Janet Perez Eckles~ Finding Lasting Satisfaction

17 May

Walking by Faith, Not by Sight
Janet Perez Eckles

Have you ever been happy with yourself, totally satisfied? I felt that way a few weeks ago when I re-wrote the first chapter of the novel I had just completed. The story, engaging and the characters, sassy and insightful. The end product was, well, a masterpiece (pride aside, of course).

Then it happened. I got it back from the editor. I swallowed hard and my shoulders drooped with disbelief. The whole thing was riddled with corrections, questions, and endless suggestions for improvements. I cringed, but accepting the changes was imperative because the editor had in mind a great product and a better story. She outlined her plan for results that, no doubt, would shine.

Read the rest of the story at Janet’s blog. I promise you,it is worth the click! : http://www.janetperezeckles.com/finding-lasting-satisfaction/#sthash.Fv2yEtyg.dpuf

The book of our life has a happy ending when we leave the planning and the plot to the God of the universe because “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future’” (Jeremiah 29:11-13)

Janet Eckles Perez

 

 

 

 

Grateful for the privilege of inspiring you…

My website in English

En Español

My story (video)

Inspirational video  just for you.

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The Joy of Encouragement

16 May

From My Heart

Louise Gibson

author of Window Wonders

 

 

Written applause carries a special

power all its own.

It is tangible evidence of appreciation

that can never be overthrown.

 

Penned praise can be savored.

It can bring joy to a heart.

Email may be a time saver –

But a handwritten note is set apart.

 

Has someone done you a favor,

even “gone the extra mile?”

Touch their heart with a letter

It makes their effort worthwhile.

 

We don’t do “good works” to be praised,

that is truly not our intention.

God created us to serve our fellow man.

It is heartfelt intervention.

 

“H-m-m-m Wait a minute, please!”

This lady has changed her mind –

While penning my thoughts I received 3 emails,

Each one of a kind.

 

One, especially, touched my heart.

Its words I want to savor.

I simply pushed the “print” button

And did myself a favor.

 

The lesson I just learned is so true.

It isn’t important “how” your communicate –

Just be sure you do!

 

Handwritten note copy

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I AM Breaking a Big Rule

15 May

Blackberry blooms copy

On the Porch 

Onisha Ellis

I am breaking a big rule of blogging today. I am going to ramble, go off topic, bounce around. I am NOT going to stay focused. Why oh why would I commit this crime? Because I can. Because that is what my brain is doing. So let’s rock and ramble!

 RAMBLE ONE

I enjoy eating boiled eggs. For seventy calories I can grab a God created protein snack. I do not enjoy boiling them and peeling them is even worse. So this Easter when Facebook was filled with posts about baking your eggs in the oven I joined the frenzy and tried. It worked!! They peel like a dream even a week after I baked them! My eggs had a slight brown spot on the egg white but it was very easy to flick off.

Here is the “recipe” and you can visit Unsophisticook! to read the complete story.

 

How to Bake Hard Boiled Eggs

 

Total Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

eggs

ice water

Instructions:

  1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
  2. Place desired number of eggs in a regular or mini muffin tin and bake for 30 minutes.

Remove eggs from oven and, using a pair of tongs (I like these tongs with rubber tips from OXO), immediately transfer the eggs to an ice water bath. Allow to cool down for at least 10 minutes.

RAMBLE TWO

I have been working my way through book blogger websites, looking for bloggers who would be willing to accept an ARC (advanced reader copy) of Rebekah Lyn’s (otherwise known as my daughter Beck) upcoming release, Jessie. I feel the same anxiety I felt when I left her with a babysitter, sent her off on her first sleepover and drove her to college. Do mothers EVER get over the instinct to protect their children? I am pretty sure I have spent more time praying over my children in their adult like than I did when they were little tykes.

If you happen to be a book blogger or just enjoy reading and reviewing, speak up in comments and I will email you an ARC.

