This Little Light of Mine

Look, I wrote a book and it is amazing. I am trying to make money with it as well as help and encourage people who read it. It is the best book ever.
Why do I need to qualify my own book? I do think it is the best book ever. I wrote it and love it. It is something I made and it talks about my faith and my journey through life with a positive outcome. It is the best book ever. If you read it, you will feel that!
If everyone spends life comparing ourselves to others who we think are better, we will never rise. No, not better than others, but shine in our own way to our own audience. How can those who want to read my work read it if my shine is so dull it does not reflect light at all because I refuse to talk about it? So, I gonna let my light shine.

Following is an excerpt from  Moroni Saw Me. The days were no always bright in my life. God's hand in my making was always evident from the things I learned or thought I learned.

DAIRY QUEEN HEALS WOUNDS. During Mom’s hospitalization for some illness related to her heart (leaving us to the care of the husband) my stepfather showed his disdain for my personality. I gather my stepfather felt stress with the pressure of taking care of us while Mom recovered in the hospital. In a whirlwind of emotion, he paraded through our rental home going on about some item with which someone had tampered.
                 
Trying to show the seriousness of my not having tampered with that item, I said, "I didn't do it, and you could give me a lie detector test." 

It was clever to say, and an earnest expression of my innocence. He, however, had listened to my arrogant voice and condescending behavior for months I suppose—reaching his threshold for tolerance. Though I intended no condescension (at least that time) my stepdad understood it differently.

Charging into my room with a thick leather belt, he yelled, “You think you so smart? …always got something smart to say! Well, I’m tired of it!”

The man commenced beating me with the belt for old and new. Honestly, I thought he was mad, as in crazy, to attack me that way because he had never put his hands on me before that day to whup! He grabbed me once while he and Mom were dating, but he whupped me this time. I felt traumatized because it was my understanding that he did not have the right to whup me.

Crying, I tried to explain to him that I was not trying to be disrespectful. He did not want to hear it, and my kid-brain felt confused. My adult brain understands his frustration as I think back on the incident. Having children of my own, I understand wanting to discipline for old and new. I also understand that doing so is wrong. I am also my kids’ biological father who has been there from birth. He was not that to me.

The next day he bribed my brother and me with Dairy Queen food. Mom came home that day, which is why he wanted to butter us up. I remember telling my brother Reggie that it did not matter that he beat me because of that treat. It was a temporary balm to my wounded ego and body, but I did not in truth forgive or forget at that time.