VISION #23: To create something beautiful that helps millions of people create their own beautiful things … that pays us all well as our souls prosper…
A man’s mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps, indeed…
I was poking around Google Images for a photo of a neat, rich and green lawn with neat, vibrantly-colored flowers (gotta have the color purple to notice so it won’t piss God off!) for this post, which in my mind, I planned to write the first in my “home repair visions” category.
Check back for that…
Because in Google Image poking, I came across this gorgeous sphere of perfection by DW Photography, worthy of all its pixels.
Beauty crowds me…
…not till I die, but even moreso after I die, as I always edit the famous poem in my mind.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever, Mr. Keats — and the ironicly blessed thing about seeing this pic today is that my daughter just handed me perfect sphere we call a “weed” in the front yard, in the cool dullness of the spring morning.
I studied its perfectly spherical shape, tried to fan it — even though I know that spreads weeds — but it stayed put.
How awesomely round and gorgeous.
How much fun the Creator must’ve had making this…
“Give me something…”
That’s what one woman demanded respectfully from Tom Joyner one morning on his radio show, seeking a consolation prize after losing.
The insistence in her voice and soul bespoke of an urging so, so…urgent…that Tom and his staff scrambled around to give her something.
That’s me today.
“What I am, what I’ve known…
…never shined thru in what I’ve shown,” Metallica sang so on point, that I can write those lyrics by heart without Googling them.
And yet, by Metallica expressing that creative angst, they accomplished the very thing they sang about not accomplishing…
The Author and Perfector of our faith works in ironies like that.
I love it.
Give me something!
So that’s my respectful prayer and vision today, thru Jesus — the Name that saves.
Yesterday I was kinda down and depressed and weepy.
Mainly because I’d read some excerpts from the new Hollywood down-low roman a clef, Hiding in Hip Hop — which I was blessed enough to get the dot com for.
I got my first $1 affiliate fee of the $15-something priced book, but after reading the excerpts, I couldn’t sleep the other night, thinking about getting paid to promoting smut.
I love to sleep, so I took off all my affiliate links to the product. And in place of ads, put up a YouTube video of Donnie McClurken talking about his own down-low kinda feelings…
It’s not the first time I’ve felt compelled to pull back off a product.
So I was kind of railing at God again — asking Him exactly what can I do as a Christian online?
I’m trying to walk that fine line of legality on the net.
Maybe that’s why He finally gave me the answer to that beautiful symbol I’d been seeing in my mind’s eye when I’ve laid before Him in the bathtub, naked and finally still, hands raised many times…
Thank You for the Upsilon, Lord…
Playing around the Visual tab on WordPress, I saw the insert character tab.
I searched around for the Υ shape I’d been seeing in my visions…
…and finally found the Upsilon, which amazingly means:
Upsilon is a word borrowed from the discussion of hyperspace.
Moving upsilon means moving from a lower dimension to a higher one. Imagine escaping from the dimension in which we are residing and start meandering through the untrodden domain.
The move from a lower dimension to a higher one can be likened to our creative process — both are groundbreaking and mind-blowing.
Upsilon bound…
Who could ask for a better definition of what’s going to happen in my life than that?
My Provider and Comforter and Lord and Rabboni knows exactly what I need.
And what you need, dear one reading this — You found this post for a reason…
He’s taking us higher creatively and jointly as our souls prosper in Him and His Word.
I need to get in it more and relax in Him.
Forget just writing about what other people do, I want to create something from scratch.
-
Something beautiful…
Something I can hold in my hands…
Something with my name on it that I can point to God’s glory…
Something that pays very well and gives me time to relax and think and dream again without running around the net like a neckless chicken…
Something that leads millions upon millions of kids, adults, folks who have given up, people poised to kill themselves with gas and such to STOP THAT! and turn it around and go follow their bliss…
To follow that thing that’s been in them since birth, since they were 7 years old…
To get that thing in writing that makes their pulse beat, the thing they delay taking their preschooler to the sanctuary for because they’re so into it…
The thing that makes them look up and marvel that an hour has transpired while they were doing it…
That “it” thing for me is Write Your Visions…
I can feel it.
I pray it.
I love it.
I leave it in God’s wonderfully creative hands to bring into being…
VISION #22: A gorgeous author photo of me for my book jacket…
Since I believe a hardcover hefty Random House book deal is coming forthwith for me, it follows naturally that I’d want a fabulous author photo of me to grace the book jacket flap or back cover.
