Being Different

Hello,

 

I pray that you had a chance to think about what you have to offer the world that only you can give them!  As for me it will always be my writings and my passion to encourage & empower.  I always loved to write.  It was my way of expressing how I felt with no one trying to persuade me with their opinions.  No on there to correct my grammar, no one their to tell me how I should write or what to say, no one there to tell me they don't understand why I feel a certain way. Yes it was just me and my pen.  A place of serenity. A perfect place to be me. Writing brought me so much freedom because I could be any place at any given time in my writings. I could be powerful, romantic, intelligent, bold, funny, sad, young or old.  It was fun to create and for me I love to empower so in my place of  serenity I did just that.  I remember the first time I shared my writings. It was at the International Poet Society competition in Vegas 2006. I wrote a short piece entitled "The Simple Cares of Life"  which was shared on their site and won me a spot in the competition. I was so excited and nervous all at the same time but the prize of ten thousand dollars helped calm my nerves.  As the competition began to unfold my hopes of winning looked very bleak. I decided to go with a different piece entitled "Life".  I felt pretty good about my presentation considering it was my first time doing a reading before a crowd. I remember after all the poets went forth and we were given instructions on what to expect next three women came up to me expressing how my piece spoke to them. It had brought tears to my eyes because one of the ladies had lost a child, another almost lost her life& her children's at the hands of an abusive husband, and another had come to the competition only to get robbed the same day she arrived.  I felt as if God sent me there just for them. But the next morning when the 1st, 2nd, 3rd  place winners were announced my confidence was down and the tears of gratitude I felt just the day before were lost. The poets who won so deserved it. They were awesome but their poetry style was so different from mine yet so similar to each other.  To top it off my wonderful husband didn't realize it but his comment was "lets go like nothing happened made me feel worst"  It was like he was saying no big deal you tried, you had the experience, so lets move on.  I struggled each day after arriving back home to Pittsburg, Ca to encourage myself and not loose hope but it was just that a struggle. It's not so easy to believe in something that it seems like no one else can see.  Was I blinded to the truth?  The truth that maybe I wasn't a good poet after all.  I did attend the classes they offered us by real poets during the weekend of the competition & there was so much I didn't know about writing poems.  I had these very educated poets telling me indirectly I had gone about it all wrong. So many thoughts ran through my mind like a child freely running through a play ground with no supervision. 

 

It is very intriguing how fast one negative seed can grow and take over the battlefield of our mind but we can have twice as many positive seeds planted yet they struggle to take ground.  I had three people at my job ask to purchase the piece " Life" after they read it when inquiring about my weekend. Right then and there not only was I being affirmed but a business was being birth.  I never thought about putting my writings on beautiful paper, placing it in a frame, and selling it to sit on someones desk or coffee table until that very moment. 

 

Yes I was excited for the moment and started to take ground and move ahead with what I love to do but the more I moved forward the more the negative views or in some cases just the constructive criticism of people caused me to retreat once again.   I don't think many people realize what they do when they point out the negative instead of pulling out the positive.  What would this world be like if we seen the potential  in people & help them tap into that potential. Yes help them discover how to use that potential and what they can do instead of focusing what they can't do!  We all have to start somewhere.  Well it took me a long time but I finally realized through faith, friends, God's word, and simply stepping out and taking a chance to give the world what they never heard. See I am unique; made in His Likeness. He formed & predestined me in my mothers womb and no one has my DNA ( Divine Natural Ability) to do what He has called me to do. I can't worry about winning the similarity contest. I can't worry about fitting in and looking like the majority. I can no longer strive to be normal. If I did then I would look, sound, and act like everyone else. I would be just another familiar voice in this world. Never really being able to be heard because my voice had been compromised to no longer sound like mine.  So today I am loving being me!  Yes at times it seems as if I'm right back on the battle field of my mind but no longer am I running away but marching towards the lies of enemy and taking captive every thought that tries to exalt it self over the words and promises of God. What I loved almost became a burden because I began to work hard to look like the world instead of using it to change the world.

 

So Be encouraged the world is still waiting on you!

 

 

Tiffany James, Encouraging Touch Enterprise
"Give a gift that creates a Legacy to Encourage, Inspire, and Bless those you love for a life time"

  www.encouragingtouch.com