Signs of Hope: Ways to Survive in an Unfriendly World is in Print

There is a new and exciting page added to the author page. You can now order the book, “Signs of Hope: Ways to Survive in an Unfriendly World,” right on this site. Just go to the “Bookstore,” and get one.

It won’t be available for another few days, so keep checking for the announcement that it is available.

It has been a long struggle to get to this point. I have been working on the book since 2001. It will be ten years next March.

It is worth every second. If the book can help one person then my times was not wasted.

Sorry this is such a short post. I have to post yet tonight on my blog, www.dailysignsofhope.com. I will have it ready in about an hour. Please check it out. The blog has been getting great reviews in that it has added 355 followers in just one year of existence. It also has been reaching out to those who suffer from anxiety, fear, self-doubt, depression, and the many other usual suspects.

God has blessed me a great deal since my days of having pity parties. I was pulled out of the muck and mire by our heavenly Father, and He has been holding my hand ever since.

Again, please keep checking back here for the latest on the book, “Signs of Hope: Ways to Survive in an Unfriendly World.”

I Wanted to Check out of this Hotel Called Earth

I will be changing the format on my author site. I need to get back to sharing with you about my book, Signs of Hope: Ways to Survive in an Unfriendly World.

In about two weeks the book will be officially in the marketplace.

It has been a hard, long road I have traveled to get to this point. I started writing, Signs of Hope: Ways to Survive in an Unfriendly World, almost ten years ago. It will be ten years next March.

Why did I start writing the book? I am glad you asked.

I was at the end of my rope. I didn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. I felt the ship sinking and I didn’t have a life jacket.

I was having weekly pity parties, and no one was showing up to help me celebrate.  I was fighting self-doubt, anxiety, fear, failure, depression, hopelessness, and the many other usual suspects.

I was ready to check out of the hotel called earth.

I was in a school parking lot on March 31st 2001 sitting in my Ford Explorer considering suicide. I didn’t want to face the trails of life any more.

I had retired from teacher, and was going from one job after another searching for something that I could feel good about after retirement. Nothing was working for me. I failed at each job I partook in. I even started my own business of find funds for businesses when they needed some while waiting for their invoices from costumers to come in. That failed because I couldn’t see taking money from them when they desperately needed cash at that time.

Every job I tried I needed to try to convince people of getting something they may not need. I worked at a department store in the housewares department. I sold pots and pans, coffeemakers, knifes, etc. I was pretty good at it. I even earned a seven day free trip to a health spa for me and my wife because of my efforts.

One Christmas Eve, I was working the late shift. I noticed that there weren’t any women shopping in my area. It was all guys desperately looking for something for their wives at the last minute. I had a field day. I came up to a guy and asked him if I could help him, and he said, Yes! please find something for my wife for christmas. I can’t think of anything! I saw dollar signs in my head, and directed him to the sets of pans. I convinced him his wife would love a $500.00 set of new pans.

There were several men just like him wandering around, lost in my section. I sold something to eveyone of them. I set a record for sales that night. They bought from me because I was  a man and they trusted me.

I went home that night and wondered, What have I done? I sold a bunch of men something their wives probably didn’t need just so I could make another sale. I was very upset with myself, and quite the job a couple of weeks later.

( Men…never buy your wife something for the kitchen at Christmas. Go down to the jewelry department. You will be rewarded much more if you do that.)

So I went on like this, going from one job after another in sales. The last sales job I had was in leasing, and the same nightmare was forming while doing that. I was trying to have someone lease something when it may be better to buy it outright.

I hit rock bottom on March 31st. I drove to that parking lot I told you about. I was sobbing so much I could hardly see out the window of the rig. I stopped and parked, and was on verge of doing something very drastic.

I finally cried out to God, “I can’t take this anymore!” There was a sudden calmness inside my rig, and in me. The air even seemed different. It was as if God was saying, “It is about time you came back to me. Now let me carry you the rest of the way.”

The rest is history. I started writing Signs of Hope: Ways to Survive in an Unfriendly World, a couple of weeks later.

It took me almost ten years to get my thoughts down, and organized. There were doubts along they way. Satan did every he could to stop me, but I prevailed, and now you have to chance to read my story and learn for yourself how to survive in a not so friendly world.

I hope you will read it and let me know what you think of it. I have been blessed with some very impressive endorsements written in the book. I have had many authors and important people in the publishing world recommend the book.

You can preorder Signs of Hope: Ways to Survive in an Unfriendly World, and save 27% by going to www.winepresspublishing.com. Go to the top and click on “bookstore.” Write in the search area, “Signs of Hope.” That will take you right to my book page. The book will only cost $14.59 there for a short time, and then it will be $19.99 once it is public. Take advantage of that now.

God bless you nad NEVER give up. Fight back the attacks of Satan and turn to God to supply you with all the armor you need to survive.

 

Keep on the Path you are on, and God will see you Through

Perseverance and Persistence are my Middle Names

In March of 2001 I was lost and confused. I didn’t know my purpose or my goals. I was depressed, and was covered with self doubt.  I was on the edge of destruction. I sat in my Ford Explorer at a local high school parking lot, and was ready to leave this wretched world.

I finally yelled out to God, “I can’t take this anymore!” There was a sudden change in the air inside the Explorer. I felt a calmness that I hadn’t felt for weeks. It was as if God was saying, “It is about time you came back to me. Now let me carry you the rest of the way.”

I went home and sat at my desk. I couldn’t understand why God saved my life. I opened the desk drawer, and in it was a book I was working on called, “Close Encounters of the Cash Flow Kind.”  I was working on it because I had a cash flow funding company that I had let fail.

At first I was ready to throw it into the round file, but I decided to open it and what I saw amazed me. Each chapter I had in the book could easily be converted over to a Christian self help book. Some of the chapter titles were. “Need Directions?” “It is my Way or the Highway.”  “You can do all Things.”

You can see that each of those had a meaning for reaching out to the lost. I started writing the next day, which was April Fools Day. Good day to start don’t you think?

Over the next few years I wrote, rewrote and wrote again until I thought it was a presentable book. Then I went to several critique groups, and found out it wasn’t even close. So I went back to the table and revised several more times.

Then it happened! On January 15, 2010, I signed a publisher’s contract. I look back on that day in the Ford Explorer as a time I had to go through. God was always with me and He knew what my purpose was even though I didn’t.

The book is called, “Signs of Hope: Ways to Survive in an Unfriendly World.” The sub title may be changed by the publisher.

It reaches out to those who suffer with anxiety, fear, self doubt, depression, addictions, hopelessness, and the many other usual suspects.

The publication date will be near the end of August or the first part of September.

For those of you that are discouraged and think that God hasn’t been there in your writing or in your life in general. He is there!! I know that sometimes He allows the storms to come. He won’t take them away, but He will help calm the storm. He will never let you face anything you can’t handle yourself.

Now for the words perseverance and persistence: I could have folded up that day in that school parking lot, and I wouldn’t be writing this. I could have given up many times during the 10 year waiting period that God allowed me to have.

I now know that God’s timing is perfect. I will see that in how things go when the book actually hits the streets. Never give up! Never! God has a plan for each of us, and it is up to each of us to seek what that is. Ask God to reveal what He wants you to d in life. Then act on it, and don’t worry how long it takes to accomplish that goal.

God bless…

Doug