I love Barb Levant’s stuff, especially her black and whites, even though her color pics and sepia-toned images, too, have that special certain something that’s made me remember her name for years now.
So when that world wide web and book jacket begin begging for a cute pic of me, I pray right now that it’s an ethereal photo with depth and life and energy — something really special — beyond the flesh.
And, of course, as I stuff my face with mint Dibs writing this, I pray thru His power — and probably by the fact of knowing more exposure is coming forthwith, the kind that motivated Elisabeth Hasslebeck to train like an NFL player for the cover of that fitness mag after giving birth to baby Tim — that I’m somehow looking toned and tightened and free…
VISION #21: A peaceful passing for Daddy…
Some time after my mom died in her sleep suddenly and unexpectedly in 1999 at the age of 68, I had the nerve to call her death a “tragedy” when talking to a girlfriend.
This same friend, mind you, had truly experienced a tragedy when one member of her family killed another and then himself — and she was left to literally clean up the mess.
I apologize for that now…
Because after talking to other people whose parents died from long-suffering diseases, I’m grateful that my mother died so peacefully and gracefully — with an almost smile on her face, as my dad said the morning he found her body.
My next vision and prayer is the same for my daddy, pictured above in his Army days.
Ambrose Dobbins accepted Christ into his heart at some point in the past two decades, and has been blessed with 87 years of life on this earth thus far.
I’m happy that I live close enough to check up on him now and again, and that he has a great church and a few friends and colleagues that still visit and keep him company in my absense.
But my fervent prayer is that Daddy experience the same kind of peaceful transition when he “goes to glory” as my mother did: Happy, well-cared-for, rested, in bed, non-tragic, waking up in heaven with Jesus’ face shining upon him as it should be.
I pray that the finances, his health, his bills, his home, his legacy and his life all work out in good and timely and awesome order to benefit himself and those he leaves behind.
I love my Daddy.
He’s given me so much in life — the chief important thing being his prayers for my and my sister’s salvation.
God bless you, Daddy. And thank You Father above for taking excellent care of him…
VISION #20: A deep-tissue massage that introduces me to my newfound, strong-handed honorable Christian massage therapists…
My sweet husband already gave me a gift card for a deep-tissue massage for my recent 39th birthday.
So all I need now is to make the appointment, for the windows of heaven to provide a fat 20% tip on all services, and for favor to lead me to a good honorable person(s) with strong hands who massages my back and body and head and hands and feet really well.
Make them an honorable person who doesn’t talk too much nor too little Lord, with strong hands and a good Spirit and saved now or soon and very soon….
I hope and pray this leads to at least monthly massages that help me destress and lose weight and rids my body of bad toxins and improves my posture, outlook and more.
And I pray my husband gets the same — with only an honorable massage therapist touching us in honorable ways that improve our health, minds, bodies and souls for Christ.
Amen.
Thank you.
I can feel this one already done.
VISION #19: My hair grows fuller, longer, stronger, thicker, more manageable and healthier — beyond my shoulders and down my back and remains free of gray strands in a fabulous and easy-to-maintain style!
I’ve had dreams before of my real hair that’s on my scalp that has grown longer, down to my shoulders.
The one dream I remember vividly was one where I was just like comedian Aisha Tyler.
I was walking in the top floor of my health club with a yellow sleeveless top — not a color I usually wear.
My arms were really toned and nice.
And my hair was fabulous, a pretty blonde-highlighted color and in a bob flipped up at the ends at my shoulders.
The old me was dressed in a dumpy coat that I gave away — so I’m ready for that new confident me with the suhweet hair and arms to emerge!
“…even the very hairs of your head are all numbered…”
…my God promises, so if He knows how many hairs are on my head, He sure as heck can grow them out fuller and longer and stronger and more beautiful than anything anyone has ever seen the Creator do for someone who then gets another $375,000 book deal about the process…
I’m thinking long and thick and curly like Oprah’s hair — but with lighter, blonder highlights and no weave — is Oprah’s a weave?
Anywho…my Dream Weaver can put feet to these prayers and show me how to work it out to make it so.
Already, He’s putting in my mind to…
Beyond that…
— long and strong and healthy and thick and full and sexy and down my back!
Amen!
And Amen again!
Can I get a Hallelujah on that one?
The Almighty led me to put up these current pics of my hair now as proof before He grows it thick and full and down my hair…
You know how those “before” pics always look so sad…
Just wait till my after pics!
