A Date with Destiny: Celebrating the Ten Year Anniversary of Meeting My True Love

February has always been my favorite month of the year. One reason is because it's my birthday month. But a much bigger reason is because it's the month of  Love. This year I  have something new to add to those wonderful reasons to for February being my favorite month.

Ten years ago on this day February 10, 2003, I had a "Date with Destiny" and met a handsome Prince with whom I had shared a kindred spirit connection and friendship unlike any other I've ever experienced before. At that very moment I  knew something very special and divine had just occured in my life because I felt and heard it clearly from my inner voice of Spirit/Wisdom that Never lies or leads me wrong.
Three months later we went on our first offical date to a Floetry Concert and that was the night I fell deeply in love with this amazing man that inspired me creatively and reminded me of a beautiful reflection of myself expressed in the form of mascline energy.

Fast forward to today, February 10,2013 after a 7 year unexpected seperated due to unforseen circumstances then being, unexpectedly once again divinely guided back into my life. We were happily reunited, our love and original kindred spirit connection was reignited and through all the trials and tribulations we had to face and overcome we're still here...still standing...still in love with each other and our beautiful most cherished blessing, our 8 month old baby girl.

So in celebration and honor of that fate-filled day our ten year anniversary of our Divine meeting of each other, we return to our genesis in spiritual fellowship through the church service at our place of worship, Hillside Chapel & Truth Center. And to our surprise yet again, as only Spirit (God) would have it, the topic of today's message in this mornings service was, "Surviving Love".  After everything we've been through we can certainly say we are survivors of love. Yet, what stood out to me most from our church's guest speaker, Bishop Carlton Pearson, that gave today's lesson in spiritual living, was quote he shared on true love that I'd also like to share with you. It read, "Love is giving someone the ability to destroy you emotionally and trusting them not to." How profoundly true that statement is.

So in light of that and in honor of the very special day of celebrating the ten year anniversary of meeting my "True Love". I dedicate this song by, the greatest balladeer of our generation, Luther Vandross and this Inspirational Love Note, to the one who inspired me to love again with my whole heart from the day we met and continues to do so some ten years later today. