Thank You!!!

Maybe you’ve stopped by Deuceology before.

Maybe this is your first time.

It doesn’t matter to me.  I have two words for you.

Thank You!!!

Thanks for stopping by.  Your visits mean a lot to me.

Encouragement

You encourage me.  It wouldn’t matter if you were the only person who stopped by and read my musings.  I would write them anyway.  I just appreciate that someone reads them.  You encourage me in my walk with the Lord.  You don’t know what that means to me.

Inspiration

You inspire me.  I wonder what I will write.  I wonder how it will affect you.  I wonder if it will inspire you.  I didn’t always do that.  I do now.  You inspire me to pursue the Lord with greater passion.

Empowerment

You empower me.  You empower me to show up.  You empower me to tell you what’s going on with my life and with my relationship with Christ.  You empower me to be transparent.  You empower me to pour my passion into this blog.  You empower me to not settle for generic.

Patience

You are patient with me.  You have put up with me when I’ve had bad attitudes and it leaked into my writing.  You have been patient with my poor writing.  You are patient with my musings and ramblings.

Before I stop today, I want to ask you to do one thing.  I want you to make a comment.  Maybe you’ve commented before.  Maybe it would be your first one.  Make a comment.  I want to thank you personally for stopping by, reading and making a comment.

Thank You!!!

For Crying @TamaraOutLoud

Tamara Lunardo, of Tamara Out Loud fame, recently put out a call for folks to send submissions to guest post over at her blog recently.  If you don’t know Tamara, follow her on Twitter, like her Facebook page, or read her blog, check it out.  However, I will caution you to be careful if you are uptight or easily offended.  What she writes is honest and her style won’t sit well with many normal church-going folks.  So you’ve been warned.

I quickly hammered out a piece and sent to her.  I sat back and waited to hear from her.  And waited.  And waited.  On Friday, she sent out notifications to all of us who submitted our pieces to her.  How did I fare?

I was rejected.  Told no.  You know, the “Thank you for submitting.  I can’t use it now.”  kind of email.  How did I react?

I could have reacted several different ways.  I could have been upset.  I could have been angry.  Instead, this was my reaction.

Relief.  A big “Schwewwwww!!!!”  I felt like I dodged a bullet.

On Saturday, I messed with Tamara for an hour or so about not being selected.  I told her that I was going to write this post.  I think she worried about it for a while.  She may still be worried as I write this, for all I know.  She shouldn’t be.

I need to thank her.

You see, Tamara, without realizing it, taught me some great lessons through this process.  Let me share them.

Generic

The post that I sent her was not my best work.  The post was blah.  It was boring.  It didn’t fit what she wanted.  It contained a thought that I had been mulling over, but it was really just filler.  I should have taken my time and spent more time before I sent it to her.  I rushed it.

Passion

The post that I sent her didn’t have it.  Passion, that is.  It didn’t have any heart.  It didn’t have, quite honestly, me in it.  Not that having me is important.  But anyone could have written what I wrote.  It didn’t contain one of the things that I think make blogs great.  It didn’t have the heart, soul and passion of the writer.  It didn’t have me in it.

Empowerment

The piece I wrote was about empowerment.  I had been wanting to write a post about empowerment.  That’s what I did.  And it stunk.  Almost immediately, I regretted sending it to her.  I quickly began plotting what this post would be like when she did not choose my original.

Tamara empowered a bunch of people, including me,  to write guest post submissions.  She empowered other bloggers to be creative.  She empowered me, by not choosing my post, to write this one.

When it comes down to it, Tamara taught me to not write generic posts.  She taught me to write with my own passion.  She empowered me to do better.  This is what I think the body of Christ does.  It stimulates each other to love.  It stimulates each other to good deeds.  It stimulates each other to better blogging.

For crying @TamaraOutLoud, Thanks!!!!  Thank you, Tamara Lunardo.

Has anyone ever rejected you resulting in something positive?