Big secret blown up

On March 21, 2011March 22, 2011 By Naty MatosIn Articles3 Comments

Today’s WordPress prompt was, “What is the biggest secret you failed to keep? I had to think long and hard about this one as my regular line of work and most of my ministry work is surrounded by confidentiality clauses and agreements; therefore there’s not much that I have revealed in terms of secrets. I also don’t tend to divulge secrets anyway so it took me a while, but then a light went off on the personal realm the one I found was life changing.

It is customary for most churches to require a pre-marital course for couples. I attended to one of these when it was my “bridal time” and met two other couples preparing for their nuptials with whom we became very close. We became so close that after the course we started helping each other in the wedding preparations. My wedding was the one in the middle of the other two.

We attended the first wedding and after that, the now wife and the wife to be became my little helpers. The grooms became friends and tended to hang out together when we girls were submerged in lace and flowers. As we were very focused on our tasks we had not noticed that the third groom (the one whose wedding was right after mine) had developed a certain affection for one of my neighbors, so every time it was time to come over to my place for my wedding things he was quite eager.

This neighbor was my lifetime friend and at some point told me about the handsome guy who was visiting my house and inviting her out. I quickly pointed out to her that the lady with him was nobody else but his fiancée. I was in a predicament. If I told my new friend about what her fiancé had done I was going to break her heart and probably cancel her wedding, but at the same time I would have been devastated if I would have allowed her to marry a cheater. So I did, I called the girl and told her about her groom and my neighbor.

The fun part was that the ladies got together and plotted a plan. My neighbor accepted the date, but instead of one, both women showed up. The soon to be married lady and I did not keep a relationship, but she said she was grateful for the revelation. As painful as this was, I really don’t regret doing it as I would have appreciated if anyone would have done it for me if it was me the one being cheated on.

In retrospective, nobody was asked to keep it a secret, but it was information that I knew that the affected person didn’t have. People forget that what’s done in the dark always comes to light. That it’s important to do the right thing, just because is the right thing to do. It usually is a good assistance to a good night sleep and I love my sleep.

Blessings!

Never give up your dream: Madea’s Big Happy Family

On March 19, 2011March 23, 2011 By Naty MatosIn Inspirational Thoughts1 Comment

I just finished watching Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family. I’m a big fan of Tyler Perry. I like his style in the sense that he recognizes who gave him his talent and has used it to show for it. Also the fact that through his gift he tells it like it is.

It is late at night when I’m writing this and I should be in bed by now, but I just couldn’t go to bed. God has been trying to get something across to me, and slow poke here had not caught on with the program. As some of my readers remember this post complaining about my writing.

Three years ago when I decided it was time to return to my writing roots, I didn’t think that I would pursue the dream of publishing. Now with the blessing of two short stories out there, I see the possibility of doing something I’ve always wanted to do…becoming an author! Just like when I returned, I feel alive when I do, but then I face the world and see “little me” against the world and I start doubting myself. The more research I do on how to get it done, the farther I see it coming to pass.

The whole movie was awesome. I laughed, I cried, I even had to pause the movie to call my mom just to hear her voice. At the end of the movie, Tyler addressed the audience and said that God told him how he was going to close all doors to make sure that he knew that his success came from HIM. That’s the best success any believer would want. He also talked about moving out of yourself and doing for others while God does for you. Knowing a little about Tyler’s personal journey inspired me a lot.

In different scenes and regarding different subjects the message was God knows you want to go from point A to point B and he will answer that prayer,”How bad do you want it?” Ironically, tonight at church, although the message was about finances. The pastor talked about reproducing from your talents (meaning money) but I kept hearing in my heart about my talent. He talked about how God gave us our talents for us to be stewards of those talents and produce for his kingdom.

It all came full circle. I have a plaque on my desk at work that says, “ Today there’s nothing that God and I can’t do together” Therefore, there can’t be any fear and doubt, what he gave me to produce will produce in his time and as I obediently submit my efforts to do my part. Never stop dreaming and working towards your dream. Breakthrough is around the corner.

