Magnificent Mayra

Have you ever referred to anybody as magnificent? Yesterday I had the opportunity to do just that. We celebrated my “2nd” sister’s (milestone) birthday. (I cannot say which milestone as I am under the women’s code of silence of not divulging any age after year 25.)

I call her my 2nd sister because as you get older, the importance of family takes on deeper meaning. Although she is known as my sister-in-law to many, to us she is just another one of us. We feel the same about her entire family. There is no distinction.

A game at the party required we write a word to a letter of the alphabet on an index card, and a little paragraph on why we chose that declaration to describe her. It was fun because it gave us all an opportunity to kid around. It also provided us the chance to tell her what she meant to us and gave her a glimpse of how she is seen by others; especially those closest to her. My letter was M and my first impulse was to write the word Magnificent.

I am blessed with being surrounded by very strong women. What excites me most is watching how a lot of us have stepped up in the passing of the torch. There has been quite a bit of trail forging, and in doing so, it has magnified the significance of becoming a magnificent woman.

Although my sister is 12 years my junior, her wisdom surpasses most women I know at my age. (Forget it, I’m not telling you my age either.) Observing her over the years, I’ve had the pleasure of seeing her morph into a valiant woman who has not only found her voice, but also empowers others to find their own. She is a deep-well of knowledge who is not afraid of dropping her bucket as far down as she can in her thirst for acquiring more.

So what makes her so magnificent? Her ability to grow and adapt, her teachable spirit, her compassion, and selfless giving, are just a few attributes that automatically come to mind. Her qualities undoubtedly classify her as being impressive to the mind or spirit. This is actually one of the connotations for the word magnificent (by the way).

Without a doubt, this describes my sister. M for “Magnificent” Mayra for that is what she is.





Happy Birthday Mayra!!!!!

Dancing with Sir Compromise

A dance is just a dance; or is it?


Dancing…I love it. It doesn’t matter if I have a dance partner or not, what type of music (in most cases), or where I’m at. I’m one of those people that will bop up and down in the supermarket or jig within any clothes store in the mall. This, of course, embarrasses my family (hee hee). I love rhythm. It helps me unwind, defocus, and puts me at the pace and pulse of the beat. I have to admit a lot of times my dancing is within the soul.

Who are you dancing with?
Throughout life we dance in distinct ways. As I dive into the 5th chapter of my book dealing with choices, I am finding that often times we concede due to compromises we make when we really shouldn’t. Have you ever had a twirl with Sir Compromise? He seems to always show up when you’re in the middle of the dance floor of tough choices. He’s the one that persuades you that it’s okay to bend the rules a bit or stick with the tiny, white-lie. He’ll even convince you in believing that you’re the hero of the hour even when the matter-at-hand is ¾ good and ¼ bad.

Twirling and Twirling
Sir Compromise is quite the dancer. He’ll twirl and twirl you during the decision-thinking process, making sure your sight becomes distorted. The focus becomes your dancing partner, and he’ll constantly prompt you to keep in step. Forget about trying to study any aspect, or stepping back to see the whole picture. Remember he’s a pro and wouldn’t want you to step on him, trip, or worst…stop dancing all together.

When the twirling stops…
As the twirling-dance slows to a stop, you’re out of breath, dizzy and need to grab on to something fast so that you don’t topple over. Decisiveness now dominates and the choice must be made. You want to concede to Sir Compromise even though nothing was clear during your reasoning time, because your analysis did not include your belief system or your conscience.

Dancing with one Partner
Dancing with Compromise alone, never gives Lady Belief and Jimmy the Conscience the chance to balance out your tough decisions, as Sir Compromise urges you to go with your gut. Hey and why not! We live in a world where we are encouraged not to conform or believe in absolutes. Heaven forbid you step back long enough to see we daily conform and mimic each other to fit into the world of absolute oblivion. We are told to live the life of anything goes forcing us to anesthetize values. How then can you trust your gut when you’re constantly numbing “your” sense of right and wrong?

