There are always two sides to every story….
Recently I adopted the mantra that every circumstance is an opportunity to think brilliantly. Why? Because wrong thinking makes way for negative behavior and I do not want my behavior to be negative. I have learned over the years and especially most recently that there is a reason the Bible tells us to take every thought captive. Our thoughts can advance us or hinder us. I have been taking a lot of thoughts captive over the past two weeks…and sometimes I don’t even know what to think but I do believe it is impossible to stop thinking altogether. I’ve tried that before, to sit still and clear my mind. It’s quite an impossible task, especially with a five year old somewhere in the house.
There are two sides to every story so I tried to place myself in the shoes of those who betrayed me. I wanted to look at the situation from their side to see if I could somehow understand their thought process but it was dark on that side and I couldn’t for the life of me see how they justified their actions. So, since I am responsible for my behavior and how I respond to certain situations I decided not to dwell on the hurt, the betrayal or the pain, but to just move ahead with life and my dreams. To forgive everyone everything and to get on with my life. Why? Because I do not have the right to be wounded but the right to be healed. Basically I haven’t got time for the pain. My starting place determines my outcome and my starting place is Christ in me the full expectation of glory. I asked for the mind of Christ in this situation and I immediately received peace. I remembered one of my favorite selections from the book The Alchemist;
Before a dream is realized the soul of the world tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we have learned as we move toward that dream. That’s the point at which most people give up. It’s the point at which as we say in the language of the desert, one dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon
I have been dreaming for a long time now. I have a calling on my life and I am working hard toward that calling. My mother told me I was delusional, I don’t think I am. It’s a little thing called faith and without faith it’s impossible to see what God is doing. Maybe that’s why I wake up every morning with a huge surge of joy because everyday I live is a day closer to this dream and every day closer is a fresh and new encounter with God as he leads me to it.
I think that’s a pretty brilliant thought..
Denise Daisy promotes her latest novel and takes you into the world of The Haret
Friday, July 29, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Sneak Peak First Ten Pages
The Haret
Chapter One
“You will have to speak up ma’am I can barely hear you.”
Felicitas slipped into her spacious closet and closed the door behind her. The last thing she wanted was for someone to overhear her conversation, especially her father who was in the next room.
“Is it possible to get a false positive on a pregnancy test?” There, she had asked it; hopefully the woman on the other end heard this time and would not ask her to repeat it again.
“Well, anything is possible but it’s not likely.” The woman’s voice cracked when she spoke. “Positive results are usually pretty accurate. Now I’ve heard of a false negative but never heard of a false positive.”
Felicitas bit her lower lip dissatisfied with the woman’s answer and tried again.
“Well… I take over the counter prenatal vitamins to make my hair grow, would that alter the results?”
She regretted asking the question as soon as it slipped from her lips. The woman was sure to think she was insane but she was desperate.
“No, those are just vitamins hon; they have no bearing on the test result. You can come into the clinic for a blood test just to make sure.”
“Do I need an appointment?”
“No you can walk in. We are open until six.”
Felicitas hung up the phone and sighed while staring at the chic wardrobe hanging in her closet. The small room resembled a fashionable boutique with rows of clothing in various colors and print all with matching handbags, shoes and jewelry of which most still had the price tags attached. Her mother was devoted to shopping arriving home every evening carrying boxes tied with silk ribbons and colorful paper bags from the elite boutiques. Felicitas doubted she would live long enough to wear everything her mother purchased for her.
She ran her fingers across the soft suede of a cute little skirt she had yet to wear and wondered how long it would fit if indeed she was pregnant. She stood from the plush divan and wrapped the test stick revealing a bright pink positive symbol, in a paper towel and then shoved it into her purse. She must be discreet and dispose of it at the clinic, not at home. She couldn’t take a chance of someone finding it in the trash. An item such as a used pregnancy test had no place in the home of Melvin Rebold; the towns’ most respected minister.
Within minutes she pulled into a parking spot in front of Gourmet Mudd, the local coffee shop where she would be meeting Ian an hour from now. She dare not park at the clinic someone could easily spot her white convertible out front. True she wasn’t the only person in town with a white mustang but she was definitely the only person in town with the customized licensed plates PURITY.
She would have more than enough time to walk two blocks to the clinic, have her blood drawn and hike back. Besides, Ian was always late.
She slung her backpack over her shoulder, grabbed a hand held recorder and headed toward the small medical building. If anyone happened to ask, she was conducting an interview for an article she was writing on teen pregnancy. Her stomach churned, she wanted to vomit. She hoped it was because of nerves and not the dreaded morning sickness.