Can you relate? Care to share?

Blessings!!!

A life without internet

On March 16, 2011March 16, 2011 By Naty MatosIn Articles1 Comment

As some of you know, I’m participating in a WordPress challenge to increase my blog postings this year. To assist us in the challenge, WordPress sends us daily prompts to help with topic ideas. If they are appropriate for my blog I use them or a modified version of it, or I don’t. Sometime in the last few weeks the prompt was: Can you live without the internet? I said no, end of discussion, not much to write about it.

God has a way to show you things. I was watching stand up comedian Billy Gardell (the guy from Mike and Molly) and he was saying that he wanted for people under twenty five years old to put their phones away for two hours a day and have a real conversation. Then after the whole Super bowl facebook news read spitting car I had to give that subject a little bit more thought.

Can I live without the internet? Yes. The reason why my knee jerk reaction was to say no, it’s because we have come to a point where the internet is so accessible that I can’t see how that would happen. I have internet at work, home and on my phone, so I guess the response was more geared to the accessibility of it.

Like I said in a previous post, society is slowly drawing us to a dependency. You can’t find a job by knocking door by door and being met as a person. Your information precedes you electronically. My poor elderly mother couldn’t get some information from her doctor’s office because she doesn’t have internet access (of course I pulled it out for her) Technology is a good thing and I think if all of the sudden we lived without internet some of those in my generation and older would be able to adjust. I’m not so sure about the newer folks.

We’re not teaching handwriting in schools anymore, or mathematical thinking in paper. We are relying on the unreliable. Why do I say that? Give or take 75% of us work with a computerized system (that’s to be way conservative) and how often does the system crash and loses information? We hear in the news all the time how digitalized personal information is stolen by identity robbers. Is that where our trust is?

So in perspective, I can’t live without God, water, food, clothes and shelter; everything else is truly a luxury and a blessing given. We should appreciate what we have been entrusted and be good stewards of those extras. As a nation we are filthy rich even when we don’t think so. If we look at other countries, some people live without clean water, something that we take for granted.

Blessings

Psalm 25:1
in you, LORD my God, I put my trust.

Books and Wedding Cakes

On March 12, 2011March 23, 2011 By Naty MatosIn Writing Happenings1 Comment

Every bride has a dream about a fabulous wedding cake when they are planning their perfect day. At a time when I was a bride I had my dreams too. I had envisioned every part of that cake, from the flavor, the shape, the colors, the little pearls that I fell in love with because it was the only job that the baker’s grandma did for her. They were not even offered to me and were not part of my original design, but once I saw the sweet old lady sitting in a corner doing those sugar pearls and the excitement with which she sat me down to show me what she was doing, if nothing else my cake was going to have some grandma’s pearls.

When I arrived at the place where the wedding was going to be held, the baker had just arrived. You know how there are things that you see in your head that can’t be translated in real life? She did. The image of my cake was exactly what was delivered and I jumped to hug her.

As happy as I was that day, I didn’t appreciate all her hard work until a year later when yours truly decided to take cake decorating classes and made a few wedding cakes herself. The planning, the designing, the roses that broke, the cakes that fell, the late nights and a whole memorial weekend doing fondant flowers to make them as real as possible. I then felt bad for grandma and how many hours of work I had gotten out of the poor woman wanting my precious pearls.

The same has happened with me and writing. My first book was “Mary Poppins”; I must have been around five years old. It was the first from a bookclub that my late sister had enrolled me in. She loved to read and left that legacy with me. I’ve always loved writing and reading, but I guess it wasn’t until now that I’ve written a few drafts with the dream of publishing that I’ve moved to a different level in their appreciation.

I was roaming through a bookstore today while my glasses were being repaired next door. That’s a good thing; otherwise I would have ended buying half of the store. Getting very close to the books (remember no glasses) I was able to recognize some of the renown names in fiction, literature, romance…and the few people who have written a book after their fifteen minutes of fame on television.

