Busy…but not forgotten…

Yes, I have been busy…but I have not forgotten you.

Often, in fact, I formulated blogs in my head.  It is just that they have not quite made it to the printed form.  And soon those thoughts faded away… lost forever in the recesses of my mind.

It gets like that…getting busy, I mean.  You get so caught up in something else that everything else…  Well, almost everything else falls by the wayside.

Then just this pass weekend 1 of my sisters had a heart attack.  Well, needless to say that can really send you into a tailspin…if you weren’t already into one.  So, I have been busy…and now I’m into a tailspin too.

There is something about having to deal with one’s mortality that will force you to view your own…your purpose… life… things done …and things yet hoping to get done.  Then there are those things which we don’t want to do but somehow feel lead to do.  And to tell you the truth that is what for the pass couple of  days I have been wrestling with the most now that all of this has happened.

For a while now I have had a feeling that I am been lead to preach… as in ‘Preacher.’  So, I began to not only read my Bible but I also started to study it.  You know that scripture that says…

“Study to show thou self approved…”

So, for the pass I don’t know what…over 2 years or so… I have been studying.  And recently I began videotaping a television program for Public Access…a series about learning to study your Bible.

But when my sister suffered her heart attack it now seems that I have just been stalling…trying to put off the enviable.

It is not that I don’t want to do it.  No, not that…though that is kind of it too.  But I lack the confidence to do it.  I can’t remember scripture…though I do believe that as the Bible says…

“He will bring it back to our remembrance.”

Yes, I do believe that.  And He has shown me that He does and will do it.  But it is just that… I don’t really want to preach.

I mean I have been in radio, introduces acts at concerts, promoted different events…  But…but this is different.

So, as busy as I claim that I have been…  Well, I haven’t been all that busy.  I have just been laying around…low key…thinking about what it is that God is asking me to go out and do.  And down deep inside…I really don’t want to do it.

But I feel I must.  And then again I am afraid if I don’t…  Well, I’m afraid of what God may do to me… or my family.  And that is what I think my sister’s heart attack was all about.

I don’t think it was about her at all.  But that it was about me …and what I am not doing.

How can you be instant in and out of season if you really lack what you think you need?

I know that God would not send any of  us out without fully equipping us to fulfill His need.  But yet I can’t bring myself to want to go out into the streets and just start preaching.

How can some people do that?

All of my life I think I have been prepared for where God wants me to be.  Somehow He trusts in me.  But I have no trust in myself… or maybe in Him as I should.

Pray my strength in the Lord that I decide to walk in the steps that God has ordered for me.

Yes… I have been busy.  And maybe later I will tell you all about it…but now I am going through something.

God bless…

If you want to read some excerpts from my book, THE BISHOP’S WIFE,  you can go to my website…. www.bsmith101.com .  But before you do just let me tell you that the site is very much under construction.  So, it is a long ways from being complete or anywhere near what I want… not even close to it at this time.  But slowly…but surely I know it will be something that will meet all our expectations.

So, if you would please bear with me…I would appreciate it very much.  But you can at least read some excerpts from my book there.   And if you desire to order my  book, THE BISHOP’S WIFE, please do so here in my blog…as I can’t get that link to work.

My book is also available via authorhouse.com, barnes&nobles.com, amazon.com, filedby.com and a variety of other outlets…including ordering it through your local bookstore.

I have not officially launched the sale of my book yet.  But while I was down in Charlotte for AIM, our church convention…guess who purchased my book?

Dorinda Clark Cole.

Yes, that is right.  ‘THE’ Dorinda…of the Clark Sisters…the COGIC gospel singing sentations.

I still can’t believe it.  Dorinda bought my book!

I was trying to give her a copy of my book to give to her sister, Twinkie…and Dorinda said to me…

“No, I ain’t going to give Twinkie nothing.  If  Twinkie wants your book she is just going to have to come and get it for herself.  But I’ll buy your book.  I support people of the Kingdom.”

Yes, that is exactly what Dorinda said to me.  Amazing.

I only sold 1 book at A.I.M. and it was to Dorinda Clark Cole.  Amazing.

Here is my book trailer that I created last summer…  Now you get a chance to hear my voice and to see a bit of me as well.  And please keep in mind…that by profession… I am a radio announcer…and a filmmaker.  It does make a difference.

I’ll tell you more about AIM in another blog…and I do have lots to say.  It was so inspiring and fantastic listening and watching all the women and men of God… and speaking with many of them of as well.