“Felicitas Rebold.”
The woman nearly shouted her name. She tossed the worn magazine back upon the stack of faded periodicals, relieved the waiting room was empty. Not many people frequented this particular clinic since the newer medical offices had opened across town. The elderly nurse with varicose veins poking through her white stockings escorted her into the low lit examining room. She flipped the switch on the wall and mumbled something about the florescent lights needing to be replaced and then left the room.
Felicitas took a seat on the examining table crumbling the stiff paper. She shivered. Although the room was cold it was her nerves that caused her to tremble. She despised getting her blood drawn. She had a deep hatred of needles but even now she knew her fear today was not the dreaded stabbing into her veins; it was the fact that she had taken four different brands of pregnancy test and all four had come back positive. Being the founder and president of her high schools Pure Until Marriage club and finding out you are pregnant still wasn’t what frightened her. It was the fact that she had never had sex, nor had she ever come close yet all her pregnancy tests were positive and she was experiencing all the early symptoms of pregnancy. That is what terrified her.
“You the young lady who called earlier?” The nurse asked re-entering the room and tying the rubber band above Felicitas elbow. She nodded and stared at the name Betty printed on the ID hanging around her neck. She couldn’t watch and if she did she would vomit. Her nausea was elevating by the second. A quick stabbing, pain, dizziness, her body began to sway.
“You feeling ok?”
Betty’s voice seemed very far away. The flickering yellow lights grew dim. Felicitas felt cold hands push her back on the table.
“I got a fainter!”
Betty yelling down the hall was the last thing Felicitas heard before she blacked out.
CHAPTER TWO
Ian scanned the dimly lit dining room of the Gourmet Mudd. There was only one face he was looking for and he usually had no trouble finding her in a crowd because to him she stood out like a flower in a field full of weeds. It was her long auburn waves falling all the way to her waist and surrounding her petite frame that he noticed first. Then of course her joyful laughter usually gave her away and if there was a crowd gathered around he generally found her in the middle, always the source of everyone’s attention.
She wasn’t inside and that was strange because her car was parked out front and they had made plans to meet here. He checked the time on his cell. He was a little early and figured Felicitas might be in the restroom talking with some poor soul like she did so many times when one of the girls in her purity club had given in to her lustful passions and slept with her boyfriend only to be jilted by him a week later. Then and only then was there any remorse for the action and the girl would spend hours crying over her lost virginity and Felicitas would spend hours trying to encourage her.
Ian went ahead and ordered Felicitas her favorite hot apple cider and grabbed their corner table. He hadn’t been sitting very long before Catlin helped herself to the chair across from him obviously taking advantage of the fact Felicitas wasn’t there yet.
Ian sighed and realized he would have to put up with Catlin’s flirting and desperate attempts to steal him for herself. He didn’t think she was very pretty and her voice annoyed him but she was a big fan of his band and promoted them shamelessly so he endured her for that reason alone. He often wondered how she would react if he told her she couldn’t compare at all to Felicitas and that her thin fried overly bleached hair and fake tan repulsed him not to mention the fact that he knew she would give herself to him in a moment if he asked her too and he often wondered why it was the undesirable girls that gave it way so freely. Felicitas was different. Her soul was as pure as her body and it was her body that he craved. To him it was the perfect specimen of feminine beauty and unfortunately off limits. It was the standard she had set for herself and being her boyfriend he was bound by them. He spent the better part of a year begging her to give in a little but she held true to her desire to remain pure and reminding him how great it would be on their wedding night should they wait. She was a great kisser and fortunately engaged in that quite freely with him but as soon as his hands began to stray she would cut the passion instantly leaving him hurting and he often wondered how she could be so strong and stop her desires so easily.
Catlin leaned too far across the table interrupting his fantasies of Felicitas and trying to show him what little cleavage she had. It was a new record for her, less than thirty seconds at the table and she had already disgusted him.
“Hey Ian.” she said leaning over. “I’m coming to your show tonight. I got a fake ID.”
“That’s great.” He said flashing a phony smile.
“I offered to get Taz one so she could come too but she said no. Hope you’re not too disappointed.”
Ian sipped his cider and looked over the dimly lit room for Felicitas again.
“No. I’m not disappointed. I don’t like her coming to the clubs when I play. They guys there are pigs and especially the men at the over twenty one clubs. They all try and pick up on her while I’m on stage playing and I can’t do anything about it. It’s torture so I told her to stay here and go to the game.”
