Have you ever been thrown in the deep end of a pool without your swimmies? That’s the feeling I had this week as I learned skills and worked in groups I haven’t spent time in before. How fun to learn new skills! Did you ever want to know just how a blue screen television virtual set worked? Me too! Les came up this weekend and he got to learn how to modulate the Tricaster studio in Brentwood of Hopes, Goals, & Dreams Internet Television Studios. Who knew he could look so good and learn so fast? The equipment is fascinating. Its the same technology that creates CNN and FOX news alternate studios. The entire set is virtual and there are endless options on how to make it look!
Last night Mrs. Fussypants herself came and we put our big toes in the water of how to share community with girlfriends 1:1 a thousand at a time. She has a vision to help find fabulous women bloggers and speakers and share them withe the rest of us! BlissfullyDomestic.com is already known as a launching place for moms and bloggers to find good things! Her team, which I am now privileged to work with as a creative strategist, is so wonderful Katie Howard, managing editor, and Daisy Olsen, pro wordpress expert are simply amazing women! Wow, is Alli a natural in front of the camera! She’s so nice in real person, and we had more than a few mistakes, giggles, and so much fun working through the concepts.
This week award winning author Karen Rabbitt has been my guest at the studio as we have
created exciting DVD/CDs and trailers to help her get the word out about her book Trading Fathers: Forgiving Dad Embracing God. I simply think this is an important book for anyone who has a difficult relationship with their father. Karen, a retired psychotherapist, was sexually and emotionally abused as a child. This is her story, her journey to learn how to forgive, and to allow God to heal the wounds. It is an amazing story and I am so glad God picked her as someone I would get to work with in ministry! She has the most beautiful smile and her voice is like listening to most wonderful soothing friend. See the beautiful jewelry she is wearing, it was simply stunning in person. She and her husband Jerry used to design and make jewelry together, and are Illinois Artisans, a program that recognizes craftspeople as authentic. She was so kind to bring me two pairs of earrings to Tennessee all the way from Illinois! Yay! In this picture you’ll see her with Alli Worthington, Mrs. Fussypants before our Tuesday night taping.
See the handsome guy on the left? (Yes, Les is aware I am taking my picture with a fella in Tennessee.) That man on the left is none other than Mr. David Cooper, who is the Host of Hopes, Goals, and Dreams Internet Television Studio. We met long ago (13 years), in a far away time when I lived in Northwest Arkansas. He is America’s Income Trainer and he was completely responsible for any success I had in Mary Kay Cosmetics sales. His “Ask Your Way to Success” Soft-sell training methods are widely known (and copied) as he works with individuals, companies, and products all over the world as the trainer of trainers in the world of integrity based business practices. Mr. Cooper is more than that to me personally, when I was a single Mom, when I needed help with sales skills so that I could survive financially and mentally on my own. David Coopers’ sales training tapes, his leadership, his methodology meant the world to me. I won two cars from Mary kay under his tutorage (long distance via his cassettes, then later his CD’s and several seminars in my area)
Do you know people in your life that simply impress you that they allow God to use them? I have several RAWK stars of Leadership, as Mrs. Fussypants would call them: David Cooper, Michael Hyatt, John Maxwell, Maya Angelou, Dr. Kevin Leman, the late Barbara Jordan, Thelma Wells, Max Lucado, Virginia Turner Smith, Cavett Robert, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale and so many others. Not all my heroes are celebrities either. Many are the small town leaders and people who simply do what God tells them to do and they do it with grace and beauty! All of these leaders are in leadership not so much because they had a “master plan” to be a celebrity or larger than life leader, but because of the work they do to build people, projects, and their prestige despite the challenges and the personal cost of leadership for doing it God’s way. These folks focus on what is best for all, how to deliver the message they have been given to others, they build and expand those around them and they celebrate others successes as they develop under their leadership along the way, more thrilled for their students and colleagues success than focused on their own.
Who do you look to for leadership? Of course God provides the absolute best leadership daily in his presence in your life. The Bible is full of stories of leaders who rose, fell, and got up again with His mercy and grace. Has God lead you to dream a dream? Is God whispering to you an idea that seems bigger than you could possible do yourself? I am living the reality of a dream that God planted in my heart 24 years ago when I graduated college and worked with so many broken families in a town far from home. A dream to develop programs and events that would help us all create A Joyful Place Called Home. People and teachings that would help families restore the home, one heart at a time. It is very exciting as I come to realize its not just about families like my own step and blended families. This dream is a God gift to all families and I.cannot.wait to see what our God does next! It has given new meaning to the concept that if God gives you the dream, he provides the means to make it happen. My gosh eight months ago I didn’t KNOW these twelve women whom God has brought to help with this dream. I didn’t know internet television was possible to this level yet. I didn’t know how in the world that these dreams He had shown me would be possible. God is God and I am not and God had the details figured out long before I knew the needs! Do you ever feel entirely responsible for something God has given you to do? The truth is, God has it covered, just relax into His goodness and pray faithfully for your own path to be made straight. Our Father God is a loving God He will never shame you, leave you on the path alone, these lessons I am learning daily as God unfolds this dream into a reality. These last eight months have been the most breathtaking time in my life! God is good and I can’t wait to share the rest of the story with you as it unfolds!
God is God and we are not!
Sweetie Berry
