Today, my baby is one year old. Yeah! And it seems, according to my publisher that this, my third child, will be the most susccessful. Double Yeah! So to celebrate, I bought my baby a little chocolate cake and – because she is my girl – a Diet Coke, and we invited a few friends from different denominations to come and celebrate.
And it has been a year! It started with a starred review in Publishers Weekly and continued with articles in several papers, including the Grand Rapids Press, the Toledo Blade, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and the Jackson Citizen Patriot. More recently, Beliefnet.com has featured prayer bead galleries compiled by me and will mount a “how-to” gallery this month on making an Anglican rosary. I’ve been on radio and even a podcast! I’ve had a blast.
But the best thing of all has been hearing from people who find this blog. I never thought when I started this that I would make friends – I think real friends – with people I’ve never seen and never even heard their voices. We live all across the country but we are joined not just by out use of prayer beads, but by what I believe is a real caring for each other. You know who you are, you readers who I hear from all the time. Thank you, my friends. You have made all the hard work that went into this book and this blog so worth it.
So here is my prayer for the day – the first of my own composition that I offer here:
Dear Lord,
Thank you for the gifts you have given me that have helped me reach other people and find so many friends. In the coming year, please help me to find the inspiration, the purpose and the joy to do whatever may be “next” for me. I ask that you continue to keep all of us close to you and help usto see the clear path ahead. Amen.
(See why I don’t write my own prayers?)
happy b(ead)-day.
Kimberly, I think your prayer is lovely. Congratulations on the anniversary of your book and blog. I love both. I hope you’ve had a wonderful day of celebrating.
Congratulations on the first birthday of “Bead One, Pray Too” I thought you might be interested to hear that you have at least one fan on the other side of the pond in the UK. Anglican rosaries are not very well known over here yet. I discovered them 2 years ago when I was reading a discussion about prayer on the virtual church website St. Pixels and somebody said that they used an Anglican rosary and found it useful. I immediately was curious so used Google to find out more. I have made a lot of rosaries now; they are curiously addictive, and I was delighted to discover your book on Amazon last year and bought a copy. That led to your blog which I now regularly read. The book is excellent. It is so comprehensive with many ideas for prayers to use and details of several ways of making rosaries. It tells you just about all you need to know about rosaries or prayer beads.
Such a sweet and uplifting prayer! I like yours as much as anyone’s, and more than many.
Happy birthday, “Bead One, Pray Too!” Congratulations, Kimberly!!