Catlin fluffed her hair with her hands and tilted her head grinning at Ian.
“So you gonna protect me tonight if I need it?”
He figured a few desperate guys who had a couple of drinks in them might try and pick up on Catlin after all she seemed like the typical bar girl looking for a one night stand. High school girls annoyed him, they were all the same and he wanted her to leave and he wanted his lovely Felicitas to be the one leaning toward him revealing too much of her ivory breast and flirting with him while her cornflower blue eyes danced in laughter.
CHAPTER THREE
“If she doesn’t come back to us soon get the smelling salts. I’ve never seen one stay out so long.”
The voice switched to masculine, “Can you hear me?” A light pierced her eye. Felicitas stirred blinking at the brightness of it.
“It’s alright Miss Rebold; you fainted while Betty here was drawing your blood. Are you feeling okay now?”
Felicitas focused on the faces watching her. An aging doctor in a white coat leaned over her peering at her through a pair of black horned rimmed glasses sitting cock-eyed on his nose.
“I’m okay. I always faint when I get my blood drawn.”
Betty unloaded a small bundle on the metal tray beside the examining table. “Should have warned me. You almost caused me to break the needle off falling backwards like that.”
Felicitas glanced at the package. The writing on the outside read: Now That You Are Pregnant. She groaned and Betty noticed.
“Yes honey, it was positive. No doubt about it.”
Felicitas sat up slowly.
“But that’s impossible. I can’t be pregnant.”
“All teenagers think it’s impossible to get pregnant, but when you have sex you take a chance.”
“That’s just it. I’ve never had sex. I am a virgin.”
The elderly colleagues exchanged glances. Dr. Garrison took a seat on his stool and rolled over to the examining table. He adjusted his white lab coat then attempted to straighten his glasses.
“Miss Rebold let me enlighten you on the reproductive system. It is possible to get pregnant without penetration. It can happen in heavy foreplay, as long as semen enters the….”
Felicitas shivered in disgust. She was a straight A student, biology being one of her best subjects. She didn’t need a lesson on sex education from someone’s grandfather.
“I know how it works.” She surprised herself at her disrespectful tone. “What I am trying to tell you is that I have never done any of that….ever.” She scanned their faces hoping for some sort of answer.
“Miss Rebold, do you have a boyfriend?”
“Yes”
“Do you kiss your boyfriend?”
“Of course.”
“Have you ever made out?”
“Kind of…I mean yes…but all we did was kiss and not even that much. I am a stickler on keeping my purity and not going too far. It’s very important to me and he knows that and we have never….”
“Do you drink alcohol?”
“I am under age.”
“I didn’t ask you how old you were I asked if…..”
“No! I don’t drink. Never have. I know what you’re getting at but you’re wrong. Listen to me, I have never had sex, never even come close and there is no chance my drink was ever spiked or anything like that. I make sure not to put myself in those situations.”
Dr. Garrison slapped his hands on his knees and wheeled himself back over to the desk to retrieve her chart. “Call the pope Betty; we have another immaculate conception on our hands.”
Betty cackled like an old bird. “Lord have mercy!”
Felicitas jumped from the examining table avoided the small package and headed for the door.
Chapter One
“You will have to speak up ma’am I can barely hear you.”
Felicitas slipped into her spacious closet and closed the door behind her. The last thing she wanted was for someone to overhear her conversation, especially her father who was in the next room.
“Is it possible to get a false positive on a pregnancy test?” There, she had asked it; hopefully the woman on the other end heard this time and would not ask her to repeat it again.
“Well, anything is possible but it’s not likely.” The woman’s voice cracked when she spoke. “Positive results are usually pretty accurate. Now I’ve heard of a false negative but never heard of a false positive.”
Felicitas bit her lower lip dissatisfied with the woman’s answer and tried again.
“Well… I take over the counter prenatal vitamins to make my hair grow, would that alter the results?”
She regretted asking the question as soon as it slipped from her lips. The woman was sure to think she was insane but she was desperate.
“No, those are just vitamins hon; they have no bearing on the test result. You can come into the clinic for a blood test just to make sure.”
“Do I need an appointment?”
“No you can walk in. We are open until six.”
Felicitas hung up the phone and sighed while staring at the chic wardrobe hanging in her closet. The small room resembled a fashionable boutique with rows of clothing in various colors and print all with matching handbags, shoes and jewelry of which most still had the price tags attached. Her mother was devoted to shopping arriving home every evening carrying boxes tied with silk ribbons and colorful paper bags from the elite boutiques. Felicitas doubted she would live long enough to wear everything her mother purchased for her.
