“Oh, Loretta, you should make a book out of all your poems,” a friend said. “Who? Me?” My hands grew sweaty, and I choked back feelings of incompetence. Fear gripped my throat, and a shaky voice slipped from my lips. “Ah, thanks, but I don’t know anything about publishing. I just write poems when I feel inspired, and I share them with family and friends.” The thought of putting my poems into book form almost made me hyperventilate. They weren’t your typical prose, nor were they written with literary intelligence. I just wrote the way the words flowed from my… 

What does it mean when I say, “Expect more?” Doesn’t that phrase sound greedy? Yes, if you look at it in the sense of material things, but I’m talking about us, as human beings. It’s easy enough to give up on commitments, goals, and promises, but don’t ever give up on yourself. You are created in the image of God. You are a child of the King. You belong to a royal priesthood. You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. Life in the earthly sense has a way of kicking you when you’re down. Your countenance plummets,… 

Most everyone who has the desire to become successful in an occupation must follow the start-move-grow plan. Without starting there’d be no reason to move forward in the learning process and grow in your gift. We must find the one thing that captures our attention and makes us happy. Take me, for instance, when I felt the call to become a writer, I sat at my computer and let my fingers dance across the keyboard. It never occurred to me there were different methods of writing and specific styles in punctuation, like The Chicago Manuel of Style or The Bedford…