Month: April 2011

Abundant Life

Teaching: Spiritual Warfare and Prayer

Karen

Every Sunday I provide videos and valuable links to the Truth or Tradition teachings. We’ve been following the Truth or Tradition teachings for many years now and they have truly blessed our family. We have found peace and happiness through our beliefs and we walk confidently for God. My hope, by passing on this information to you, is that what you find here, or on the Truth or Tradition website, will guide you to a better, more blessed and abundant life.

If you would like to read my views on religion and how we got started with the ministry, you can read this.

Let’s get started:

If you have any questions, or would like to learn more about God’s wonderful message, please visit the Truth or Tradition website. You can also keep track of the ministry through their Facebook page, their YouTube Channel, or follow them on Twitter.

Thanks for reading.

(Comments have been turned off. The information is here to inform and bless you. God granted you the gift of free will – take it or leave it).

More from Write From Karen

random stuff

Living in a Closet

Karen

How big is your living space?

Our house is 2000 square feet. Which is a pretty respectable size, at least in my opinion. Still though, it can feel cramped with four people vying for space sometimes.

However, can you imagine living in a 90 square foot closet?? This woman does. She pays $700 every month for this teeny space in Manhattan.

I could do it, I think. The bed might take some getting used to, but overall, I could hack it. I think the only time it might bother me would be in the winter when it would be harder to get out and about.

Could you live in such a tiny space?

More from Write From Karen

Politics

Political Correctness is Out – It’s Time to Tell it Like It Is

Karen

Just saw this on Another Black Conservative.

This is Ann Barnhardt and she takes Lindsey Graham and the Quran to task quite passionately, and effectively, in the following video.

Ladies and gentlemen, THIS is the type of citizen this country needs more of. People who aren’t afraid to call these corrupt politicians out and to logically and systematically dispute their insane political spin and out-of-control political correctness.

I admire this woman. She’s got balls.

She also goes through the Quran and quotes specific passages, pointing out how evil the message behind the Quran is and how the Quran has no place in a civilized country. She even goes so far as to burn it. I haven’t embedded it here because it’s quite long, and a bit tedious, but you get the point.

ADDED: By the way, I’m not a big proponent of burning anything and I think she might have gone too far in this case, but I think her bigger point, at least, it’s what I took away from her stunt, is that we need to start standing up for our beliefs and freedoms and have the courage to fight anything that threatens those freedoms.

And we have politicians, an entire party, who want to defend this religion and persuade our country to be tolerant of this evil doctrine.

Wow.

Numbers don’t lie, folks, politicians do. It’s time to pull our heads from the sand and be prepared for tough decisions – we can’t sugar coat our dire situation anymore – we need to get this debt under control and the people in power now? Have NO INTEREST in seeing that happen. They want people to be dependent on the government for every essential aspect of our lives.

NO THANKS.

If you haven’t been paying attention, then shame on you. Our country is at a crossroads and we need the ADULTS to step up and do something about it. If not for you, then for your children and future grandchildren. Look at your kids, they’re counting on you to make the right decision. Let’s get this mess under control, people. NOW.

The president’s recent budget proposal would accelerate America’s descent into a debt crisis. It doubles debt held by the public by the end of his first term and triples it by 2021. It imposes $1.5 trillion in new taxes, with spending that never falls below 23% of the economy. His budget permanently enlarges the size of government. It offers no reforms to save government health and retirement programs, and no leadership.

Our budget, which we call The Path to Prosperity, is very different. For starters, it cuts $6.2 trillion in spending from the president’s budget over the next 10 years, reduces the debt as a percentage of the economy, and puts the nation on a path to actually pay off our national debt. Our proposal brings federal spending to below 20% of gross domestic product (GDP), consistent with the postwar average, and reduces deficits by $4.4 trillion.

A study just released by the Heritage Center for Data Analysis projects that The Path to Prosperity will help create nearly one million new private-sector jobs next year, bring the unemployment rate down to 4% by 2015, and result in 2.5 million additional private-sector jobs in the last year of the decade. It spurs economic growth, with $1.5 trillion in additional real GDP over the decade. According to Heritage’s analysis, it would result in $1.1 trillion in higher wages and an average of $1,000 in additional family income each year.

Source: Wall Street Journal

You can find a lot more no-nonsense information about our debt fiasco here.

A to Z Challenge, Abundant Life

G is For Good Grief

Karen

This post isn’t about the “Good Grief” as in “Oh brother, what now?” but about the actual process of grieving, of losing someone we love.