She ran her fingers across the soft suede of a cute little skirt she had yet to wear and wondered how long it would fit if indeed she was pregnant. She stood from the plush divan and wrapped the test stick revealing a bright pink positive symbol, in a paper towel and then shoved it into her purse. She must be discreet and dispose of it at the clinic, not at home. She couldn’t take a chance of someone finding it in the trash. An item such as a used pregnancy test had no place in the home of Melvin Rebold; the towns’ most respected minister.
Within minutes she pulled into a parking spot in front of Gourmet Mudd, the local coffee shop where she would be meeting Ian an hour from now. She dare not park at the clinic someone could easily spot her white convertible out front. True she wasn’t the only person in town with a white mustang but she was definitely the only person in town with the customized licensed plates PURITY.
She would have more than enough time to walk two blocks to the clinic, have her blood drawn and hike back. Besides, Ian was always late.
She slung her backpack over her shoulder, grabbed a hand held recorder and headed toward the small medical building. If anyone happened to ask, she was conducting an interview for an article she was writing on teen pregnancy. Her stomach churned, she wanted to vomit. She hoped it was because of nerves and not the dreaded morning sickness.
“Felicitas Rebold.”
The woman nearly shouted her name. She tossed the worn magazine back upon the stack of faded periodicals, relieved the waiting room was empty. Not many people frequented this particular clinic since the newer medical offices had opened across town. The elderly nurse with varicose veins poking through her white stockings escorted her into the low lit examining room. She flipped the switch on the wall and mumbled something about the florescent lights needing to be replaced and then left the room.
Felicitas took a seat on the examining table crumbling the stiff paper. She shivered. Although the room was cold it was her nerves that caused her to tremble. She despised getting her blood drawn. She had a deep hatred of needles but even now she knew her fear today was not the dreaded stabbing into her veins; it was the fact that she had taken four different brands of pregnancy test and all four had come back positive. Being the founder and president of her high schools Pure Until Marriage club and finding out you are pregnant still wasn’t what frightened her. It was the fact that she had never had sex, nor had she ever come close yet all her pregnancy tests were positive and she was experiencing all the early symptoms of pregnancy. That is what terrified her.
“You the young lady who called earlier?” The nurse asked re-entering the room and tying the rubber band above Felicitas elbow. She nodded and stared at the name Betty printed on the ID hanging around her neck. She couldn’t watch and if she did she would vomit. Her nausea was elevating by the second. A quick stabbing, pain, dizziness, her body began to sway.
“You feeling ok?”
Betty’s voice seemed very far away. The flickering yellow lights grew dim. Felicitas felt cold hands push her back on the table.
“I got a fainter!”
Betty yelling down the hall was the last thing Felicitas heard before she blacked out.
CHAPTER TWO
Ian scanned the dimly lit dining room of the Gourmet Mudd. There was only one face he was looking for and he usually had no trouble finding her in a crowd because to him she stood out like a flower in a field full of weeds. It was her long auburn waves falling all the way to her waist and surrounding her petite frame that he noticed first. Then of course her joyful laughter usually gave her away and if there was a crowd gathered around he generally found her in the middle, always the source of everyone’s attention.
She wasn’t inside and that was strange because her car was parked out front and they had made plans to meet here. He checked the time on his cell. He was a little early and figured Felicitas might be in the restroom talking with some poor soul like she did so many times when one of the girls in her purity club had given in to her lustful passions and slept with her boyfriend only to be jilted by him a week later. Then and only then was there any remorse for the action and the girl would spend hours crying over her lost virginity and Felicitas would spend hours trying to encourage her.
Ian went ahead and ordered Felicitas her favorite hot apple cider and grabbed their corner table. He hadn’t been sitting very long before Catlin helped herself to the chair across from him obviously taking advantage of the fact Felicitas wasn’t there yet.