THE BISHOP’S WIFE  is now on sale. And remember you can read a few excerpts from my book by going to …. www.bsmith101.com …Thank you. 

I am just hearing that Walter Hawkins passed while we were down in Charlotte.  I never heard anything about it while I was at AIM, a Church of God in Christ conference.  He had been battling cancer my son informed me.

It is hard to believe.  I never knew him or met him…but I was quite familiar with his music and that of his brother and ex-wife.  Who in the gospel world is not familiar with them?

His brother, Edwin Hawkins and his ex-wife, Tramaine Hawkins…both gospel giants in their own rights as well. 

What a great lost to this Kingdom on earth with a the lost of such a tremendously marvelous and anointed voice as Walter Hawkins.

Walter and Tramaine Hawkins, his ex-wife, had 2 children and also some grand-children from their union together

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postmortem/2010/07/gospel-great-walter-hawkins-di.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/13/AR2010071306089.html

What a great lost.

Luckily my sister realized that there was something wrong.  I later found out that she drove herself to the hospital where upon checking her out…she was informed that had she not come she would have died.

Her heart was in such bad shape and she did not know it.  In fact, just last weekend we were all happily in Philly for a large family gathering celebrating the life of the matriarch of our family ‘at large’… our Great Aunt Kate.  But who would have guessed that in the midst of my sister’s chest a time bomb was ticking.

If you would like to know some symptoms of an on-coming heart attack CLICK these LINKS below.

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/actintime/haws/women.htm

http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/healthmedical/a/womensami.htm

Be safe and keep yourself monitored by getting regular check-ups… and don’t forget to tell your doctor…

“What about my heart?”

It seems they check almost everything else but that when it comes to women.  And more and more of us are dying from it.

My mother did.  So, if heart failure runs in your family it is never too soon to start having it check.

And lets all start eating a little bit healtier.

Well, God bless…again.

UPDATE: July 29, 2010… My brother just mentioned this to me in passing.  I was not aware that the current Musical Director of the Church of God in Christ International Choir, Judith McAllister was even married…or much less that her husband had been indicted for fraud.

One could say that when it rains it pours…  Since becoming the head of the international musical department of the Church of God in Christ Dr. McAllister has been faced with one problem after another.

http://www.1800gospel.com/2010/05/husband-of-judith-mcallister-indicted-for-fraud/

There was the issue of  Kim Burrell wanting to go secular… and also I think the issue that the music department has lack a certain level of  spiritual direction that it once had under it former leaders.  None of the songs seem to connect any more.  There seems to be a lost in ‘the anointing’ that had long been a marker… a brand specific almost to the COGIC church which it had since its founding, some 103 years ago… being the  largest and one of  the oldest Pentecostal Churchs in the world.

Last year when I sat in on a workshop held by the COGIC scholars at AIM…my brother spoke on the topic of spirituality in the music.  It was something that he said Bishop Mason was very particular about.

In the part of his dissertation, my brother wrote that Bishop Mason, the founder of the Church of God in Christ, wanted the music to come alive and be felt deep down within the soul of the people.  That is something that under Judith McAllister the National COGIC Choir seems to have lost.  The songs had no depth… no feeling …no emotions… nothing that brings tears to your eyes… or moves you as the songs once had.

I don’t know but someone came up on this site saying that Dr. McAllister has decided to step down from her post as the International Director of the COGIC Choir..though they said ‘removed’.   I guess all of this might be following the allegations surrounding her husband… his arrest and indictment.   He was a Special Agent employed by the FBI and stationed in Nashville, TN… who I guess you could say ‘decided he wanted more out of life and decided to take it.’ 

I do not know if  it is true or not…that she has stepped down but if so…  Her husband is facing 19 counts of fraud, bank fraud, wire fraud etc…etc… which all totals more than 340 years in federal prison.   To that…all I can say is I really did not see what was wrong with the COGIC  International music Department as it already was anyways.

http://www.justice.gov/usao/tne/pr/2010/May/McAllister%20Press%20Release.htm

Thank you for reading this blog…and  my others.  Please be sure to continue to share this blog site with your family to em , co-workers and all your friends… “pass it on…”  www.bsmith101.wordpress.com  ©2010

Add a comment July 29, 2010

Trying to keep warm…

As I lay here trying to keep warm…and happy about not having to go outside and shovel any more snow.   But I love it.

