With permission, I have extracted this picture-quote from 101 Powerful Affirmations. All rights reserved worldwide.
In my previous story on this lovely blog of mine, I wrote about my prayers that God answered in 2018. Today, I thought it wise to share with you the ones He didn't answer because it's a fact that God doesn't always fulfil all our requests.
The first prayer, and which I consider the most important, that God didn't answer was connecting me to my future wife. I really wanted to fall in love and get engaged in 2018; to have a young lady to walk with in this crazy journey called life.
Early in the year, I wrote that I wanted as a future wife a woman who is physically attractive to me. I also wanted her to have these hobbies: walking, jogging, singing, playing a musical instrument and writing (which obviously means she reads).
And then I listed the values and qualities she should possess, which I am always striving to cultivate in myself as well. They are:
Loyal
Honest
Respectful
A Christian
Loves people
A good listener
Fun and charming
Practises healthy living
Righteous (spiritual nature)
Will make me laugh everyday
Good mother/good with children
Will support me in my pursuits/goals in life
Will make time for me and will want the best for me in life
Maybe my future wife might not turn out to be exactly what I expect her to be but I am still trusting God that He will connect me to her. I am now praying for her daily. And as I pray for that divine connection, I am keeping in mind the advice of H. Jackson Brown Jr. in his inspiring Life's Little Instructions Book. He advised:
Choose your life's mate carefully. From this one decision will come ninety percent of your happiness or misery.
My other prayer that God didn't answer this year was composing inspirational songs. It has always been my dream to produce songs that will be aired on the radio; songs that people will hum again and again as they commute to work. I did try to produce such songs in 2015 but they didn't hit; a further proof that things don't always work out as planned. But I still haven't given up on the dream.
Of late, I have been beseeching God to help me come up with a song that has a beautiful melody and inspiring lyrics. I have also been praying that He may avail money for its production and connect me to a producer who will be fun to work with. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!
My beloved reader, I believe there's always a reason for closed doors, unanswered prayers and blocked roads. And I agree with whoever said that some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers. So I am not mad with Him for not answering some of my prayers. Instead, I am trusting that He has better things in store for me.
Before I finish my story, let me take this opportunity to wish you a refreshing festive season. May this Christmas cleanse your mind and soul of all that assaults your being and bring you to a life of renewed hope and inspiration. Adieu!
With permission, I have extracted this picture-quote from Cybersalt.org. All rights reserved worldwide. Wow! It seems like it was just the other day I was ushering 2018 with a prayer. And now as I write this story, the year will end in less than two weeks' time. How time flies!
This year, I developed a policy of taking God into working partnership in all my problems and activities. Today, let me share with you, my dear reader, the prayers God answered for me this year. By so doing, I hope to inspire you to also commit your plans to Him.
Well, God has answered numerous prayers of mine since the dawn of 2018. I would have loved to narrate to you about them all but because time wasting is a vice, let me tell you about only two answered prayers which pertain to the development of this blog.
As you might probably have discerned, this blog is my notebook where I record my thoughts. It's also a blackboard where I share what I learn with the world. Before the year 2016, I used to run another blog I christened "Polly". The problem with that blog was that it had stories full of lies, exaggeration and plagiarism. It also didn't generate any income.
When I rebranded the blog in early 2016 with the intention of posting in it stories that are original, I tried to create a pop-up form for collecting feedback from readers like you. But oh my! That turned out to be stressful.
For several days, I unsuccessfully struggled to make a pop-up form that would send messages to my email address. And after I turned to internet forums for help, nobody came to my aid. In fact, several nerds complained I was becoming a nuisance on one of the forums. Eventually, I gave up on the idea of creating a pop-up form.
This year, I resolved to again embark on creating a pop-up form. Before venturing into the task, I asked God for guidance through prayer. Then I googled for information on how to create pop-up forms. And wow! Google directed me to a website where someone had taken the trouble to show how pop-up forms are implemented.
I learnt from that website that creating pop-up forms isn't as easy as I had thought. It needs a lot of advanced coding. That's why I was unable to create pop-up forms in 2016.
Thankfully, the owner of the website had sample pop-up forms which were available for anyone to use for free. All I had to do was download the pop-up form files and then upload them to my blog. As simple as that.
