The Week of Favor and Lesson Learned

What a week! It’s great to have the peace of God when it seems the world is zooming around you in every direction and you end up not being as attentive as you should in areas that you definitely should.

Being the off-duty probation officer this past week meant I was on call after business hours from 5 pm to 8 am and 24 hours on the weekend. It was a great week, only a few calls, and none after midnight…until Sunday.

Maybe I had convinced myself that I wouldn’t get any calls when I settled down to fall asleep at 12:30 am. But just before 2 am, I did receive four of five calls from dispatch, but did not hear them! That’s never happened before. Then at about 2:30 am one of my directors called and I did not hear that. Finally, at 4 am I was awake, was about to grab my phone about something when it rang. It was my other director telling me I had missed calls! I must have been dead to the world – you know, my spirit roaming around, hopefully spending quality time with the Lord. Fortunately, the director who reached me is the sweetest person and she was totally okay as long as the situation was handled, which it was.

Normally after making such a mistake, I am so hard on myself. But God has been with me and has kept me calm. He reminds me that I have to accept that I am not perfect, and he keeps reminding of that this week! Luckily it’s a short week.

The next day, yesterday, my postcards and business cards arrived from Vista Print, and they’re beautiful. Last night I noticed one mistake. When putting on the postcard where the book can be purchased, believe it or not, I said “Smashmouth.com” instead of “Smashwords.com.” Maybe the rock band will get some extra online traffic? Again, normally I would be chastising myself for that, but God said, "Remember, only I am perfect." 

I’d already distributed them to my coworkers and was thinking my handwriting isn’t good enough to make the correction to the remaining hundreds of postcards. “Smashmouth,” however, is in a location where I can just white it out. Quick fix. Amazon.com and Createspace.com are still nicely printed. Tell me what you think. These are photos of the front and back, otherwise they'd be straighter and clearer.

Today, my book order came. It’s so great to see your own book in print, and I’ve sold three copies so far. Other coworkers want to buy some and will get them later today or tomorrow. I wont forget to keep 10 copies aside for the winners of the Book Giveaway on my blog and on Goodreads.com.

Another good thing that came my way is that I won a “Blog Makeover” by Genesis Creations. I did like the look of my blog before, but felt it was too convoluted and I didn’t know how to best place the information I wanted. I have experienced before when people offer free or discounted services or products, they treat you like an ungrateful stepchild. But I have to say that Richetta Blackmon was very professional, attentive to my desires for the blog, and responded quickly to questions, suggestions, and issues that arose, and now I love the new blog look. If you think she did well on my blog, please check out her web page at http://www.designsbygenesis.com.

You all have a blessed Thanksgiving Day! And enter to win a paperback copy of Anticipation of the Penitent or feel invited to purchase a copy.