Walking Away with Compromise
Each of our decisions has a ripple effect in our life. Whether we choose to accept it or not or whether you believe it or not, quite a few of the decisions you make affects others. When we dance with Sir Compromise, we ignore Lady Belief’s beckoning to come and sit for a while, and drown out the voice of Jimmy the Conscience. On the arm of Sir Compromise dizzy and out of breath, you choose his way of escape and promise of kingdom bliss. You feel happy and relieved, but as you take one last glance at Lady Belief she still motions you to come back and sit, and you finally hear Jimmy the Conscience’s last screaming attempt “don’t do it”! Sir Compromise points to the castle in the horizon and the long red carpet set before you.

The Red-Carpet Treatment
The carpet looks magnificent and plush as Compromise continues twirling you every once in a while. Happily you walk with your rationalizing companion, never noticing that the passage is narrowing and the walls are closing in. Abruptly Sir Compromise bids you farewell and tells you to follow the red-tattered road. You turn to protest, but somehow he has disappeared. You’re alone and cannot go back because, unbelievably, the passage way has also disappeared behind you.

Red Strings
As you move forward it feels like the ceiling is now creeping downward. Your chest begins to get tight as you become aware of the mistake that you have made. You’re alone and afraid because you realize that the ceiling is slowly inching down, the walls are still coming in and you are now forced down to your knees. You can only move forward and no matter how many times you look back, all the passage ways behind you have closed. Down to a crawl, you can hardly fit when finally you see in front of you a small entrance. Moving quickly you inch towards the doorway as quickly as you can to find that getting through will require you to slide through it on your belly. Looking down your eyes widen in disbelief as you notice that the beautiful red carpet is all but red strings.

The Crawl
As you crawl on your belly, using your elbows and legs to push through, you start to feel the sting of scraping skin. As incredible as this seems, the worst is yet to come. You tilt your head up only to find that the ceiling is right above it. The pounding in your chest is deafening as the space your crawling is getting tighter. You continue to move forward at a snail’s pace when all of the sudden you notice the lights are dimming. You close your eyes and grit your teeth in complete frustration with your decision to listen to Jerk Compromise. It’s totally dark now and all you can do is feel your way through. Your head is brushing the ceiling, your body aches from the awkward position you’re in. You have bumps, scratches, scrapes and bruises and all you want is for this nightmare to end.

Meet King Consequence
As you’re wishing away the dream, the unexpected happens. The floor gives way. Down you fall, in the dark, hands and legs flailing helplessly. With a loud thud you land. It takes you a while to grasp you’re surroundings but when you’re finally able to focus and straighten yourself out, you find that you are at the feet of the throne of King Consequence. Before you can even get up, he welcomes you into his kingdom and advises you that he expects you be his loyal subject just like Sir Compromise. “I’ll name you Pauper Oblivious, a slave you will be…to the dungeon of regret with you in my palace of disbelief.” This is when you realize with sad disbelief that Sir Compromise and the King are an unsympathetic, unforgiving, and ruthless beings.

Harsh Reality of the Dance
This may sound like an awful fairy tale but it is the reality for a quite a few. This story is not about the compromise to reach a happy medium for good, but the compromise that creates hurtful results; especially for you. So the next time Sir Compromise extends his hands for a dance ask yourself if that twirl and rumba is really worth it. Chances are you’d rather sit it out and chat with Lady Belief and make Jimmy the conscience your new best friend.

Healing in Worship

For the past few days, I have felt like I have been on by my knees emotionally. The loss of my uncle was a bit more difficult than I had anticipated, but how can you predict a reaction for something like this? Some times we base our past experience on a present occurrence only to find out that what we applied yesterday is not working today. I buckled down on the only thing I knew for sure was my comfort, my belief that God is always there for me.

Every one has a vice or an outlet that they use to cope during crisis. I learned during the loss of my nephew a few years ago, that digging in my heels and not wavering in my acknowledgment of God’s sovereignty kept my heart sensitive and open even when nothing made sense. Too many times people want to blame God for everything that happens or does not happen. It would’ve been easy to be mad at God and scream why but I knew, at that time, the importance of embracing God’s comfort. It has been a place of safety that I have relied on for many years. I know where to run to when I’m hurting.