Grief is never “good”, but we can grieve in a “good” way. In fact, grieving is essential when dealing with loss and then slowly piecing our shattered lives back together again.

I know this is a Christian-based teaching, but this teaching has a lot of helpful tips on how to process grief in a healthy and helpful way.

I hope these videos bless you and if you’ve suffered a loss recently, I’m so sorry. (((hugs)))

I’m participating in the A to Z challenge. You can sign up for the challenge here. Just post something every day with the appropriate letter (except for Sundays), and then submit your link to one of the hosts and don’t forget to visit other participants! Also, you can find other A to Z participants on Twitter via the #atozchallenge hashtag. (Keep your posts short – not more than 500 words – to make it easy on visitors. I think there were about 1100 participants the last time I checked).

A to Z Challenge

F is For Fractious

Karen

Definition of FRACTIOUS
1: tending to be troublesome : unruly
2: quarrelsome, irritable

(This is definitely me … most some days).

I saw this word used in a comment yesterday on a post about how mom bloggers seem to be getting more and more hateful toward one another (going so far as to actually create “hate” sites where the sole purpose of said site is to trash talk other bloggers – sheesh people, get a life) as time marches on and as newbies jump on the blogging bandwagon, and I had to look it up. Actually, I sort of guessed what the meaning was in the context, but I was curious enough to get the “official” meaning.

And since the topic of the post I found this word on has always sort of fascinated me, let’s talk about it. Or rather, I’ll write my thoughts out and you can read them. (Or not. Totally your call. If not, thanks for stopping around and see you around the virtual water cooler).

I’ve been blogging for six years now. I guess you could call me an “old timer” and not just in the blogging sense: I’m most likely older than most women bloggers out there. (I’m 45. Nope. Don’t have a problem disclosing my age). Something happens when you get older – you just don’t care what people think.

And that’s my stance on this whole back-biting, jealously-ridden, superficial-driven blogging world.

I. Don’t. Care. What. People. Think. About. Me.

Would I LIKE people to like me? Of course! I’m a likeable person, quite honestly, but let’s get real, I can’t please everyone and I’m not everyone’s cuppa tea. I’m opinionated, I’m passionate, I’m arrogant and I’m a realist. Of course I care about people and issues, but I know where to draw the line. I’ve learned, over the years, that you simply CAN NOT please everyone so here’s what I’m thinking – why try?

I’m as honest with you folks as I can possibly (and safely) be given the venue. If it’s on this blog, then you can bet your bottom dollar that I wouldn’t have a problem discussing it in real life. (I might be a tad embarrassed because you don’t exactly go around and share your intestinal issues with just anyone, but if anyone asked, I’d tell them).

That’s my rule of thumb.

I also try and keep it fair whenever I’m writing about an issue. Being fair is hard and I like the challenge. Sometimes, (and it’s rare, but it happens), I’ll present the other side of an argument and it actually changes my overall opinion. I like bringing up all sides of an issue because I think it helps me (and any readers out there) put myself in another person’s shoes. I often think that’s the number one missing element when it comes to blogging and judgy people – empathy.

Are there people out there that dislike me? I’m quite sure there are. Do I lose any sleep over that knowledge?

Nope. Cause life is too precious and way too short to worry about what people think about me.

So I guess I have a little trouble understanding why people get so upset about the “haters.” There will always be haters – always. It’s inevitable. Why waste a moment fretting about it? Move on. Ignore them. Let me then wallow in their pathetic pool of hate. Who cares?

This is something I’ve never understood about women – the whole obsessing over what people think about them. Sure. I had moments when I obsessed … BACK IN HIGH SCHOOL. But I learned, at an early age, that the energy required for such negativity? Was simply not worth it. I prefer to pour my energies into something a bit more productive, like LIFE. This gossipy, “he said, she said” mentality has ALWAYS gotten on my nerves. From day one. I’ve never understood why people (women) just don’t shrug it off and move on. A friend stabbed you in the back? Ouch. It hurts, of course, but chock it up to experience and move on. Don’t obsesses about it. Don’t try and over analyze it. There are some people who will never be happy, no matter what happens. There will always be people who are jealous of one another. And some people are just assholes.

Move on.

There are some women who worry that all of the haters will affect their sponsors and hurt their business plan. Not if those same women rise above the pettiness and show the world what it’s like to be classy. Again. Who cares what these people think?