I saw some people leaving the bookstore empty handed and my heart sunk. I wanted to say, “Can’t you just take one? Some are really inexpensive and they are running a sale. Do you have the slightest idea of how much work goes into one of these? Sure you read it in two days and throw it in a corner. Their authors sweated blood and tears for it. They were rejected ten times until someone decided to give it a second look. While you’re here at the mall, this author is in his or her dungeon trying to birth another creation. So just take one home”

Of course I didn’t say any of this; otherwise instead of writing this post, I would be in the padded room with the white coat. As a writer and a reader, I have a new appreciation for books than ever before. So to all writers out there…Thank You for your sacrifice to teach, inspire, entertain and motivate us. Readers thanks for supporting your favorite authors. Well and thanks to good bakers too!

Glad that God doesn’t anger like us

On March 10, 2011March 10, 2011 By Naty MatosIn Inspirational Thoughts2 Comments

Every day I’m thankful that God is God and he doesn’t react like we do to situations. Every day we make decisions based on impressions, emotions, hormones (both men and women), pressures and they’re not always the best route. Imagine a God whose mercy depended on the weather outside, or how upset He was about the things we did? I think this would be a very empty world. I mean that literally.

We all have been in places were raw emotions have taken over, but as we grow in our spiritual walk we tend to be able to manage those better. It’s not an exact science and it doesn’t mean that we always react the best way to upsetting situations. This is definitely well described in Proverbs 14:29 ”Whoever is patient has great understanding, but one who is quick-tempered displays folly” Folly in case you don’t know means a fool; and don’t we make a fool out of ourselves when we lose our cool. But when we lose our cool or make a mistake the Grace of God can restore us through repentance. “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord” (Acts 3:19)

It still amazes me how God can love us through our sins, how he never loses his cool with us as we are too quick to lose ours sometimes for the smallest things. He doesn’t want us to stay there and wants to restore us to peace; therefore the quicker we come to repentance the faster we can continue our life of peace. Psalm 103:10 “he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.

So my invitation for today is to be” slow to speak and slow to become angry” (James 1:9) to prolong our peace on earth and enjoy our everyday relationship with God.

Blessings

Watch Your Mouth! (freshlyground.wordpress.com)

Is the use of medicine opposing faith?

On March 8, 2011March 23, 2011 By Naty MatosIn Articles1 Comment

As a believer, a Christian seeks to do God’s will and remain in it. There are times where if we’re not careful, we can take a legalistic approach to the Word of God that could hinder God’s purpose in our lives. In this case I’m talking about sickness and healing.

God CAN heal! I have no doubt. God WANTS to heal! I believe that too. Then, is it lack of faith to use medicine to deal with our illnesses? I’m not so sure. By medicine I’m not entering into the argument of natural medicine versus pharmacology. Although I personally believe that God placed one on the earth for us and gave the wisdom for the other, but that is a total separate discussion.

I’ve heard fellow Christians refuse medical treatment because they think that it would demonstrate a lack of faith in God’s power to heal. I’ve been in situations where I’ve been sick and I’ve been asked if I had prayed. I even heard someone say that they didn’t even take an aspirin but they prayed all things out. I’m not discounting the need for healing prayer and declarations. I’ve experience the power of the healing prayer. At the same time I don’t believe that I should not take vitamins, supplements or medicine just because I prayed and that the use of one doesn’t mean I have no faith in the other.

In researching for this subject, I came across a message board that was discussing the issue and one of the participants said something that struck a cord. “This would be like saying that we will not work or pay our bills because God is our provider” It struck a cord not in a negative way; it just gave me a picture of the Israelites crossing the desert receiving manna and birds as provision. Should we now not work or go to the supermarket because that would be us telling God that we do not have faith on his provision? I don’t think so.

