Do not wish to be anything but what you are
and try to be that perfectly.
-St. Francis de Sales-
Tag: writing
Inspiraciones Caribenas
One more week to go! Remember that March 30th is your last day to submit your entries for our TRM en espanol contest.
Nos queda una semana para cerrar el concurso para el lanzamiento the TRM en espanol. El 30 de marzo es la fecha limite
Good luck to all. Buena suerte a todos los participantes
The Good Wife-Heart
I’ve been watching this show off and on since it started. The show centers around a woman trying to rebuild her life after severe and complicated marital issues, but this week’s episode brought an interesting angle that is rarely portrayed on television, how important is salvation in your life?
The husband in the story is a politician and wants to hire a pastor to improve his political image. He cheated on his wife and participated in some shady activities and found himself in jail, a series of events that not only placed his career in jeopardy, but also his family. The pastor refuses to play the political game and offers the man true salvation. In this episode, the husband starts getting interested in prayer, working with the pastor towards truly making a change. The episode ends with him inviting his wife to church, and it remains to be seen if he actually means it or if it’s just another scheme.
I found it very interesting, because unless you are watching a proclaimed Christian program like “Touched by an Angel” or “Little House on the Prairie”, it is rare to see a national network actually embracing Jesus as Lord and Savior as the way to change your life. Kudos CBS!
Watch it online:
Traditions
Traditions are those beliefs and/or customs that have been passed down from generation to 
generation. One of the best examples is our celebration of Christmas. We celebrate Christmas on December 25th, as the day that Jesus was born, but historically it has been agreed that he was born closer to the month of April. You can hear people say that you can’t celebrate Christmas without a tree or decorations; the truth is those are merely distractions, there were no trees or decorations at the manger when Jesus was born.
Traditions have colored the way we do things and have distracted us from the real meaning. In terms of holidays, I boycotted traditional Christmas last year and don’t get me started on Easter. All my readers have five minutes to explain to me the relationship between eggs, bunnies and the resurrection… Go ahead, I can wait!
There are people who have chosen careers because it’s a tradition in their family for everyone to be a doctor, a teacher, a lawyer, or a policeman. Some people go to a certain college because that’s where their family members went, not because it has the best program for their interests.
God made us unique. He took his time to form each and every one of us, and every one of us has 
a different purpose in the body of Christ. Following traditions, in my humble opinion, are not either good or bad, unless of course the tradition harms the person or others; but it’s not necessary in the implementation of God’s plan for us. We need to ask ourselves what opportunities we have wasted because that’s not what we usually do, the way we usually do it, or the way the people around us did it?
How about when our blessing comes in a different package than what we are used to or expecting, and because we’re not familiar with it we pass it right by? Can you believe that the greatest lesson of marital love I learned from a homeless man? I was part of a ministry that was feeding the homeless. This man came to our line and grabbed his portion of food; something in him caught my attention. All the others sat in front of where we were and ate, he ran with his food to hide. Another person from the ministry and I followed him at a distance, his wife was under some boxes sleeping, probably after heavy drug use. She was very weak, he told her that he had brought her something and lifts her head up with his arms and started feeding her his food. We told them that we had enough for him to eat too. He thanked us but told us that he had come to the line just to make sure that she would get something to eat. When I think about how a husband should love his wife, I think of them. It was not wrapped up in the prettiest package, but it blessed me. How many lessons or blessings have we missed because of our pre-conceived notions and traditions?
Evidence of Real Love
Evidence of Real Love
I was able to witness and experience one of the most beautiful days in the life of my dear friends Richard and Carrie Rice. They have been married for three and half years and have a great testimony to share on how God has not only developed their relationship, but how they have grown in their faith and in their obedience to God.
When they originally got married they felt that it was God’s time to do it and without bells and whistles, they got united in the commitment of marriage. God has been growing and using them as they have been obedient to his will. Carrie, even though happy with her groom, felt that she had missed on having a celebration of that special day.
This year, she submitted a letter to the local Christian radio station “The Fish”. They were running a Valentine’s contest where they 
would choose 50 couples and do a wedding for them to renew their vows. This radio station does this contest every year and Carrie had submitted a letter of participation each time. This year she won. She was very excited. God had provided the wedding of her dreams. This wedding was not only going to provide her with a ceremony, but a wedding cake, flowers, catered lunch, pictures, video and gifts. This time more than the commitment to each other, they were celebrating their covenant with God and with each other.
