Welcome my friends to season 3 of the Determined to Dance podcast. My prayer is that you’ll be encouraged to persevere daily in our chaotic world. Today’s episode, Stay Determined to Dance, encourages everyone to move out on the dance floor of life.

Show Notes: Stay Determined to Dance

I need to step back for a moment, back to March of 2021. The year when this podcast began. Its creation has involved study, learning tech stuff, lots and lots of it, and perseverance. Think back with me to the first episode. I said, “I’ll never forget the day that the thought, the God-nudge flooded my mind in that deep, quiet part within. God whispered that I had marched for Him and that was good but now he wanted me to dance with him instead.

Dancing, the kind I knew God was talking about, would be very different. I was being asked to join and not take the lead. I wouldn’t know exactly where on the dance floor I might end up. Maybe a quiet corner, or in a group of other dancers, or even in the center of the room, drawing every eye to us. I would follow God’s dance, His lead, His music, and go to the part of the dance floor where He led. At times, I could be asked to sit out a dance and rest.”

I didn’t know how true those words would become. God has taught me so much through the creation of the podcast. I have learned to dance better and freer than ever before. Even though many circumstances for me, probably for you too, have been so difficult since March 2021.

For me, it’s time to sit out for a while. Not from life or God but from podcasting. About halfway through this season, God impressed on me that it’s time to take a break.

Rest. Recharge. I’ve dealt with health issues this year, more than usual, and I need time to recover. Focus on me. So hard for a driven person to do. But God is helping and I’m trying so hard to listen to his voice. Follow his lead. And quit running off on my own.

You can enjoy all three seasons of the Determined to Dance podcast on my website. Just check out the label “podcast” on the menu. And share the episodes with your friends. They are short, encouraging, and certain to brighten your day.

I’m also so excited to mention that my YA novel, Smoking Flax, will be released in January 2024. I can’t wait to share Reed and Talitha’s story with you. With interesting characters like Mamaw Cora Belle, Poppi, and Aunt Lula to round up the book's cast, how could we not be entertained?

Think Southern time-shifting. Yes, that’s a thing I made up but it’s still a thing.

DISNEY’S THE KID MEETS BACK TO THE FUTURE.

Southern-style. My story takes place in 1984 and 1978. Here’s a little more:
Almost nineteen-year-old Reed Anderson wants to belong in a world where he hasn’t always fit. Three days after graduation, he decides to ride a bus back to Louisiana and deal with the events of his thirteenth summer once and for all. Back then, he’d stood up to his abusive Pa, protecting Momma and his sister, taking control of his life. But who was the faded image of the child he saw that day? Aunt Lula predicted his life would shift and change. Something about space-time-continuum and the fourth dimension. He tucks her words in his heart. If he survives the shift, this could be his chance to start over. But the ghost child still haunts his dreams. Even though six years have passed, does he want to confront the lies he’s always believed?
Do you want just a little more? Let me share the first scene in the story. (Subject to further edits)

Chapter One

A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench;

He shall bring forth judgment unto truth. (Isaiah 42:3 KJV)

May 27, 1984

I turned Aunt Lula’s Dodge Aspen off the gravel road onto the driveway leading to Golden Marais Baptist Church. The mimosas had grown tall since I’d last been here, the two magnolias missing entirely. The sun peeked above the horizon, but daylight was not my friend.