I am so thankful that my parent’s house is still standing…that water is not leaking down through the roof…that the raccoons are blocked off from traveling downstairs to meet me in our back hallway…and that God  blocked my parent’s house from going up on the auction block earlier this year in March.

I have much to be thankful for…including not having suffered what I thought was an on-coming stroke or heart attack last week when my right hand started shaking very badly, and then just froze up on me.  And ultimately forced me to have to rush from my class to go directly to a hospital emergency room.

But after having endured that…this past weekend I was out shoveling snow straight up to the day before yesterday.  We are buried in it.  And I am loving every minute of it…and I am so blessed not to have to be spending my holidays in a hospital.

Though the weather is cold…freeeeezzzing to be exact.  It looks pretty.  No, beautiful to me…because if I take a notion…I can get up and go outside and walk through it…when I know that I should not be able to do so.

But in regards to my warmth…I keep looking at our fireplace wishing I  could make a big bustling fire in it.   But I am afraid of risking starting a fire in the wall of the chimney since we haven’t used it or had it cleaned out for a while.  But a big bright and warm fireplace lighting up our living room would be nice…and especially on days like this.  And even more especially since the furnace is still not fixed. 

So, yes the house is cold…but not as cold as it should or  even  could be.  Though the oven is on (and I am being very careful monitoring it)…and most of the doors are closed to block off the cold.  And I do have a portable electric heater (which I am also keeping a close eye on) which you really have do when you run electrical items overtime.  And then on top of it all…I still have hot water.  

So, I’m doing pretty good.  Thank God for the hot water.

And believe me having hot water is important. 

I will not forget how last year this time I was almost in the same situation though the circumstances were different.  From August straight through the  1st of January we had no gas.  This meant that there was not any hot water either…which is a very hard situation…and particularly for women.   Because unlike men…women must bathe.   Washing up is okay…but it is not the same.   And to do it for months…in freezing cold water… 

Well, let me just say it again…women must bathe.

So, I was forced to have to bathe in freezing cold 2 times a day…once in the morning before leaving out from the house and again once I got back in.  And this I did religously in the freezing cold of the house…and cold water only gets colder as it runs.   It was quite quite quite freeeezzzing cold.  In fact, it was far colder inside our house than it was at any point outside of it.  

I know I was miserable during all those days.   But thank God…He brought me through it.  And I got through it without a sniffle or a sneeze.

And so though I can’t light a fire in our fireplace…I am not as cold as I should be either…and no where near as cold as I was in this house  last year. 

I am blessed.   

And I am finally finished with all my classes and their assignments…I got everything in even though at times my right hand continued to occasionally act up.  But I made it through…and yesterday I returned to the school library 2 books that I owed them.

 So, I am in the house for the duration of the holiday…short of having to go back out to shovel more snow…or throw down some more salt if it gets slippery again.

I can’t imagine what the temperture outside is today.  But  I know it is in the low something.    It looks very cold and dark outside.   There is no sun anywhere to be found…nothing but snow upon snow. 

It is like a freezer outside.  So, I am inside…trying to keep warm.  But I am loving it…because God has been good to me.

Remember those who have less than you and who may or may not have a roof over their heads…or a car in their garage…or food in their refrigerator…or in their pantry…or a coat to put on…or electricity…or gas to heat their home.    Let us pray for them…and keep them lifted up in our prayers throughout the year.   They would love to be in my situation I have no doubt.   So, I have nothing to complain about.   I’m blessed. 

Yes, I am blessed…and very highly favored.  And I thank God for His ever loving mercies.

So, whatever your holiday plans are…be careful and enjoy those whom you love.  And may God grant you to step into a wonderful 2009.   I am looking forward to it…and all the God has in store for me.

And always be mindful…that there is nothing like family.  And nothing at all like a good family…definitely worth more than gold.  

We pray also for family unity…unity from this point on…in Jesus’ name.

God bless….Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

And may your Santa give you exactly and everything that you are hoping and looking for.   

Praise ye the Lord…for He is mighty in all things.   And I am sure He has so much more for you…in 2009.

Well, God bless…and thanks for reading this blog…and  please be sure to continue to share this blog site with your family, co-workers and all your friends… “pass it on” www.bsmith101.wordpress.com ©2008

Double CLICK the screen above in order to view the second video…ignor the text on the screen monitor

Happy holidays…and may God richly bless you too.

Just DOUBLE CLICK the screen to view the above video.

Add a comment December 24, 2008