into place, and I was glad I had started on my dream.”
Old Things R New 
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