But life has a way of throwing unexpected challenges at us. And that's what happened when I uploaded the pop-up form files to my blog directory - they disorganized the appearance of my blog pages, causing me some stress as I strived to rectify the glitch.
After three days of poring over the uploaded files which had a lot of confusing code, I managed to trace and diagnose the sections that were causing the hitch. And presto! My blog finally had a fully-functioning pop-up form. I urge you to visit the feedback page of this blog and click the blue button that asks for your feedback to see the pop-up form I am telling you about.
Upon reflecting on that success I had this year in having a pop-up form on my blog, I am led to strongly believe that it was God's guidance in my wanderings through the internet that made it possible. It truly was God's doing, and I can't thank him enough for it.
The other prayer God answered this year concerning this blog is having adverts on it. Back in 2016 when I rebranded the blog to what it looks like now, I tried to win advertisers to no avail. I sent proposal letters to several Fortune 500 companies but they went unanswered. Then when I applied for Google ads for like five times, my requests kept on getting rejected on grounds that my blog had too many photos and little meaningful content. Eventually, I gave up on Google ads.
In June this year, I decided to once more apply for Google ads. But before doing so, I got rid of all stories in the blog that were too short; I retained only the long ones. Then I turned to God for blessings. And when I applied for Google ads, I kept on praying for success.
At first, the Google Adsense team seemed to be taking forever to process my request. But after about six days of waiting, I was elated to receive an email from Google Adsense team that began, "Congratulations! Your account is now fully approved..." How exciting! That was really God at work.
I have read testimonials of content creators who have quit their jobs after putting Google ads on their websites. Some have even hired several employees with the revenue earned from the ads. Such testimonials have filled me with hope that I could also become self-reliant from the earnings generated by the ads on this blog.
As I hope to make big money from those Google ads, all I am now telling God are the words of David in Psalm 90:17:
Lord, my God, be kind to me.
Make everything I do successful.
Yes, make it successful.
Enough about me, my dear reader. How about you? How has your year been? And in what ways has God been helpful to you? Over to you!
******************* RECOMMENDATION: If you've enjoyed the above story on my answered prayers in 2018, you might also enjoy another one on "My Prayer for 2018" which I wrote at the beginning of the year. Just click on that link in blue to dive into the story.
"Always be full of joy in the Lord; I say it again, rejoice! Let everyone see that you are unselfish and considerate in all you do... Don't worry about anything; instead pray about everything; tell God your needs and don't forget to thank Him for His answers. If you do this, you will experience God's peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand."
~Phillipians 4:4-7 (TLB)
About the Author
Name: Thuita J. Maina Nationality: Kenyan Lives in: Kiserian, Rift Valley, Kenya Mission: To inspire the world to godly living, one person at a time.
Just for Laughs
There was this drunkard named Azoge who loved drinking at Josiah's Bar. On being told a certain Hon. Nanga was flying to America to be conferred a law degree so that he could be admitted to the bar, Azoge replied, "Why fly all the way to America to be admitted to the bar while you can get into Josiah's Bar any time?"
The 7 Deadly Sins
Pride
Envy
Gluttony
Lust
Anger
Greed
Sloth
Author's Note
I am learning to treat life as a journey, not a destination. So I am striving to enjoy each moment even as I anticipate to fulfill my dreams, especially meeting my soulmate and traveling abroad. Tomorrow may never be mine.
Fun Facts
The fear of having no cell-phone service, running out of battery, or losing sight of your phone is called Nomophobia, reportedly affecting 66% of people.
A single Google search needs more computing power than it took to send Apollo 11 to the moon. The Apollo computer was less equipped than a modern toaster.
Besides being some of the biggest names in the tech industry, HP, Apple, Google and Microsoft share another commonality. They all started in garages.
~Extracted from Codingforums.com
Health Tip
So many of us take for granted the wonderful construction of the human body and the workings of its various parts. Some of us even expect it to function efficiently with less than the minimum care and attention. Learn the much you can about your body and how the care of it can help to give you that greatest blessing of all - good health.