I believe that just like with provision, God utilizes several methods to deliver healing. The quickest example for me was the healing of the blind man. Jesus made a paste from dirt and his own spit and healed the man and then had the man wash his face. (John 9:1-41) Jesus is God and didn’t have to go through all that trouble, but he chose to go that route.

So what to do? Have faith in your healing, pray for your healing, believe in your healing, and ask God through which way he wants you to obtain the healing, via fasting and prayer, via forgiveness (yes, resentment and unforgiveness makes us sick) or by simply using something that he placed on earth or in our wisdom for our benefit.

I found this great pamphlet about sickness, healing and medicine all based on Scriptures that I hope you find as interesting as I did.

http://www.eternalgod.org/lit/booklets/healing_view.pdf

Blessings!

I found the parents!

On March 6, 2011March 23, 2011 By Naty MatosIn Articles2 Comments

Every time a child does something wrong the obvious question is, where are the parents? After looking at this commercial closely I felt sadden. I found the parents! One allying against their partner and the other one too scared to exercise his authority. I’m not starting a campaign against “Tide” but it is sad that a household name would take advantage of one of the symptoms of our decay as a society to profit from it.

There’s so much wrong with this commercial, it’s a sad true of the reality we’re living. Families are not working together in raising their children, children blatantly defying their parents and the parents feeling powerless to exercise their authority.

Here are some points that I saw in this:

Common values: This girl is a teenager; someone bought or allowed her to buy said skirt. It is obvious that both parents are not in accord with what is appropriate and not. That itself it’s a recipe for disaster, ““Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand” (Matthew 12:25)
Respect: It is obvious that the father figure is not respected in this scenario; his opinion is not only ignored but blatantly undermined as the girl parades her now clean skirt in front of her father knowing that she’s defying his wishes. She feels empowered to do so, as her mother approved her behavior.
Alliance: The mother allies with her daughter against her husband, forgetting that he’s the co-parent. She also undermines him in trying to protect his daughter. This is one of those examples were parents try to be their child’s friend instead of their parent and when the child goes out of control they seek the other parent to step up to the plate. By then it’s too late, the child doesn’t respect either. Parents should work together to raise their kids, not against each other. “Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them” (Proverbs 13:24)
Powerless: The saddest part is that the father felt that there was nothing he could do. He had to resort to try to ruin the skirt to avoid his daughter from wearing it. At what point will parents understand that they are the adults and that they make the rules? This father should have felt empowered to disapprove of the piece of clothing upon being bought or seen for the first time on his daughter and not have to resort to tricks to avoid confrontation. Parents, the teenager that “hates” you now for making them follow the rules, is the one that will be grateful when he or she grows up. I’m not a parent, but from what I’ve seen the ones who grew up with parents as friends were the ones that once out in the world were lost feeling that they were being treated unfairly because the world will make them follow the rules and suffer the consequences of their actions.

Food for thought…

So far on writing goals

On March 1, 2011 By Naty MatosIn Writing Happenings2 Comments

Writing samples: Parker 75 — Image by churl via Flickr

Starting the third month into the year I was prompted to evaluate how my writing goals have worked so far. Kind of assessing if I actually kept my new year’s resolutions or if they were already been postponed. I feel closer to my writing than I have ever felt. Writing has slowly snuck up on me and it’s a need like eating and I love to eat! Every day I feel the need to write, but not every day I think I have something relevant to say.

I’m pushing myself to be a better writer and what are some of those things that I have put in place to accomplish that in 2011…?

