Sitting here, trying to compose my thoughts and nothing is coming. Looking for a place to start and I forget everything I meant to say, so I'll start with a smidgeon of background.

There's a minister I like to listen to on Saturday mornings. He's not your typical tele-evangelist or I wouldn't listen to him. Anyway... the last two Saturdays he's been talking on the parable of the talents. As he explained, back in Jesus' time and before, a talent was a measure of money. A master gave three of his servants some talents before he went away. Two of the servants put the money to use and multiplied their talents, but the last one was afraid to lose the talent so he buried it. When the master came back, he asked them how they had done with the money. The first one had multiplied it by five, the second had doubled it and of course, the last one hadn't done anything with it so the master took it away from him and gave it to the servant that had multiplied his talents five times over. The moral: use it or lose it.

The parable is an old one to me because my mother used to quote it to me about my piano playing. I would much have prefered to be dancing ballet! That particular talent (not sure if I really had it or not! ) I would really loved to use!

As the minister went on with his sermon, he quoted a woman that was speaking of doing what God wants us to do but so many of us are afraid. Her answer was "do it afraid, but do it." That one got me!! I'm afraid to do what I know I need to do! Fear is what keeps us from moving forward. It's what keeps us stuck in our own hole. We can rationalize and give reasons why and convince ourselves that we're right, but deep down, we know that we need to move, we need to do something about our situation.

Something happend yesterday that hurt "my inner child." She was on the verge of tears and having a temper tantrum but I talked to her and she calmed down. We didn't have to have an explosion of any kind.

So... if I was able to give myself positive thoughts and sooth my hurt and dissapointment... and it worked! ... then I can start giving myself "I AM" statements like I AM capable. I AM intelligent. I AM gifted with the written word. I've been told enough! It's time I started internalizing it! Not only that, but taking small, baby steps toward accomplishing some of my goals. That book isn't going to get published if I don't work on it, for pity's sake!

<font color=blue>This above all: To thine own self be true. --Shakespeare</font color=blue>