I am humbled and thankful that my BFF Pam has joined the Rebekah Lyn Books team as a marketing and Publicist assistant. Launching Jessie and planning Teas has so many elements to pull together, I was feeling totally overwhelmed.

RAMBLE THREE

My heart has been filled with prayers for a sweet thirteen year old, Kylie Myers who is receiving chemo for a rare cancer. You can visit her Facebook page Smiiey For Kylie. She has had a rough time adjusting to having cancer and the side effects of chemo.

Her dad is author Mark Myers who wrote Virgil Creech Takes a Swipe at Redemption.

When I think of Kylie, I wish she could meet my friend Wanda and her daughter, Allie who has been on a similar chemo schedule with Kylie. Allie shines with joy and confidence in Christ and my faith is made stronger when I see her on Facebook rocking the headscarf or sporting the smooth head style with her brother.

That’s the end of my ramble. There is a lot more in my brain such as why does the male cardinal insist on constantly banging his head on anything shiny, but that is for another day. Our blackberries are in full bloom and the locals say if we get a frost while they are blooming, our winter will be called a blackberry winter. Temps are expected to drop this weekend so we will see, I like blackberry blossoms because they remind me the flower of life is beautiful and even though there will be thorns, the fruit will be delicious.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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My Western Trip~Part 2

14 May

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

Bill

 

 

After I got checked in at the hotel, I walked a couple of blocks over to the Mob Museum which is set up as a history of the “Mafia” and organized crime during the early days in the U.S. and especially in Las Vegas. The Museum is housed in the former Las Vegas Post Office and Courthouse, built in 1933, and has restored the second floor courtroom where many of the Kefauver Committee hearings to expose organized crime were held in 1950 and 1951. They even have a portion of the garage wall from the 1929 St. Valentine’s Day massacre that was relocated from its original location in Chicago’s North Side.

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Next I strolled a few blocks to the “Fremont Street Experience” which is a 5-block covered pedestrian mall known for years as “Glitter Gulch.”  It reminded me of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II shopping mall in Milan, Italy, except for all the noise and flashing lights. It has open-air bars and shops, street barkers, male and female photo shops, all brightly lit with flashing colored lights and lots of loud music. The place was mobbed with people.

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The next day I drove out toward Bolder City and took the very interesting Hoover Dam tour. The dam was built during the Great Depression, with what today we would consider fairly primitive equipment. Construction began in 1931, and at times, with as many as 5000 workers laboring 24 hours a day, for almost 5 years, they completed the project, and productive dam operations began in 1936. Just think about that! That massive structure was completed two years ahead of the projected completion date and under budget. There is so much interesting information about the actual building of Hoover Dam that there is not room to share it all with you here. If you are interested in the details, I think you will find it fascinating to Google “Hoover Dam” and read all about this massive project.

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Hoover Dam spans the border between Nevada and Arizona at that point, so after the tour I drove across the “Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge” to the Arizona side of the river and then back across to Nevada side, just for fun. Then I headed Northeast into the Moapa River Indian Reservation to Overton, NV to visit The Lost City Museum. This unique museum traces the Anasazi Indians and their ancestors who have inhabited this area from as long ago as two millennia. Then in about 1150, evidence suggests that a severe drought hit the area and the Anasazi Indians disappeared, to be replaced by the Paiute Indians between then and about 1800. Evidence shows that the Paiute Indians then called this area home until around the1850s, when Anglo farmers moving west pushed them out of the area. The Lost City Museum was built in 1935, to house artifacts from the Pueblo Grande de Nevada, which was to be partially covered by the waters of Lake Mead as a result of building Hoover Dam. The museum now includes artifacts from many of the ancestral inhabitants of this area, the Mojave Desert and other archaeological sites in Southern Nevada.

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                                                            —–To Be Continued—–

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Flowers and Gardens

14 May

SUNDAY MEMORIES

Judy Wills

JUDY

One of our favorite things to do at Disney is go to EPCOT for the Flower and Garden Festival every year.  They do such wonderful things with flowers and topiary.  I have known what topiary is for quite a while now, but when our son-in-law asked what it was, I told him that I couldn’t describe it, but there it is, right in front of you!  The shapes and designs that Disney artists make with wire and vines is simply amazing!

