What’s holding up your dreams? What’s your hang up? Every one of us has something that we aren’t so very proud of. Most of the time we have tiny, little, old nasty secrets and stuff hiding away in our closets. We feel weighted down so much so that we plant our focus on the mistakes of our past instead of living for today. We pile our closets with skeletons and remnants of past hurts and failures. You know what I’m talking about don’t you? I mean those old secret “skeletons.” The habits, the mess, the junk, the baggage, and all kinds of stuff that we keep hidden away and nobody knows about these skeletons. Oops, I’m mistaken. There is someone who knows all about those secret skeletons safely tucked away. That is the Sovereign One. In Beautiful Ugly, Envy Wilson discovers this truth. 
Like Envy, we often times can do quite a good job keeping these skeletons away from our friends, co-workers, church members and even family. We sometimes keep them hidden so long that we even forget they’re in the closet. Something happens though, and we find ourselves opening the closet up and the skeleton raises its ugly body and hits us head first! We want to get rid of the skeleton. We want to push it aside and pursue bigger and better things for our lives. We want to be able to put the skeleton behind us so that we can focus on our dreams and the desires of our hearts. We want to forget all the past mistakes and bad choices we‘ve made in life. Some people happen to believe that when we accept the Savior as our Father, the skeletons disappear too. But we quickly find out that it’s not always that simple. God promises to make us new creatures inside but the enemy tries to keep us remembering just how filthy our rags really are.
It’s time to take a look at your life. It’s time to do some housekeeping. It’s time to discover whatever it is that’s keeping you away from what God has called you to do. It’s time to get rid of the skeletons that have taken up residence in your closet of life. Clean out your closets of self-condemnation and self-defeat. Work on establishing those things that will help you step into God’s plan for your life. If you have been called to write, start calling yourself a ‘writer.’ Learn all there is about the writing process. Join writing and critique groups online and in your local area. Participate in writers’ conferences and events. Writing is just an example since I am a writer, but the list is endless. God has intricately designed our lives to do and perform marvelous things!
There’s even more good news. God has paid it all on the cross for you and for me. He paid for our past skeletons, our present skeletons and our future skeletons! We can be confident that even though the skeletons keep trying to reveal themselves in our lives, that we have the power to cast those skeletons out of the closet! God tells us that He is our light and our salvation. Whom shall we Fear? God tells us that greater is He that is in us than He that is in the world! Hallelujah, glory to God. Therefore, be courageous, be of good cheer. Go after the desires of your heart. Seek to walk in your destiny. Cherish life and living by doing and being all that you have been called to do and be. There’s so much that is yet to be done while we are on this earth. There are many books to be written. There are many songs that need singing. There are many dances to be danced. There are many speeches that need to be made. There are many lives to be touched. There are places yet to be seen. There are roads yet to be traveled. In Beautiful Ugly, Layla Hobbs learns these lessons after going experience a tragedy in her life.
So, clean out your closetful of skeletons, today. Not tomorrow, because tomorrow is not promised to any man. Today is the day to release self-condemnation over the mistakes of the past. Today is the day to walk into your future with your head held high and your face toward the sky.
Now is the time to walk mighty in the spirit and go forth. Now is the time to drag those skeletons out of your closet. Throw them away with the rest of the junk that has accumulated in your closet of life. Now is the time to fulfill your dreams!

About Beautiful Ugly

 
Three friends with different struggles rely on God and each other to get by. Layla Hobbs has so much to offer, including a beautiful singing voice, but obesity and low self-esteem hold her back from life and finding true love. Envy Wilson has always been Layla’s backbone. But what about her own dark secrets? She won’t share them with anyone, and it’s starting to eat away at her from the inside. And then there’s Kacie Mayweather. Stricken with cerebral palsy, she’s had her share of men—five baby daddies for six children, in fact. But she’s never had one man to call her own. They’ll need plenty of faith and support from each other to see the real beauty that lies within each one of them and fulfill their deepest desires at last.

Win an autographed copy of
Beautiful Ugly by Shelia Lipsey

What was Fantasia Runsome’s profession? Tell us the title of the book.

About the Author
Author Shelia E. Lipsey is a multi-award winning author. Her novels are available at most bookstores nationwide as well as online. Lipsey’s books have been called gripping, life-altering, memorable and realistic. Lipsey was recently awarded the 2009 Top Shelf Award for Beautiful Ugly by Black Pearls Magazine. She also won 2009 Shades of Romance Readers’ Choice Awards for My Son’s Wife in the following categories: Author of the Year, Christian fiction Book of the Year, Christian Romance of the Year, Best Book Cover of the Year, Best Fiction Book of the Year, among several other awards for her novels, Into Each Life and Sinsatiable.

Lipsey is the proud mother of two sons and the grandmother of three blessed young men. She is president of UCHisGloryBookClub.net, founder of Living Your Dreams Now a non-profit organization and MAAW (Memphis African American Writers).

Read an excerpt and check the tour schedule at http://bit.ly/BeautifulUgly

For more information, visit www.shelialipsey.com.

