49 and Fabulous

49 and Fabulous

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

I prayed

I sit and meditate for five minutes every morning and the reason this is a big deal is that I just started last week. I also live in New York City, and the city and myself, we never sleep, we never slow down and we never sit for five minutes and pray and meditate.

I sit and talk to god and try to listen. As much as I want to say I have gotten specific direction and clarity from my five minutes, I've done more of getting my "to do" lists done and some really great conversations in my head to all the difficult people in my life.

However; I did ask for stuff. More specifically I started thinking about my writing. Traditionally I "think" about writing for some time before I actually get around to sitting down and typing it out. Right now, I am proud to say, I have a nice book about Nana's life, two short stories (one about 9/11) and two screen plays.

All in the thinking stage.

So I prayed...a simple prayer, not unlike my everyday all other times prayers..."God show me what you want me to do with my writing".

I logged on to CNN.com and what caught my eye was the headline, "Born-again rebel". I am born again, not to sure about the rebel part, but I am born-again. I just started saying this out loud to other people. I would talk about it with people at church but I finally told my friend Cynthia who laughed at me last year when I told her I loved Jesus. This time she didn't laugh, she told me, "I would love to have a god like yours".

I told the dental hygienist last Saturday as she was cleaning my teeth and I was listening to my Ipod to calm my nerves and innocently asked what I was listening to, "I'm a Jesus freak and listen to Christian music", She asked my church and said she would come.

I didn't know I was born-again. I could have been born-again a long time ago, it occurred to me on the 2 train a few months ago heading to Times Square. I am not sure if it was Times Square or the evangelist on the train, spiting as he yelled angrily in peoples faces about the love of Christ and how they needed it now and that they were sinners. The thought came to me soft and quiet..."I could be born-again" -- it was like I was slowly waking up. I looked around to see if anyone else noticed that I was different. The evangelist was still angry and still spitting.

I talked to my spiritual mentor, Raymond about what that meant, and he told me "once you become born-again, you are touched by the Holy Spirit and will never be the same". He said other things, but that is what I took from the conversation. Raymond came into my life ten years ago. I heard him speak at an AA meeting and we became friends. He became a pastor after killing some guy and landing in jail and devoting his life to Christ. He got out on a technicality and kept his prison promise to god.

He asked me to start going to church and actually go. Once a week, no excuses -- and that is where my path with God started. I can now look back and see how it happened. I can see how I became a believer. I started to believe Christ resurrected, I started to believe he did it for my sins; I started to believe I am forgiven and I started to believe I am saved.

Isaiah 55:3 Incline your ear, and come unto me; hear, and your soul shall live.

Well, my soul is living. It has asked me to write. I really feel like I need to come to the Portland seminar for guidance and direction with my writing. I beleive, this is an answer to my five mintues.

I would love to come to the seminar without winning this contest. I would love to be out of debt. I would love to sit with grandpa again. I would love to be back at sixteen and talk to that scared girl and tell her not to go down that path. There are alot of things I would love to do...

So instead, I prayed.

God led me to you.

And I prayed again.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Just getting started

I just had to jump in and get this thing up and running. It's Monday, I should be working. Apparently I am not at the moment. But here it goes, first blog, first words, my initial start.

what will follow?
have a great day,
Stephanie