Why acknowledge God’s sovereignty?
When we begin to recognize that God is in control even when everything is beyond our control, we are reinforcing our trust in Him. God doesn’t need to know He is sovereign. We, however, need to be reminded of that time and again. It is so easy to point the finger at God when things go wrong in our world, but that’s what some folks do, use Him as an escape goat, rather than admit that some times things happen because of poor choices. Let’s blame somebody, so why not God? Isn’t it a bit naïve to think that if there is good there is no bad, that if there is a God there is no devil? The other extreme, of course, would be to blame the devil for everything but reality is people give him way too much credit.

Trusting God
At first it can be hard, especially when the circumstance nudges us to be negative. Our first question internally is “how can God love me if he allows bad things to happen”? There are a few truths that a lot of us forget from time to time.

• We are not of this world
• We are just passing through.
• We are on the first leg of our journey.
• The ruler of this world is Satan.

Nevertheless, he has no dominion over those who have accepted Christ in their lives as Lord and Savior.

So why is trust in God so important? It is an essential piece to your survival on this temporary journey. If you don’t trust God, I mean really trust him, you will always feel like someone is out to get you and that life sucks and then you die.

What’s in it for you?
Your confidence in God will put you on a different level each and every time you’re going through a rough spot. Your reliance in Him will help you through the day to day. When all is a jumbled mess outside of you, your hope and belief in God will give you an inexplicable peace inside. It’s not a magic potion. It’s experiencing God’s faithfulness in your life no matter what the circumstance is.

Healing in Worship
My favorite past time is singing to the Lord. I get lost and can tune out my world every single time and it’s just me and Him. I enter another realm and it is the most peaceful place. It is here where I let go of my pain, stop the focus of it, and just embrace God’s comfort. It is during worship where I find healing and where I receive it.

Healing in worship doesn’t occur when you don’t trust. You have to believe in God’s faithfulness and in His goodness for you to receive it. Accepting these two key factors as true cannot happen unless you have relationship. No relationship…no trust.

Perhaps you feel that God has let you down in the past. Has He really or was it a circumstance that was created by poor choices by you or someone else? Study the whole picture. Some times we fail to see or miss all the small details that God took care of during an awful situation.

Don’t miss the opportunity to invest your time in the most important relationship you will ever have in your life. It’s within that investment that you’ll learn that you’re never alone. It is because of that investment that I know I can always find healing for my body and soul in worship.

To Live or To Exist?

The valleys in upstate New York are magnificent during the Spring. One can see an array of colors as life begins to renew itself. There are purple hues across the mountains, evidence that trees are starting to bud. Spring not only brings life, but also contentment, and excitement to all who live in the northeast as we look forward to warmer weather.

Dormant Trees

A lot of trees in our area go into dormant state during the winter. They go through a series of biochemical processes during autumn that serve as protection during the cold months. They lose their leaves, branches become bare, and growth virtually stops. The trees look as though life have left them.

Imagine for one moment that you are one of those trees. How would you feel if someone thought you were barely alive because your branches had no leaves? If they could hear you, perhaps you would say something like, “How could you not know I am dormant? Don’t you know I will bud in the right season?” Fortunately trees do not talk. If they did most of us would run away.

How Are You Living?
If we were to walk around your tree, what would we see? Would we see buds, flowers, or bear branches? How does that question make you feel? If it makes you feel uncomfortable, chances are that it is time to take inventory of your life.

Most of us do not like to soul-search because it forces us to acknowledge areas that may hurt and require change. We’d rather ignore these sore spots, and like the trees, our issues go into a dormant state. Hurt makes one shut down. When we choose not to deal with issues, our spirit eventually begins to look a lot like the bare tree that exists and no longer lives.

