The Power of Making Amends…

I don’t teach with my dad often, but I really loved it this one time. We make a good duo.  Several of my family members are teachers from experience. we an teach others by simply being humble enough to make amends to them for our wrongdoing. I remember the day, the hour, the way I felt tremendously renewed and validated by the humbling experience of hearing my dad apologize to me for making the mistakes he made as my father.

My father in a very relaxed state of mind.. a blessing, indeed.

It’s no secret to those who know me that my dad had an alcohol problem for several years. He is now a recovering alcoholic and has been in recovery for about 33 years. ( Yea dad!!)  In about two weeks I will have come full circle as I face the part of my life that once held me hostage. I become a substance abuse/alcoholism therapist. Work with this particular population as social worker,  has always been a sore spot for me. I guess it’s true when they say you have to rid the skeletons out of your closet befor eyou can live freely again.  I have had so many things I had to face personally in my life and overcome in order to accept this task before me today. Low self-esteem,  confusion, hurt and pain and even some abuse in past relationships. Problems making good decisions, c0-dependency issues and issues with my weight – and a host of other things. Now … looking back, I see I have endured these things in my life in order that someone else might benefit.

 Wow… if I  only knew to what degree!

 Now, I look forward to life and embrace it every day because I have overcome these hardships. what do I take away most? I take away my sense of fortitude (my courage and bravery);  my self-confidence is back , and I also have  a strategy for those who  have endured similar hardships.

 I look at my dad today, and I am very proud of  who he has become. I am even prouder that I am who  I am today, and because he changed his life, so God has changed mine.

Selah.

 I had some trouble posting this video, but if you desire to see it and hear more about the power of forgiveness and confession of wrongdoing, just hit the link here….or catch it on the side bar – The Power of Making Amends.

What’s Calling Your Name?

 What’s Calling Your Name?    

I chose this picture because it gives a summit view, in a beautiful place. The things that call your name are set with a beautiful background. They aren’t always  beautiful journeys though, to get there. You have to make a PATH sometimes to get  there.

 I will answer this question for myself: It appears at this moment women, children and families are calling my name. So I serve them.  I have found the people in these groups have lost their voices, yet have loads to say! I can help them.

• The young girls who light up the world and are beams shining in the world.
• The mothers hopeless yet trying to find out their purpose in the midst of raising children,
• The kids who live to know their friends and what they are doing in this life and live lives vicariously through their friends with keen sense of awareness nor identity.
• The women who seek to influence in some way and need to be applauded.
• The lost souls who cry out to God for purpose.
• The little influences seen through the eye of a camera
•  The beach… in all its fullness  – wind, water, and sun.
• My Dad… as he sits in a hospital bed and I pray for him and his longevity of life. ( 8/2010)
• My nieces and nephews their futures and their babies futures.
• To lead women in retreats, conferences, identity, purpose and self-confidence.
• A silent get away like this one at: Lebh-Shomea ( a house of prayer) , in Sarita Texas.
• A new place, a new time, a new mission.
• Africa!! ;0)
•  A retreat for women on how to perfect self-evaluation.
• Motherhood.
• Babies who lack smiles because they have not been loved.
• The sunrises and sunsets of everyday.
• The ability to find my voice with regularity and consistency and helps others find theirs.
• Love, Love and to BE LOVED!!
• Friendships with common passions.
• My daughter(s).
• Red Seas – ( the Book) ~  and its desire to be published!
• My husband… all the time. ;0)
• Oklahoma! ( can ya believe it) 11/2010
• Wounded hearts and families of addiction. 11/2010
• Families to obtain knowledge through my magazine: The Kamau Voice.

 

So… what’s calling your name?

Do you spend time with yourself to hear it resound off the pages of your life?

Do you contemplate over life and living to this degree; preserve them on pages you can eventually return to and reflect?

Anyone with breath to breathe has something important enough to say – how you CHOOSE to say it , is what’s KEY. Anyone with life in their body, has something IMPORTANT TO DO; they need to prioritize their passion.

 Is  what you have to say  important enough for others to consider? What would it take for you to say it??

