Dear Reader Column 05-21-19

AUTHORBUZZ: Click here to discover new books,
"meet" the authors and enter to win.

KIDSBUZZ: Click here to discover new books,
"meet" the authors and enter to win.

Dear Reader,

Anita Agers-Brooks motivates people to dynamic breakthroughs as an inspirational business/life coach, international speaker, and certified personality trainer.

Anita also hosts the globally popular podcast, Tending Your Dreams. As much as Anita loves traveling, speaking, coaching, and writing, her favorite pastime is dipping her toes in a Missouri lake and laughing with family. Anita doesn't mind a good latte either. An award-winning author, from the page and stage, she educates and inspires people to make a difference and influence well.

Anita's latest books are Getting Through What You Can't Get Over: Stories, Tips, and Inspiration to Help You Move Past Your Pain into Lasting Freedom and Exceedingly: Spiritual Strategies for Living on Purpose, with Purpose, and for an Abundant Purpose.

Five copies of Exceedingly are waiting to be sent to readers. To enter the drawing, simply email: anita@anitabrooks.com

Please welcome Anita Agers-Brooks to the book club...

My toes curled deep into the soft, green moss. I breathed in the perfume of honeysuckles, naked earth, and crisp summer air beneath my Thinking Tree, a massive oak standing guard behind my childhood home. I simultaneously reveled in the moment while I mentally traveled into the future. This was the place and time, where I first learned how to tend my dreams.

I looked toward the sapphire sky dotted with cotton balls and imagined an adult me. I wondered about the Maker of this amazing universe and asked a series of questions.

Why did you create me?
What am I supposed to do with my life?
Where will I live when I grow up?
Who will I marry, if I find a mate at all?
When will I make my mark on the world?
Why do I exist?

I listened for several long minutes, but only the birds responded right away, their bright chirps wafting from the trees, along with an occasional dropping. (I was grateful for the canopy protecting my head.) I did not receive instantaneous results, though through the years, the answers would eventually come.

As children, many people allow themselves the wonder of purpose and dreams. Sadly, by the time they reach adulthood, most let the hurried and harried pace of "just getting by" smother their deepest desires. It's a travesty I hope to change by sharing a reminder. This is a message I believe every human being should consider and allow to resonate in their soul. If you are reading this now, this message is meant for you.

You, dear reader, were created on purpose, with purpose, and for an abundant purpose.

Regardless of how you were conceived, or what anyone else may have told you, you are not a cosmic accident and you are not a mistake. You have special abilities, giftings, and talents that the world needs you to discover, cultivate, and share. You have dreams you are made to tend. Don't worry if you haven't figured out what they are yet, that's part of the adventure of being alive. You will find your purpose--if you seek it.

If you don't know where to start, get outside, like I did as a girl sitting under my Thinking Tree. Go for a walk and get alone with your thoughts. Spread a blanket on the grass, lay down, and imagine. Take your shoes off and curl your toes into the soft soil, let your ideas run wild. Because, tending your dreams best happens in the creative arms of nature.

-- Anita Agers-Brooks
Email Anita at: anita@anitabrooks.com and you'll be entered in a drawing for a chance to win a copy of Exceedingly.

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com

** AUTHORBUZZ **

WAISTED (Fiction) by Randy Susan Meyers

Did your mother hide the cookies? (Mine hid everything sweet and my aunt's scale lived in the kitchen entryway). Naturally, food ruled my life. Alice and Daphne harbor the same secret: obsession with their weight overshadows concerns about their children, husbands, work--and everything else of importance in their lives. Scales terrify them. But when they're chosen for a documentary about women and their bodies--an endeavor that promises healing--they instead find themselves in a terrifying lock-down.

Go to: AUTHORBUZZ click on WAISTED to read more and to email author Susan Meyers, you'll get a reply.

* This month's Penguin Classics book is THE STONEWALL READER, by the New York Public Library, and including a foreword by Edmund White. I have a copy of the book to share with a lucky reader, so start reading today and enter for your chance to win.

Comments

[Dana Cornejo]

Anita,
I would love to have a copy of the book 🥰😍

[Suzanne Beecher]

Hi Dana,
To enter to win Anita's book giveaway, please send her an email at anita@anitabrooks.com.

Thanks for reading with me, it's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne