Happy 2019

Slipping in here a few days late to wish everyone a Happy, Joyful, God-Blessed New Year.

So many people make New Year’s Resolutions, and that’s a good thing. Keeping them is especially good. Yes, I would like to exercise more this year and lose more weight, but that’s always my goal. Now that it’s been a year since my back surgery, I’m cleared to start running again.

As a writer, I can’t ignore that part of my life when planning for a new year. I wrote six books last year and I honestly don’t intend to write that many this year. The new series takes a lot of research which translates into a lot of time. I’m hoping to have the third “Fog Busters, Old Bones Detectives” out sometime in January.

Collage 2018 books

As a writer and as a person, the most important goals I can set for 2019, or any year, are found in the Bible, specifically in Philippians, Chapter 3: That I may know God and His power; That I may press on; That I may forget those things which are behind and reach forward to those things which are ahead, that I may press toward the goal of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

forget behind reach ahead

That about sums up my 2019 goals. As an author, my inspiration comes from God.

God better for writing

Whoever you are and wherever you are reading this, may God light your new year with beauty, bounty, and joy. Happy New Year!

sunflowers and butterfly laredo december

https://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

Dare to be a Dog

Dogs win accolades for unconditional love – and they should.

I want to praise dogs for their joyfulness.

Every day we take pretty much the same walk with our dog. Every day, other dog owners take pretty much the same walk with their dogs. Yet, every day, every dog is joyful to be out on a walk – even when passing the same scenery, the same greenery, the same same. Regardless of the sameness and circumstances surrounding them, the dogs are joyful to be alive and to be with the people they love. They exercise an attitude of gratitude.

What a life-changing spiritual lesson we could learn from dogs! Dare to be a dog! Dare to be joyful! People talk about being “stuck in a rut,” but wherever we are in life never starts out as a rut. It becomes a rut when we continuously dig it with complaining and a lack of gratitude. No matter where we live, God has created a beautiful world and has blessed us with another day of life. If you are reading this, you still have your life. With that life come the possibility and responsibility of choosing joy or sorrow; hopelessness or faith. Many other choices surround us in life, but depression destroys health. Joy restores health. “A merry heart does good, like medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones,” Proverbs 17:22.

Life doesn’t come with a rewind button. None of us can undo hurts and harms from the past. Our only choices are to become better and stronger from the heartbreaks we’ve survived– or bitter and resentful.

God loves an attitude of gratitude. He created us to praise Him. When Jesus was told that his worshiping followers were too loud and joyful, Jesus responded, “If they keep silent, the stones will cry out.”

Psalm 150 exhorts, “Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD!”

Many people make many New Year’s Resolutions. One would suffice. Dare to be a dog.

http://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0