* ( This is one of my favorite posts! Please comment so I’ll know your’e reading! )

 Continue to return here… you may see this list GROW!

My Proofreading Party!

 

Yay! It was a special time for me!   A time to move in a strategic pattern towards launching my book! 

Soon, I will be ready to show my true colors as an author! No one knows this, but I was a nervous wreck this dau, but so excited as I prepared to  literally “  let my light shine.”

I’ve always been a bit nervous about any kind of criticism.   I am aware that’s the perfectionist in me, but this event really made me jittery, because I had no idea how it would be received.

As I prepared for my event  in October of 2010, (literally, my birth month) I was in great anticipation as I  presented my book to the world. My safety net and group of writer friends were present and I was reminded by my friend Carole, who released her a book a few years ago. (See below)  We were all smiles as she made her way into the “author world” and fully supported her vision and how she planned to launch her book. My book, however, has yet to be launched, but here are pics from my proofreading party!

So what’s a proofreading party, right?

I know… until I heard of it, I wondered the same. It’s a time for the writer or author to present her book for editing help and feedback. I had no idea how it would be received, but I did have a safety net of friends who were eager to read it. Two years ago I began this awesome feat: I spent  time with a group of women in a safe haven of a group called Write Now! and Write Direction! These groups are a part of my life, because I belonged to an awesome church – Covenant Church, in Aubrey, Texas - that encouraged groups to develop life teams. We met once a month and facilitated each other’s goals for writing.

These groups have been the best! In these groups, we gather together and are encouraging and offer information, speakers and guidance and even receive praise reports surrounding those who are planning on writing in any form. We have some who write songs, and others who write books, and poetry, etc. As writers, our influence can be vast and we love the groups because we get to come together and create and share our energies and spend time with other like-minded individuals. I have found a refuge in them. They get” my language , my thoughts, value my input, my prayers and reservations, and they understand also and pray for my struggles with writing. I am so grateful to have them in my life. In fact, wherever I end up and  in whatever city I go to, I have already decided, I want a group very similar to this one!

I just wanted to share in the spirit of such supportive sisters, I believe anyone who has a talent and desire to grow and share any of their talents and treasures they have as passions should have a similar group! This is why I created Expressive Voices. The energy in the room is so encouraging and so greatly inspires us all,  I wanted to create a ministry towards helping those with innately creative voices that desire  and help to develop the voices of those who desire  to  reach for their dreams and walk in accountability!

Here were the wonderful pictures of our event held in November of 2010 and …here are my writers friends and Carole’s book signing!

 

My friend Terri

Make’s Story – A Miracle …in S. Africa

In 2003  I went to a shantytown visit in Kuma, South Africa. This day began speaking to youth about their dreams.

There were many beautiful things  happening in this community. Young people were alive and  vigorous and purposed to live out their dreams.   The community people were strong and encouraged through prayer… immensely resilient.

I remember writing in my journal I kept: ”  I fell in love with the young people here!  They are phenomenally bright and vigorous!   I wish I could have stayed with them a an entire day! The youth taught me so much! I hated to leave the schools.”

I  had mixed emotions. My ambivalence went deep. My reticence  filled the car when I saw  huge discrepancies  in the community. On one side of the earth, just outside of Kuma, South Africa – were diamond fields. In yet the other end side ( ride across the road – in fact)  were shanty towns… fields of them… several small huts of tin shacks with holes in them.  This is what you  shall see here in these videos – places people actually called: ‘home’.   As I observed the   fields that day, it seemed that there were maybe even more  tin shacks than diamonds that were in the fields, that day.  I was  informed by my friend Karabo that the  DeBeers family owned all the diamonds in South Africa. ( Read the highlighted link for the history.)

It left me speechless.

