PAULA NEAL MOONEY

"Stop pointing your finger at others as if they had done something wrong," he tells me . "Stop saying harmful things about them." Even if they lie about me, God will rescue me. Even if they cast me in the role of lying witch, and call around and try to make others believe I was the antagonist in a scene akin to fine-ass Joseph fleeing from Potiphar's horny and lonely wife. Even if the truth was more like Satan trying to create another drama involving King David and Bathsheba -- a storyline that King Jesus swooped in and rewrote like a rescuing Savior in the second act, in order that we'd never taste third act tragedies nor the sexual immorality that has consumed other folks. Like a sheep led to the slaughter, I should continue to sit back and not open my mouth. "I was on the humble, you on every station..." That's what Lauryn "L Boogie" Hill sang about her former band mates, as she waited through the "Ghetto Su...

This pic of my swollen jaw doesn't do it justice. The left side of my cheek reminds me of Eddie Murphy as a Klump, wearing a fat suit. Thank our Most High God that it's better than it was turning out to be, as the swelling crawled under my neck Friday night. A return visit to the dentist who sawed my wisdom tooth in four parts in order to get the thing out of my skull showed lots of concern -- you know it's serious when he gives you his cell phone number and tells you to come back Monday, informing his assistant I could come back anytime I want. Ah well, I know it's not just the strong painkillers and antibiotics that's causing this peace in the pit of my belly. Forgiving the folks who don't even say they're sorry... and letting the past go That's one of the main things I took away from watching Bishop T.D. Jakes' message this morning streaming online as I played "Bedroom Baptist" today, not wanting to risk driving 33 minut...

He was brilliant and beautiful, endowed with the sort of je ne sais quoi factor that drew men and women to him. The way he literally sang out "I'm not fearing any man...mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord" whilst he was sick with the flu and collapsed into the arms of his cohorts afterward once again touched my soul. He cheated on his wife...and they sent her the tapes Yes, MLK cheated on his wife -- a wife who loved him so much, it was reported by Maya Angelou that Coretta said his name so softly and sweetly...like Mah-tin... It was said that when J. Edgar Hoover had Dr. King's hotel rooms bugged with not only audio but video equipment that caught him on tape with various women in sexually compromising positions -- and then sent those tapes to Coretta -- it crushed her. And yet, I was just thinking to myself: God still used him mightily, despite his flaws. There is hope for all of us. Whether the sexual sin somehow contributed to...

Can you see him? I've known him for a long time. He's known me even longer. But for the past 7 weeks, I've been sneaking away to meet him in various places after I drop off the kids at school in the morning. Unlike singer Billy Paul, who met his married Mrs. Jones "every day at the same cafe," I meet my love all around town. "Why would you meet at the same coffee shop every day?" I ask rhetorically. "Wouldn't that get boring and dangerous -- because people would begin to recognize you two?" "We met every day at the same cafe..." Let me show you where to go... "Where should we meet today?" I ask him. "Let me show you...let me show you where to go..." he sings back to me in his Michael Jackson falsetto, repeating the lyrics he gave the King of Pop. Then he breaks into that "take me to church" style "a-uh-hun-a-uh-hun" riff that MJ did in the song that lets you know he...

I guess this post won't leave me alone, so let me write it out and get back to writing my exciting new Kindle book about real people actually making real money online. One time I must've been moaning to a friend about my husband -- about him not coming to church with me as often as I'd like him to -- and perhaps I was playing out the scenarios of what it would be like to free myself "like a gazelle" and be married to one of those guys who drapes his arm around his wife in the pews. "Another woman will have your saved husband..." Then she said something -- one of those phrases that your friends can say to you -- those "unintentional lyricists" and unpublished writers that give you some of your best quotes unknowingly. It stuck with me for years and years. I think she may have talked about Warren Sapp or Warren Moon (probably the former whom I just saw Bishop T.D. Jakes talking to in the front row of The Potter's House New Year...

Seriously, the thought that the woman caught in adultery probably had sex with a Pharisee made me laugh out loud this morning as I watched the below segment. Of course I've heard it mentioned before how odd it was that the Pharisees dragged out the woman caught in adultery -- naked and ashamed -- alone and brought her before Jesus, and people have noted that they didn't drag the man out with her to Christ. But when Pastor Joseph Prince surmised that it may have been a Pharisee she was in bed with, that was a thought process I don't remember hearing before, and it made me crack up: Good sermons today, good study, though I was restless with my "Seeking Him" until I got out of the car and hiked and just breathed in fresh air and hilltop sunshine at high points in the woods. But there was a theme about Pharisee stuff -- and looking for any ways within myself that I should lay down and let God replace with better stuff. Okay, back to making the donuts and m...

If you could see how I am typing this post, you would laugh. I am holding my iPad 2 up with my thighs as I use my Logitech keyboard to type. This is because I actually spilled grapefruit juice on my 2-month-old Macbook Air yesterday -- and I tried to dry it off and it was working well at first, but when I came back home later last night after a nice New Year's Eve night with the family at Champs in Cleveland and a Muppets movie at Valley View, the Mac was going wonky. I couldn't even get past the password screen that locks the Mac, because it either types multiple letters or the wrong ones, I guess, or none. I actually cried -- and combined with other negative thoughts trying to dominate my brain, I thought of nearly ending it. Okay, but those aren't my thoughts, I know that now. When I start going down the road of berating myself for being such an f-up... I know that's not the real me. God is getting me out...again. After time locked away in the bathroom,...