Ignore them. Trolls liked to be fed – starve them of the attention they so desperately seek. Is it easy? Of course not! We’re human, we’re not made of stone. But chock it up to an exercise in civility and maturity and forget about them.

I love being a woman, but this aspect of my gender just grates on my last nerve. I won’t participate in this sort of trash talk or clicky group crap because it’s stupid and immature; I would rather surround myself with happy, well-adjusted, funny, easy-going women who know what they want in life.

I’ll pass on what’s left over.

P.S. Just read this wonderful post about “Wrecking the Blogging Community” by Temerity Jane. I rather like this blogger. We could be friends, I think.

I’m participating in the A to Z challenge. You can sign up for the challenge here. Just post something every day with the appropriate letter (except for Sundays), and then submit your link to one of the hosts and don’t forget to visit other participants! Also, you can find other A to Z participants on Twitter via the #atozchallenge hashtag. (Keep your posts short – not more than 500 words – to make it easy on visitors. I think there were about 1100 participants the last time I checked).

Life-condensed

Shame on Me

Karen

I did something really stupid yesterday.

I went and voted.

No. That wasn’t the stupid part. The stupid part was when I sat down to vote and realized I had NO IDEA who the people on the ballot even were.

I had never heard of them. But here I was, getting ready to vote them into office.

Shame on me!

I think I was so focused on voting for the stupid smoking ban – ON PRIVATE PROPERTY – that I failed to pay attention to the rest of the ballot.

After I voted, I went to my office. When I walked in and told Kevin that I had voted, he was surprised.

“What?? I had planned on talking to you about the people running for office. Have you looked at their websites? Do you even know where they stand on these issues?”

I blushed and shook my head.

And then I felt like a slug.

He had spent an hour looking at the candidates’ websites and when he told me that one dude explicitly claimed that he had “nothing to do with the Tea Party,” and that he was the one I voted for (because I liked his name – I KNOW, I’M SO PATHETIC!!!), I died a little inside.

Shame on me!

To me, when people distance themselves from the Tea Party, that means that they’re for more government and more spending. (Because the Tea Party is for less government and less spending, in case you didn’t know that).

And just so we’re clear? I am NOT FOR BIGGER GOVERNMENT ON ANY LEVEL.

Sorry to shout, but I feel strongly about this.

So yeah, I voted for the dude. *SIGH* Bad Karen.

Then Kevin pointed out another candidate who wouldn’t commit to any sort of opinion, in essence he said he would vote for whatever was popular. Which to ME says, “I’ll do whatever it takes to stay in office.”

My point is … I should have taken the time to look these candidates up before voting for them. I wonder how many people do the same thing? Go in to vote and have no idea who the people are? Who just pick a name out of the hat and vote for him/her.

I know better. I was ill-informed and lazy. If we ALL don’t take the time to research the people we’re voting into office and then things go to crap, we have no one to blame but ourselves because we put them there.

I’m lumping myself into this chastisement.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I voted people into office that if I had done my homework on, would NOT have gotten my vote.

Lesson learned.

A to Z Challenge

E is For Evanescence

Karen

Evanescence: : the process or fact of evanescing

Evanescing: to dissipate like vapor

(Sort of like our rights. Oh … DON’T get me started).

Love this word, and love this group.

This song makes me want to cry every. single. time. I. hear. it. So sad. So beautiful.

Lyrics to Evanescence – My Immortal

I’m so tired of being here
Suppressed by all my childish fears
And if you have to leave
I wish that you would just leave
‘Cause your presence still lingers here
And it won’t leave me alone

These wounds won’t seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There’s just too much that time cannot erase

When you cried I’d wipe away all of your tears
When you’d scream I’d fight away all of your fears
And I held your hand through all of these years
But you still have
All of me

You used to captivate me
By your resonating light
Now I’m bound by the life you left behind
Your face it haunts
My once pleasant dreams
Your voice it chased away
All the sanity in me

These wounds won’t seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There’s just too much that time cannot erase

I’ve tried so hard to tell myself that you’re gone
But though you’re still with me
I’ve been alone all along

I’m participating in the A to Z challenge. You can sign up for the challenge here. Just post something every day with the appropriate letter (except for Sundays), and then submit your link to one of the hosts and don’t forget to visit other participants! Also, you can find other A to Z participants on Twitter via the #atozchallenge hashtag. (Keep your posts short – not more than 500 words – to make it easy on visitors. I think there were about 1100 participants the last time I checked).