The event was cancelled in February due to inclement weather and the activity was performed today. Carrie and Richard had thought of the traditional wedding attires when they originally won, but then they realized that it’s not a white ball wedding dress and a tuxedo that mak
es them tick. It’s not a tiara, a veil and a tie that made them fall in love. So they decided that they wanted to get married in their tennis shoes and “skinny jeans” like Richard said.
They were the only couple in jeans, so they did get various looks from the other participants. Even there were comments in the bathroom about how “diverse” the chosen attires had been, not knowing that Carrie was in the stall. She came out and laughed about it and said, “Yes that would be me!” Beyond their looks they were very well noticed amongst the crowd. They received compliments for showing passion in the way they kissed and looked at each other during the ceremony. To them it was not about looking pretty, it was about their true love for each other.
During the ceremony, Carrie surprised Richard with his wedding ring. His ring had broken some time ago. She had it fixed to give it to him today. He was blown out of the water, but was also a little disappointed that he didn’t have a gift for her. Brandon Heath was singing 
and Richard felt in his heart a prayer. He prayed that God would bless his wife with the grand prize, so that this day would be even more special than it already had been for her. At the end of the event, the hostess presented the grand prize, a $2,000 diamond necklace. “And the winner of our grand prize is” as the hostess and Richard said at the same time “Carrie Rice”. At the table there was confusion for a second, none of us could believe that Carrie had been the winner. There were screams and praises from Richard’s mouth. Hours after the event had ended we were all still in awe on how God had answer his prayer, blessed his wife and made this day perfect. They were able to share their story with some of the people present, including Brandon Heath, who was very impressed.
Of course winning the prize it’s awesome, and the answered prayer it’s a testimony of God’s love, but what is greater for me is the evidence of true love without the masks of society and how he wants us to be real. He wants us to be us, and as we obey and become real with ourselves, our connection with our Creator will definitely be closer.
New TRM en Espanol and writing contest!
The Rising Muse announces their new page: The Rising Muse en Español. This page will be launched on April 1st 2010 with the winner of our Spanish writing competition with the theme, “Inspiraciones Caribeñas”. For those interested in competing submit your essays, poetry and short stories to therisignmuse@gmail.com until March 26th, 2010 at midnight. The winner will be featured as our very first post and will be interviewed for the blog.
We are also extending an invitation to all our inspirational writers who want to join our community to let us know on how to get your work publish through our blog. Good luck to all writers and let’s get inspired together.
The Rising Muse anuncia su nueva página : The Rising Muse en Español. Esta página comenzara el primero de abril del 2010 con el ganador de nuestra competencia de escritores en español con el tema, “ Inspiraciones Caribeñas”. Todos los interesados en competir envíen sus ensayos, poemas e historias al correo electrónico therisingmuse@gmail.com . Tienen hasta la media noche del 26 de marzo del 2010 para someter sus escritos. El ganador será publicado en la primera entrada de nuestro blog, además de ser entrevistado para que nuestra audiencia le conozca.
Aprovecho la oportunidad para invitar a todos aquellos escritores motivacionales que se quieren unir a nuestra comunidad y que desean que sus trabajos se publiquen en nuestro blog, a que se comuniquen con nosotros para hacerlo posible. Buena suerte a los competidores y recuerden que la inspiración no tiene limites de lenguaje.
Hidden in a dream
I had a dream last night that I’m trying to decipher. I know some dreams are just that; dreams. But I really think this one was trying to speak to my heart.
Before I moved to this state, I had built my house “from scratch” (bear with the baking reference, I don’t know the first thing about construction, but talk to me about cakes and we are in business) I had the property, in a way, and I sat with the contractor and designed what was my dream ho
use within my budget and space. Within a few months that house was built. I was able to choose every window, every tile, every appliance, and every color.
In my dream I was back at that house, but it looked very different from the real house that I lived in. It looked like I had just moved in, had a lot of boxes spreaded out and a few pieces of furniture. I was happy in there because it was a canvas of many things I could do with the house. Looking out the window, I saw a neighbor, who is actually someone who was my neighbor at the real house, who told me she wanted to buy the house. I told her that I needed to consult with my mother ( just like in the real house, my house was built inside her property, so even though the house was mine, the land wasn’t ) My mother was hesitant to the idea, but we agreed to at least let her see the inside of the house.