I’m not going to write much about this event, but I do want to post some of those amazing and beautiful pictures – just in case you aren’t able to see them for yourselves while attending this Festival.  Each year Disney adds some topiary they have been working on, and the theme is new each year, as well.

So, with that in mind…………ENJOY!

 

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Buddhist Shrines and Crepes

13 May

It’s Tuesday and time for a peep into how Jacob is doing in Japan. Be sure to visit his blog to read the whole post!

jnightlight

20140427_160927 The creation of the lovely crepe

Sunday (April 27th) was pretty relaxing, with John, John and I visiting beautiful Buddhist Temples (after a trip through the mall), which were beautiful and relaxing. We skipped one and came back because there was either a funeral going on, or there were Yakuza hanging around the place. Either way, we didn’t want to interrupt. You can see a lot of the images here.

Dat Crepe tho Golden, Delicious Heaven

I’ll fill in what I did the rest of the week as well.

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Daily Diary Day Three~Not Really Alone

12 May

My Take

DiVoran Lites

It’s three-thirty in the afternoon. “The Swan,” from, “Carnival of the Animals,” plays on my Pandora streaming radio. Bright pinwheels on the fence send shards of light past the open French Doors into Author, Poet and Artistmy office-family-room-kitchen. Staccato sounds fill the air as a heavy-duty staple-gun blasts into terrazzo floor, pinning down a new carpet in the house across the street, a woodpecker hammers on metal, and a cardinal sings his spring song, tu-tu-tu.

So far, this has been a great day, though when I awoke this morning I felt that I wasn’t going to be able to stand another two weeks of Bill’s absence. I woke up wondering whom I should call. What should I do in order not to be lonely? All my small worries came flooding in like wind and rain from a big storm. Bill has been gone a whole two days in which I have not significantly spoken to anyone except him on the phone–long distance.

I dragged myself from the bed, put on my at-home clothes, fed the cats, made coffee, and sat down for my quiet time. It needed something extra today. Should I write out more scriptures? Vent my worries? Read from, Streams in the Desert, which is my go-to devotional book for hard times? My iPod was near so I connected it to my tiny round speaker and began to feel better the second the music started. I picked up a fun and funny book I have that gives prompts of things to draw and writes and tells about what special month or day I it is. I hadn’t read the two introductory pages to April yet, so I chose that.

I liked a picture of an archway with a blue door, bright flowers, and a dog. Oh well, I’d take the time to draw it, and then get serious with journaling, praying, reading. Watercolor paints and water-soluble

Up Into The Light by Melody Hendrix

Up Into The Light by Melody Hendrix

pastels lay nearby so I chose some. The pens beckoned. Before I knew it, color flooded the paper before me. That painting finished, I began to look into some of my others. This one needed something, that one would be useful for something else. The morning passed in happy contemplation of things I could do with my favorite pastime.

And here is something else—a new thought to me. I don’t have to have one favorite thing, because of course I love painting, writing, being with friends and family, all the movies I like are my favorites, all the books I keep and read are my favorites. My life was expanding and at the same time, I was having a wonderful time.

I have beaten the blues for today. But I have not been alone for one minute. God was with me all along. For this day, He didn’t want me too serious, but uplifted, and encouraged. Not once for the rest of the day did I give a thought as to who I ought to call or what I should do with my time. The day took care of itself. What a wonderful freedom not to have to worry about it anymore.

“I can do all things (or nothing much, if that’s His plan) through Christ who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:13) and “In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

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Old Friends

11 May

SUNDAY MEMORIES

Judy Wills

JUDY

 

We have been blessed to have been able to travel a lot of this earth. We’ve seen many places that I had only heard of while in school (elementary, Junior High, High). And everywhere we’ve traveled, we’ve made friends. Some have stayed near and dear to us, others have fallen by the wayside, and we’ll just see them when we all get to heaven, and renew our friendships there.