Ian sighed and realized he would have to put up with Catlin’s flirting and desperate attempts to steal him for herself. He didn’t think she was very pretty and her voice annoyed him but she was a big fan of his band and promoted them shamelessly so he endured her for that reason alone. He often wondered how she would react if he told her she couldn’t compare at all to Felicitas and that her thin fried overly bleached hair and fake tan repulsed him not to mention the fact that he knew she would give herself to him in a moment if he asked her too and he often wondered why it was the undesirable girls that gave it way so freely. Felicitas was different. Her soul was as pure as her body and it was her body that he craved. To him it was the perfect specimen of feminine beauty and unfortunately off limits. It was the standard she had set for herself and being her boyfriend he was bound by them. He spent the better part of a year begging her to give in a little but she held true to her desire to remain pure and reminding him how great it would be on their wedding night should they wait. She was a great kisser and fortunately engaged in that quite freely with him but as soon as his hands began to stray she would cut the passion instantly leaving him hurting and he often wondered how she could be so strong and stop her desires so easily.
Catlin leaned too far across the table interrupting his fantasies of Felicitas and trying to show him what little cleavage she had. It was a new record for her, less than thirty seconds at the table and she had already disgusted him.
“Hey Ian.” she said leaning over. “I’m coming to your show tonight. I got a fake ID.”
“That’s great.” He said flashing a phony smile.
“I offered to get Taz one so she could come too but she said no. Hope you’re not too disappointed.”
Ian sipped his cider and looked over the dimly lit room for Felicitas again.
“No. I’m not disappointed. I don’t like her coming to the clubs when I play. They guys there are pigs and especially the men at the over twenty one clubs. They all try and pick up on her while I’m on stage playing and I can’t do anything about it. It’s torture so I told her to stay here and go to the game.”
Catlin fluffed her hair with her hands and tilted her head grinning at Ian.
“So you gonna protect me tonight if I need it?”
He figured a few desperate guys who had a couple of drinks in them might try and pick up on Catlin after all she seemed like the typical bar girl looking for a one night stand. High school girls annoyed him, they were all the same and he wanted her to leave and he wanted his lovely Felicitas to be the one leaning toward him revealing too much of her ivory breast and flirting with him while her cornflower blue eyes danced in laughter.
CHAPTER THREE
“If she doesn’t come back to us soon get the smelling salts. I’ve never seen one stay out so long.”
The voice switched to masculine, “Can you hear me?” A light pierced her eye. Felicitas stirred blinking at the brightness of it.
“It’s alright Miss Rebold; you fainted while Betty here was drawing your blood. Are you feeling okay now?”
Felicitas focused on the faces watching her. An aging doctor in a white coat leaned over her peering at her through a pair of black horned rimmed glasses sitting cock-eyed on his nose.
“I’m okay. I always faint when I get my blood drawn.”
Betty unloaded a small bundle on the metal tray beside the examining table. “Should have warned me. You almost caused me to break the needle off falling backwards like that.”
Felicitas glanced at the package. The writing on the outside read: Now That You Are Pregnant. She groaned and Betty noticed.
“Yes honey, it was positive. No doubt about it.”
Felicitas sat up slowly.
“But that’s impossible. I can’t be pregnant.”
“All teenagers think it’s impossible to get pregnant, but when you have sex you take a chance.”
“That’s just it. I’ve never had sex. I am a virgin.”
The elderly colleagues exchanged glances. Dr. Garrison took a seat on his stool and rolled over to the examining table. He adjusted his white lab coat then attempted to straighten his glasses.
“Miss Rebold let me enlighten you on the reproductive system. It is possible to get pregnant without penetration. It can happen in heavy foreplay, as long as semen enters the….”
Felicitas shivered in disgust. She was a straight A student, biology being one of her best subjects. She didn’t need a lesson on sex education from someone’s grandfather.
“I know how it works.” She surprised herself at her disrespectful tone. “What I am trying to tell you is that I have never done any of that….ever.” She scanned their faces hoping for some sort of answer.
“Miss Rebold, do you have a boyfriend?”
“Yes”
“Do you kiss your boyfriend?”
“Of course.”
“Have you ever made out?”
“Kind of…I mean yes…but all we did was kiss and not even that much. I am a stickler on keeping my purity and not going too far. It’s very important to me and he knows that and we have never….”
“Do you drink alcohol?”
“I am under age.”
“I didn’t ask you how old you were I asked if…..”
“No! I don’t drink. Never have. I know what you’re getting at but you’re wrong. Listen to me, I have never had sex, never even come close and there is no chance my drink was ever spiked or anything like that. I make sure not to put myself in those situations.”
Dr. Garrison slapped his hands on his knees and wheeled himself back over to the desk to retrieve her chart. “Call the pope Betty; we have another immaculate conception on our hands.”
Betty cackled like an old bird. “Lord have mercy!”
Felicitas jumped from the examining table avoided the small package and headed for the door.
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