Wonders of the Modern World
The Simplon Tunnel
The Sky-scrapers of New York
The Boulder Dam of Colorado
The Panama Canal
The Golden Gate Bridge
The Taj Mahal at Agra in India
The North Sea Oil Drilling Rigs
Great Example for Politicians
"My life in politics was a joy. I loved campaigns and I loved governing. I always tried to keep things moving in the right direction, to give more people a chance to live their dreams, to lift people's spirits, and to bring them together. That's the way I kept score."
~Bill Clinton
Scientific Marvels
Space travel
Heart surgery
Fibre-optics communication
Concorde
Radios
Computers
Anesthetics
My Supreme Desire
Although I'd like to be rich and famous, my supreme desire is to be radiant: to radiate health, cheerfulness, calm courage and goodwill. I wish to live without fear, hate, guilt, worry and jealousy. I wish to be honest, natural, confident, clean in mind and body - ready to say "I do not know" if it be so and to treat all men with kindness - to meet any loss, failure, criticism and rejection unabashed and unafraid.
Greatest American Presidents
Abraham Lincoln
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Franklin Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Woodrow Wilson
Andrew Jackson
Making Peace With the Past
"Dwell not on your past. Use it to illustrate a point, then leave it behind. Nothing really matters except what you do now in this instant of time. From this moment onwards you can be an entirely different person, filled with love and understanding, ready with an outstretched hand, uplifted and positive in every thought and deed."
~Eileen Caddy
Toughest Colleges to Get Into
MIT
Princeton
Harvard
Yale
Stanford
Brown
Columbia
Why You Should Trust God
"Men and women who turn their lives over to God will find out that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He will deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities and pour out peace."
~Ezra Taft Benson
The 7 Greatest Scientists
Albert Einstein
Isaac Newton
Galileo Galilei
Nikola Tesla
Aristotle
Archimedes
Charles Darwin
You Matter
"Always be yourself. Never try to hide who you are. The only shame is to have shame. Always stand up for what you believe in. Always question what other people tell you. Never regret the past; it's a waste of time. There's a reason for everything. Every mistake, every moment of weakness, every terrible thing that has happened to you, grow from it. The only way you can ever get the respect of others is when you show them that you respect yourself and most importantly, do your thing and never apologize for being you."
~Unknown
The Most Industrialized Nations
United States
Japan
Germany
France
United Kingdom
Italy
Canada
Keys to Success
"...in his effort to withstand temptation, to economize, to exercise thrift, to disregard the superficial for the real - the shadow for the substance; to be great yet small, in his effort to be patient in the laying of a firm foundation; to so grow in skill and knowledge that he shall place his services in demand by reason of his intrinsic and superior worth. This is the key that unlocks every door of opportunity, and all others fail."
~Booker T. Washington
The 7 Social Sins
Politics without principle
Wealth without work
Pleasure without conscience
Knowledge without character
Commerce without morality
Worship without sacrifice
Science without humanity
Cherish What You Love
"Cherish your visions, cherish your ideals, cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts - for out of them will grow all heavenly environment, of these if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built."~James Allen
The World's Largest Cities
London in England
New York in the United States
Tokyo in Japan
Berlin in Germany
Chicago in the United States
Shanghai in China
Paris in France
Benefits of Optimism
"In terms of success, optimistic people out perform their pessimistic colleagues. Research shows that they are consistently promoted higher and make more money while working fewer hours than those who think pessimistically. Optimists also contribute more significantly to social progress. It is the optimists who start and run successful companies, who win elections and carry out reforms, and who make breakthroughs in the realms of science and technology."
~Pepe Minambo
The World's Greatest Lakes
Caspian Sea in the Commonwealth of Independent States, C.I.S. (formerly U.S.S.R)
Lake Superior in North America
Victoria Nyanza in Central Africa
Aral Sea in C.I.S.
Lake Huron in North America
Lake Michigan in North America
Demonstrating His Love
"Take your communication for instance - the way you address others. It ought to be with loving, gracious and edifying words. Never talk people down. Never use words that hurt and demean people. Communicate excellently with others without destroying their self-image or making them feel sorry for themselves. Talk to people in a way that they never forget the excellence of your words, the love and grace of Christ that you communicated. It's how God wants us to love."