As we walked through the house with her, I found perks that I had not seen before. I saw an old piano that just needed some painting, a collection of very cute elephants in gold, the house that in the real life had only two bedrooms keep growing on the inside, and all the sudden had four bedrooms and five bathrooms. The real house had only one. It had this huge kitchen. As I kept walking through the house showing my neighbor the selling points, I started discovering that I may not want to get rid of this house, that there was a lot in it that I had not seen that was of value in there and that I could do so much in that house; yes, with some money, patience and tender loving care.
In these last few days I had toyed with the idea of selling my current house, but I don’t think that this is what this dream was about at all. I think this dream is speaking to me and the things that are going in my life at this moment. God is showing me how he’s cleaning my house, my spiritual 
house, and how many hidden gifts are there that I have not seen, not because their hidden, but because I have not taken the opportunity to look. That I should tour my house and see how many valuable things are there. That I’m in the right spot of being a brand new canvas, where HE can build a new life for me, a beautiful one. I thought I only had two rooms, he showed me all the other ones. To me that spoke about how much more love he can accommodate in me if I allow him. It speaks to how many more people can be accommodated in my heart to shelter. Just like in the dream, to get that house in shape is going to take money, patience and tender loving care; who better than God to provide it all if I just let him do his job and allow myself to shut up.
At the end of the dream I had a little boy filled with dirt. I grabbed him by the hand and entered him into the shower to be cleansed. To me that’s a promise, that I will be holding in my heart.
God keeps reminding me to be still and know that he is God. I think at this point I know that he has a lot of things that he’s going to do with me, in this new canvas of my life. He has cleared my past and made me new. I need to learn how to crawl before I start running and I tend to forget that even when every time I run I end up hitting my head against the wall. Yes, I can be slow.
So I guess my thought about that dream is that I need to sit down, shut up and enjoy the journey of where God is trying to take me. He has promised to have a great future for me and I trust that, therefore no matter how hard things can look now, there’s nowhere to go from here but up.
Nothing can prevent you from choosing to be exceptional.
– Mark Sanborn –
Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew
Tonight was the season finale of this show that shows some celebrities’ at the most vulnerable moments in their life while recovering from their 
addictions. I’m sure some of the audience of this show wants to know the intimate secrets of these famous people, others watch as part of the inspiration of their own recovery process regardless of their personal type of struggle. It’s at moments like this when you realize the blessing of the anonymity. I can’t even imagine how hard it is to face your greatest demons in front of a camera. These are real human beings with real struggles and in a way it’s very admirable that they have place themselves in the same position of being icons, but this time to show their strength through their weaknesses.
Before the final episode, they showed some of the episodes from the previous weeks. The episode “Family Weekend” showed the mother of Layne Staley, former lead singer of Alice in Chains who passed away due to drug use, giving a very moving speech to those in rehab. The part that moved me the most was when she said that the best life they could live was to live ordinary boring lives. It reminded me about a lot of the reflections I’ve been doing this week about enjoying the simple things in life.
It’s not a matter of not having aspirations; it’s a matter of not idolizing those aspirations and enjoy the journey towards our goals. Once again, stopping to smell the roses and enjoy the color in them, including the thorns. Yes, those painful experiences in our lives that come to teach us valuable lessons. Slow down the pace. LIVE! Life is not just the enjoyments and pleasure of the moment or our possessions. Life is every moment in our life, every minute, every second, every relationship, every tear, every breath, every heartbreaking moment and every smile. We only have one shot at this ride; let’s live the true meaning that our Creator intended for our lives!
Disclaimer: picture taken from VH1
Self Awareness
Reviewing some of my recent writings I have noticed that I write a lot of questions. I think that is because I’m in a period of my life were I’m evaluating the motives, thoughts and behaviors in my life. I have realized that sometimes we are so involved in our lives, in this auto pilot mode that we tend to forget to stop and think what is behind the things we do. We know the right things to say. We know the right way to act, but sometimes we have to be honest with ourselves in terms of what is in our hearts.
I did some writing today and then I did some reading of some blogs here on WordPress. Reading through other people’s experiences in life it made me realize how many times I have just closed my eyes to my own realities and acted oblivious to my surroundings.
Today I’m challenging myself to be more aware. The daily routine has to take a halt. Smelling the roses is more than just feeling that fresh aroma in your nose, it’s also closing your eyes and getting in tune with the emotions that it provoke and the memories it brings to you. It’s time to stop going through the motions of life without living life.
Naty Matos 