That was a long ride home that day. One thing we thought to do for this family, though not quite enough, was to encourage them. We had brought lunch that day, but we couldn’t dare eat  in front of them. So we gave them our lunches. That ride back to Johannesburg was a quiet ride that day after hearing  Make’s story. You will hear in the  video how Make’s name means : Miracle.  (How wonderful! ;0) )

Listen in on it, yourself…

This is how Make‘ survived: the community took care of her and her siblings. It’s called the Spirit of Ubuntu. How the S. Africans care for each other. Whether they are family or not, they make ends meet. Community is FAMILY.  I was so inspired by this principle of living and being  I wanted to bring pieces of it back to the United States.  So I did.  I helped youth at Dr. Martin Luther King School in Syracuse N.Y. build a virtual  cultural museum  during  Black History month and taught the youth – my peer leaders at the time – about community, purpose and dreams. Something resonated  deep within me to see such a spirit of community so very present between people who were neighbors. It’s like  the neighbors  were unctioned by this Spirit of Ubuntu to become families, in a sense. It took community and friendship and kinship bonds to an entirely different level.

We went to encourage Make’ that day… but I think she encouraged us,  more than we could encourage her. Funny how when you reach out God’s hand to bless, you are blessed. Make’ says she believes and has faith “that everything will be fine.” Of course they will… as much as I tried to be angry about the diamonds on the other side of the field, only miles away from Make’…her spirit shined and stayed with me and I was encouraged by her resilience the rest  of that day.    I thought:” maybe it really doesn’t matter who has all the money, maybe true value and worth is found in the  spirit of the community and principled living.”

Peace, in the midst of all this… Amazing, it is. A Miracle.

Refueling Again.. Part 2

Stories change lives… Don’t think  I didn’t have to SEARCH to find my voice. Before I went half way across the country to  serve, I didn’t realize  my voice could be so influential.

I just want to say I took a very long , arduous journey and painful one, before visiting and speaking to this youth. I had barely lived thru any hardship at all when I saw what she had been through. I thank God for every experience I endured, for the sake of her ability to endure more.

The Gift of Refueling: Part 1

Refueled HOPE. We all have it. We just aren’t often aware. I believe the video speaks for itself,  I don’t have much to say about it other than…DONT give up… Keep hope alive. Pray. Stay supported.  This is my lifetime friend Keneilwe, who spoke with me to African students,  on my trip to Kuma, S. Africa in May of 2003. We had a blast. It was our first day of meeting each other and we appeared to be like sisters, who had  known each other all our lives and taught together for a lifetime.

This was my first time in a classroom of so many youth  in S. Africa who desired to speak and share so much. They inspired me!! Yet endured so much pain. Many of them came from the shantytown community - (poverty ridden shacks) and were noticeably very depressed.

See how empowering it can be to speak and impart hope to souls who feel so lost…

 Stay tuned. I will share a few stories here.

The Kamau Voice.

This blog is dedicated to  The Kamau Voice.  Just In case you are wondering…what it is, I can tell you. I will periodically speak out about the Kamau Voice. Kamau is an African origin.  Kamau stands for the meaning :  Silent Warriors. Sometimes we “war within” our minds, our souls, our expression, we lose our voices, and we  forget that in order to maintain our identity we need to breathe. To speak. And unless we do, we aren’t really freed to be ourselves.

Until I visited Africa, I didn’t realize I had another voice. One of Spirit. Of Resolve. Of Peace. Of Identity. Of Desire, Hope, and Self-Reflection.  You may not have been to Africa, and that’s just fine…but if you still have captured something in your soul that needs to be shared and to be voiced; and  you have warred with it and have yet been released through the experience of it…this is the right place to share it.

The Kamau Voice is this venue, this place - of gathering for voices to be expressed, find identity and to be heard.   I am not certain yet how far this voice will go. Maybe it will one day be a newsletter, or  a newspaper… maybe a voice for individual expression, maybe even a voice for worldwide emotional and spiritual peace… you never know. But what I do know is this: several people have something to say and rarely is it even said.  Sometimes they may write it in a journal, or they may hide it some place in a diary, where no one can it, but if it’s pivotal, critical to be heard, and can cause some one else to GROW, then I say, SPEAK.

If you read this blog and you decide that you can identify with the voice on this blog, then you need to sign up to send in your voice. YOU MUST BE HEARD.  We take anonymous entries, too. Send all voice expressions to : expressivevoices@gmail.com

All original voices belong to you, I just want you to share your voice. And don’t worry about grammatics, I can help.

Peace, JenRene