The Bare Minimum
Existing is actually described as living on the minimum level. A lot of people choose to live on the bare minimum, and eventually go into automatic as a result of it. Everything becomes habitual. Life turns into a comfortable existence. Folks who fall into this complacency hide behind the façade of routine. Each morning they wake up with a list of things that need to be completed. This list can become quite extensive. If they’re married and have children, it can be overwhelming. In order to survive, they shift into automatic, so that they can maintain some sanity in their fast-paced home. Is this beginning to sound like you?


Perhaps you think that this is not a bad thing. We should incorporate schedules and good practices. We would probably all agree that routines are a necessary part of life. However, routines can also become detrimental when one chooses to hide behind them. When this happens, personal growth is not evident, and life’s opportunities are ignored or missed.

Detrimental Routines
Have you ever seen people that are so busy that they don’t have time to enjoy life or their loved ones? Perhaps you’re guilty of doing this from time to time. You’ll create patterns that keep you busy at work, church, or at home. You may feel obligated to meet deadlines, go beyond the call of duty, or obsess to keep a spotless house. In a balanced environment, this would be commendable. However, when the focus is tipped towards one particular area, it becomes hurtful.

For example, routines that include 12-hour work days, 6 days a week, will hurt your family emotionally and spiritually. If you’re a woman there, you are considered, the heart of the home. It is hard to show affection when you’re exhausted. If you’re a man, you’re the spiritual leader of the home. It becomes quite difficult for you to maintain the sensitivity that you need to hear from God when you’re brain is fried.

To Live or To Exist
We are all born with a unique purpose and talents. What we choose to do with our purpose and talents are based on how we live. If you live at bare minimum, you will be unable to tap into your purpose and, you will not be able to unearth your talents. They will remain dormant inside of you, unless you provide the right conditions for growth.


God didn’t call us to exist or to live on the bare minimum. He does not want us to remain in a dormant state. He expects us to live and live life to the fullest. You cannot do this if you remain hidden behind routine. Growth, in any area of our lives, demands change. Change forces us to get out of our comfort zone, adjust the way we think, let go of the past, or perhaps even ask or offer forgiveness.

Why remain bare and lifeless, when your buds are waiting to bloom? Start to live and usher in the Spring of your season.

To live or to exist, that, my friend, should no longer be the question.

Women Who Bless

Some women don’t realize how valuable they are and how they impact others. I met one such woman recently. I was walking through one of the towns near my home and noticed that there was a craft store. The first thing I noticed when I walked in was her beautiful cards. To my heart’s delight I found out that she taught a class once a week on one of my favorite hobbies; card making.

Often times, women will pursue their passion and not realize how they impact others just by being the best at what they do. It doesn’t matter where it’s happening, but it’s so important that women continue to make it happen. By giving of themselves, they are actually choosing to bless. Sometimes we get so hung up on the day to day that we don’t realize that we constantly pour into others. In case you’re feeling like this today, please read on. Perhaps you’ll find that your mindless-routine is actually viewed as a gift to others.

Being a Mom

I’ll never understand why society downplays the role of a mom, especially one who decides to stay home. I, for the most part, worked outside of the home, but admired the women who were able to make the choice to care full time for their children. If you are a mom, you know that this is one of the hardest jobs on earth. It’s thankless, has long hours, exhausting, and can be quite unfair at times. Yet love pushes a woman way passed her limits. What’s incredible is the steadfastness of her role throughout the years. She remains the one person that you can always depend on. You’ll also find that in most cases, the giving of herself is not limited just to her family, but often branches out to anyone who interacts with them. My mom has forged a legacy that will be hard to surpass. She has touched and impacted countless lives, just by doing what she does best; having compassion and caring for others.

Being a Teacher
Many times when we think of teachers we automatically place them in a school setting. I’ve had many teachers who never taught in a class room. They just specialized in life lessons. My family is filled with women who are matriarchs. They have strong characters, some times so much so, you’d be afraid to cross them. Each one of them contributed a certain part of themselves. How many women today are available to those they love and are there to guide us, but are passed over because of age? One thing I’ve gained with the passing of time is the appreciation of listening to the voices of wisdom. After a while you start to understand that it is easier to apply advice given, then get burned by experience.