ANSWERED VISION #18: A Schumacher Home Tour With My Husband and Children…
Vision Seen on Sunday, May 4, 2008:
Today, my lovely family and I were blest to see all six of the Schumacher model homes — loving The Bennington, getting a price for it and everything.
It was a sunny day, and as Kevin — who helped us — said, touring the homes was a “cheap date” indeed — and a fun and hopeful and inspiring one…
Thank You, above.
Original vision as it was written and requested:
My friend and I recently did a tour of all six of the Paul Schumacher model homes that line I-77 in Akron, Ohio.
They were soooo fabulous, especially model home #6, The Bennington — that name of which I keep seeing on a street nearby me.
So my fervert wish, prayer, favor, desire that I’m asking, begging, beseeching the God who answers prayers if they are not amiss is for my husband, children and me to go back to those same Schumacher Homes — at the very least #6 — and marvel over their beauty.
I pray they inspire us so strong to get our debt to zero and our incomes up even higher…
…and that we leave the model homes just as clean but more Spirit-filled, peaceful and beautiful than when we arrived in them.
Both us and the homes.
Amen again.
ANSWERED VISION #17: $138 Per Day Average Google Adsense Income for May 2008…
Answered! God is so wonderful and awesome that today, September 16, 2008 –my average Google Adsense income has been well beyond the $138 I wrote in the vision below.
He’s told me not to sit around and cluck with the chickens about the world being so bad and banks failing and no one can get rich and all those lies.
Jehovah Jireh has truly lived up to His name and providing well beyond the meager means I hoped for, now I need to flow that more to pay off debt sooner.
And His plan works — tithe and sow and you will reap! He is truly transferring the wealth of the wicket to the righteous. I pray I’m part of the latter as He helps me…
Google Adsense is a program that allows us webmasters to make money online.
And due to a number of factors in the past month or two, my Google Adsense earnings dropped.
But now the Lord has really shown me how to promote my websites better, especially the one where I pitch stuff like A Raisin in the Sun DVDs and stuff.
So for the month of May 2008, I’m writing the vision for a doable $138 average per day earnings from Google Adsense for all my websites — as I’ve doctored the above photo to reflect.
(Photoshop your lives, folks, Photoshop your lives! Then ask Christ to come into your heart, pray, fast, pray and fast some more and report what good things He brings to your lives!!! Please! Let me know with comments below…)
That will bring that month’s earnings from Google Adsense alone to around $4,278.00 — which I’m praying will be free and clear and deposited in my bank account promptly and that it goes toward the ventures that make me a good steward:
* Tithing
* Bill-paying
* Donating
* And buying fun stuff like food, clothes, shoes and funding activities for June 2008 summer fun.
Your will alone be done, Father…
ANSWERED VISION #16: A paid-off American Express bill…
March 8, 2008, Update: Amex Bill Paid!
By hook or crook (okay, no hook and a little bit of crook, or more like creative finances from my tithes that will also be paid in full this weekend - new vision, Lord) my AMEX bill now sits at zero.
Now, maybe I should just write a little vision on either cutting that mug up, or think and pray harder about an excellent new way to make more money that allows me to sleep at night…
Original Vision as Written:
Okay, so I went a little crazy with the Amex card in recent months — and the Google Adsense income had dipped — but praise God it’s back up now!
One more chunk of AMEX bill to pay off by May 8, 2008.
My vision #16 is to see it paid off to zero.
Amen.
VISION #15: Family Membership in a Church That’s Exciting, Alive and Progressive…
I’ve been so blessed by some of the churches God has led me to. Of course, the most important was being led to the cross of Jesus Christ thru The House of the Lord.
And now THOTL’s sister church, The Word Church, may become my new church — if Adonai wills this vision #15 into reality.
Whatever church my family and I join, I pray it is even more progressive, exciting, fun, with the power of the Holy Spirit flowing thru it so strong as to prompt household salvation, getting out of debt, new business prosperity for us all and family closeness, new friends, and so much more in Jesus’ name, I do pray and write and declare on this day.
Make it so, Lord, make it so.
»»»»»»»» VISION #14: Household Salvation…
“…as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” Joshua 24:15
Obviously from reading my Vision #7 you can more than infer that there are a whole bunch of people I’m looking forward to meeting in heaven.
In thinking more specifically — which are what these visions are going to become, with, Lord willing, more “answered prayers” updates to accompany them — the first folks I’m looking forward to celebrating the knowledge of truly asking and receiving Christ Jesus into our hearts with are all the members of my immediate family.
Thank God for salvation and being covered in the blood of the Lamb! Amen.