And some have just stayed so close to us that they feel almost like family. Like the young man that we met when we first arrived in Wiesbaden, Germany, in 1967. He was actually younger than Fred, but was Fred’s “superior” in rank. But then, Fred had those extra four years of schooling that Paul didn’t have, so………

He was an interesting young man, and we enjoyed his company a lot. After he left Germany, the Air Force transferred him to Minot, North Dakota, and from meteorology to “Missile Launch Officer.” Well, that didn’t last too long, and he got out of the military.

Next thing we know, he is attached to Wycliffe Bible Translators. We are pleased, because he has become a believer in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and wants to be a part of spreading the Good News to as much of the world as he can.

He married another Wycliffe member about 10 years later, and they had two children. They have traveled the world with Wycliffe, being missionaries everywhere they went.

We have had the wonderful privilege of meeting up with Paul and his family through the years, and supporting them spiritually and financially. Their children are grown now, and away from home, but Paul and Joyce continue to work with Wycliffe. He is in accounting, and Joyce has been a pre-school teacher – to missionaries children, and others wherever they have been.

We had a recent visit with them, and though it was a short visit, we renewed our friendship, and had a grand time just talking, and revisiting past times together. We talked about their time in Darwin, Australia, in Malaysia, and in Singapore. We also talked about what they are doing in Dallas, Texas at this time. We told them about our church here, our ministry there, our new pastor…all the things that we love and enjoy about the body of believers we are a part of here.

He reminded us that we had given him a “gift” before he left Germany – a copy of the “Good News for Modern Man: The New Testament in Today’s English.” It left such an impression on him – that he could read and understand the Bible in modern English – that he sought out salvation. We don’t even remember giving him the book.

It was a joyous and wonderful time together. We thank God for His wisdom in allowing us to have “forever” friends – those we enjoy here on this earth, and know that we will rejoice with them in heaven.

couple

 

 
I thank my God every time I remember you.

Philippians 1:3

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Laughter~An Oil Change for the Brain

9 May

From My Heart

Louise Gibson

Balderdash Mirth copy

 

 

LAUGHTER
{An Oil Change for the Brain)

Oh, what fun it was,
An evening of “Balderdash”-
A board game played by the “Gibson girls.”
Our reward was laughs, not cash

!I was reluctant to play, at first-
I felt intimidated by their knowledge.
I graduated from high school,
but I had never attended college.

The game, I found, was a stimulant.
It taxed my inner core-
We had to guess whose answer was true,
which made us laugh all the more.

I have to confess, I was a pretty good liar-
My answer was often chosen as “true”.
The game called for a great imagination,
based on our “point of view”.

The memories I treasure on Mother’s Day
are preserved in my heart-
I carry them with me at all times-
they are “riches” set apart!

Laughter in the Bible:

Genesis 18:13 “And the Lord said unto Abraham,
Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, “Shall I of a surety
bear a child, who am old?”

Eccl. 2:2 “I said of laughter, it is mad: and of mirth.
What doeth it?”

Psalm 126:2 “Then was our mouth full of laughter,
our tongue with singing”

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What Makes God Anxious

8 May

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

I'm a winner

What makes God anxious?  The word anxious tends to make one think of anxiety but I never thought to  link the words anxious and God together.

This morning, I read a devotional by David Wilkerson titled “The Blessings of Goodness” The scripture that really stood out for me was Isaiah 65:24

It shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will “hear”.

David Wilkerson explained “This verse provides us with an incredible picture of our Lord’s love for us. Evidently He is so anxious to bless us, so ready to fulfill His loving-kindness in our lives, that He cannot wait for us to tell him our needs. He jumps in and performs acts of mercy, grace and love toward us before we even ask-and that is a supreme pleasure to Him”

Imagine, God  can hardly wait to  provide for us! Can you recall a time when God had already placed someone or something in your life before you even knew you had a need? I have and it thrills my heart, every time.

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