Watch the Book Trailer

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Tiffany Easley, a Victorious Living for Women contributing writer, stops by to tell us what she has learned about living victoriously.

Do you desire to know how to live victoriously; well listen closely as I share with you what God had shown me?
1. To live victoriously you must have a kingdom mindset. You cannot think as the world does, but you instead have to think Kingdom, knowing that God will do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we could ask or think.
2. Look to God knowing that he is the author and finisher of your faith; he has given you the victory! You are deemed to be the victor in all that you do.
3. Once you catch the movement of victory and begin to embrace the movement of victory share and give forth to others in the Kingdom
Live victoriously, we win in 2010.

About the Book   

Victorious Living for Women is filled with the inspiration, wisdom and pathways to victory of 42 incredible women who share stories of their life experiences, from their heart to yours. They have endured personal pain and have come through empowered, encouraged and victorious.

As they take you on their personal journeys you will find inspiration, encouragement and blueprints for victory embedded in each chapter. You will discover principles for transforming your life. You can learn how to overcome fear, find you purpose, define your destiny, recover from divorce, heal your heart, physical healing, dealing with the loss of loved ones and so much more.

This stellar assembly of women with inspiring true-life stories will captivate you throughout each page as you read how their lives were transformed from anger to joy, disappointment to destiny and trial to victory. Their candor, wisdom and inspiration can help you to pursue your path of becoming a victorious woman. 

Read an excerpt and check the tour schedule at
http://bit.ly/VictoriousLivingForWomenTour.

Purchase the book at  Amazon

 Jacquelin Thomas is an award winning, bestselling author with twenty-nine titles in print. Her books have garnered several awards, including two EMMA awards, the Romance In Color Reviewers Award, Readers Choice Award and the Atlanta Choice Award in the Religious & Spiritual category. Jacquelin was a 2005 honoree at the Houston Black Film Festival for the movie adaptation of her novel, Hidden Blessings. She was the first recipient to receive the Writers Achievement Award at the North Carolina Book Festival in Winston-Salem.      

Although Jacquelin initially published in the romance genre, she decided to follow the call on her heart to write Christian fiction because she seeks to write books that will touch your heart and uplift your spirits with tales of characters who yearn to have an intimate relationship with God.  Committed to writing books that glorify God and her growing teen audience, Jacquelin published the first of her Young Adult Inspirational Fiction series titled Simply Divine in October 2006.  Her second book in the series, Divine Confidential was nominated for a 2008 NAACP Image Award.  She has since gone on to publish two more books in the series.  When asked why she is so passionate about writing teen novels, Thomas shares that teens are confronted with so much—sex, drugs, violence and abuse, physically and mentally. They need to not only listen to what the world says about these things but also to what the Bible says.

Jacquelin is a member of the National Writers Union, Romance Writers of America and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. She is happily married to her best friend and is the proud mother of three children. Jacquelin and her family live in North Carolina.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Jana Collins loves her husband with all her heart. But what if love isn’t enough?

Marrying a handsome, wealthy lawyer and living in a Hollywood Hills mansion . . . it’s a dream come true for twenty-four-year-old Jana, from the moment Lawrence Collins swept her off her feet and into his luxurious world. True, she put her studies at a local Bible college on hold in order to wed after a six-month whirlwind romance. Beautiful and vivacious, with a stunning body, Jana knows men like Lawrence don’t come along every day, and she vows to be a perfect companion—the ideal wife—to this sexy, powerful man. But at what price?

From her wardrobe and hairstyle to her friends and her choice of church, Lawrence seems to want to change Jana into someone she’s not . . . and soon, the man Jana thought she knew will test her values and her faith with a shocking revelation that goes against everything she believes—how far will Jana be willing to go to keep the man she loves? With her “ideal” marriage falling apart, Jana—the real, modest, smart, and strong girl who knows what she stands for—must put her trust in God, and follow His guiding light out of the darkness of a broken relationship.

Drawing from a moving scripture tale with an insightful message for women today, Jacquelin Thomas delivers a provocative and enlightening new novel.

BOOK REVIEW

 The Ideal Wife kept me glued to the pages. It left me on the edge of my seat, I had to know what was going to happen next. Jacquelin Thomas has created strong characters that will draw you into their story. It will peak every emotion. This is an excellent read!

The Ideal Wife gets 5 Diamonds

♦♦♦♦♦ 

READ EXCERPT

The Ideal Wife by Jacquelin Thomas (excerpt) –

Follow the blog tour at http://bit.ly/TheIdealWife.

For more information about Jacquelin, visit her at http://www.jacquelinthomas.com/

How much time and energy do we waste trying to figure things out? Well, if you’re anything like most people the answer to that question is too much. While we’re trying to figure it out, God has already worked it out. I can imagine most people will read this and think ‘That’s easier said than done’. At times it may seem that way, but just because you can’t see Him working doesn’t mean that He isn’t. Isn’t it funny, we serve the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords but yet we like to tell him when and how to do the things we need him to do in our lives.

Enough is enough! It’s time for us to stop allowing the enemy to whip us raggedy with worry. This is our reminder to LET GO, AND LET GOD. Make a vow today to chill out, because God is in Control!