I’ve returned to my reading roots. Last year I dedicated a lot of time to writing, but not enough to reading. I believe that a healthy balance is important for any writer.
I’m actually following my calendar. In December I created a calendar of contests I wanted to participate (if you’re interested in peaking at that calendar it’s on the publication and achievements page). Last year I created the calendar but actually did only a few of those. So far I have submitted to each and every one of those competitions that I committed to participate in. It doesn’t matter the outcome, it’s about the exercise of meeting deadlines and writing more.
Joined wordpress post-a-week challenge where I’m committing to at least post on my blog once a week. I’ve been trying to post more than that. At my current rate I could have joined post-a-day, but at least once a week still gives me the necessary breather for days when things get complicated.
Accountability- I hired a proofreader who is aware of my deadlines, so the expectation of the workload I have to provide for her it’s a constant reminder that I have to come through with my committed contests. Also, I have some readers who have decided to contact me when I go without posting for more than two days to ask when the next post will come. I’m flattered that they enjoy this blog, but also the feedback gives me the sense of responsibility to keep it up.
Class- I have committed to be part of at least one writing workshop before the end of the year to improve my skills. I have invited a teenager aspiring writer to take the workshop with me. Have you been able to promise something to a teenager that they will forget? Trust me we will go to the workshop!
Social Media- I’ve subscribe to the Kristen Lamb’s Blog. She not only gives great advice for writers but also advises about how to utilize social media more efficiently. I just found this blog last week and I’ve learned a lot.

So these are some of the things that I’m doing to take my writing to another level and so far so good… Have some tips of your own? Share them!!!

Stay tuned.

Having a bad writing day, week, season… you get the idea!

On February 22, 2011February 22, 2011 By Naty MatosIn Writing Happenings10 Comments

Some women experience bad hair days, I think I’m having a bad writing day (or season) not all days are inspired in a writer’s mind. Some days words flow and some days it’s really hard work. Even I’ve had great revelations when I’ve been tired or sick, but lately it’s like my brain has ran out of steam and finding the ways to express myself has been nothing less than challenging.

I guess it’s because I’m trying to force myself to write in a certain way, my head is not going in the direction that I’m trying to steer it. So it basically has come to a halt. I’ve been having somewhat of what I have called writer’s ADD. Multiple ideas, stories and sentences are all popping into my head not enough to do anything with them or that would make any sense and by the time I sit down to write, they are gone. Having lost the routine of walking around with my netbook, which has been in ICU for a while, giving me only glimpses of available usage every now and again; I have missed plenty of opportunities of random usable muses that have crossed this brain of mine. (My netbook has been crashing and freezing and now that finally I can get a new one, I’m emotionally attached to the dysfunctional one and can’t part from it. You don’t have to say it, I know!!)

I went to the website of writer Lisa Scottoline. I recently read one of her latest non-fiction books; she’s funny and real and I wanted to gain some perspective from a professional writer. On her website, She was talking about the everyday of a writer. She has a word count goal everyday. I started thinking that I write most days, but not everyday. Not because I don’t want to, I just don’t do it. Ironically, the day I don’t write I spend the day agonizing about the fact that I have not written a thing.

Then I started feeling insecure about my writing. I think most writers would agree that there are days when you write exceptional things and some days you just write junk. I think that’s part of why there are some days where I don’t do the commanded “butt and chair” exercise of writing is because I already know in my head that whatever is coming out is junk and I don’t like to write junk. So I get discourage before even sitting to write trying to achieve perfectionism, where do you even find such thing?

I had read about writing everyday before, I want to come up with a reasonable word count goal, as I’m not yet (calling it in faith) a full time writer and I hold a normal 8-5 job and a life, (well something like a life…hahaha!) I don’t consider writing a hobby. Writing is a part of me; it’s my way of expression, so even when today I think that my writing sucks, I don’t think I could stop doing it. The times that I did, I felt dead and I’m not going backwards. Writing like anything in life takes practice, so the more I write, the better it would get.

I decide today to start writing everyday, (not necessarily a blog post). I’ll think of my reasonable word count after a few more hours of sleep, right now I couldn’t decide between chocolate or vanilla ice cream. I promise to start browsing for a new laptop, and pray that I fall in love again with one that will follow me for a few more years in this journey. I chose to just abandon myself in the words and allow them to flow instead of trying to control them…that’s why they don’t want to come out…LOL! …and look, who knew? I had tons to say from someone who didn’t know what to write about! (All 650 words and all :) )