Being a Mentor
Some of these same women take on a more structured role and become mentors. They make it their mission to speak into our lives. They become our coach and cheer us on with the decisions that will forge our future. Their happiness is our success. I wish there were more women like this in the world. Perhaps if we took the time to listen more and apply what we learn, there would be a lot less heart ache. A lot of these advisers are a well of wealth, yet seldom see any gratitude in action, especially after their grasshoppers are gone.

Being a Business Woman
A lot of us have nailed this particular area down. We’re masters at the art of climbing and applying. Our gift for creative gabbing has placed us where we want to be for the most part. If we’re secure in our position, we often discover that the more we know, the easier it is to help others, and the more we help others, the more we begin to network; a win, win situation. However, what some women fail to see is the opportunity to be a positive influence in the work environment. For those who discovered this pleasure, the rewards are beyond what a paycheck could ever give.

Being The Best You
The greatest thing that any of us can do is to be ourselves and be the best at whatever we do. In doing so, we choose to bless anyone who crosses our path. I rejoice whenever a woman finds her voice. I’m elated when a woman finds her niche and purpose. True most of us have several roles, but learn how to take each of them with stride. Remember even though you may not see how you impact others today, it doesn’t mean there is nothing going on in the unseen realm.

I bet just like many of us, my new teacher didn’t realize that her passion for her craft made her a woman who chose to bless me by sharing her gifting and talent in card making.

Thanks Christine.

Little Bird Kicks Butt!

This morning, I noticed a little bird, in hot pursuit of a crow at least 5-6x its size. She bumped him several times until he was out of her territory. The crow did not turn back and fight. As a matter of fact, he coward and was trying his best to get away from her. It was obvious she was a mama bird, as she returned to the location of where her nest must have been. If it was just for territory, I applaud her for her fearless display.

There was a lesson to be learned in what I just witnessed. The little bird often represents us. We often hover over our dreams and when the conviction runs deep, whenever a negative giant comes our way, we stand our ground. That negative giant can come in all forms but the most common one is through people. Reality is not everyone is going to share your same dream or vision. Some will be jealous. Others will think it impossible because of their negative lifestyle.

Negativity does not only come from people. It also comes from within. We let fear overtake us and let it become the driver of our actions. Fear always halts the progress of dreams. Another factor is perception. Perhaps you view yourself as less than and you were told you would never amount to anything. Don’t believe it. The expectation for you and I is greatness. In all things, we should strive for excellence. Don’t be afraid to be great. Too many times we settle in being recognized as good rather than the best. This, my friend, is not a lack of humility. It’s the endeavor to mirror God in all areas of life.

Learn to turn off the negative. Fiercely protect your dreams. Be fearless and relentless like the little bird. Be the best that you can be and don’t be afraid to chase those big, black negative lurkers from outside and within.

Recommended Reading: The Dream Giver by Bruce Wilkinson

Stepping Stone of Team Work

Each individual in their own uniqueness always contributes to the broader scheme of things whether it is the job, home, community, etc. The secret of a successful delivery on any project requires individual focus and flexibility that's driven by collective passion and purpose with some guidance from time to time.

At times the objectives can be cluttered and clouded by obstacles in the form of redundant issues. We tend to lose sight of our triumphs and small successes during these times. However, the dark clouds of toil never overpower the strength of the sunny skies of triumph.

So then shall we focus on just the bad or shall we find balance? If we lack in certain areas should we proceed in defeat? Defeat will only usher in defeat, will it not? However, the desire for change -- always for the better--allows us to take one more step up on the next steppingstone.

Achievement is obtained for the most part with much effort - ah yes and with persistence. It provides a greater appreciation for the work accomplished via our own efforts, as well as by those who lead us. Never underestimate the contribution of one, you, within the collective and experimental realm of us. So step up on the next stone -- measure and pace yourselves individually and collectively knowing that you’re work is only in vain when you refuse to climb.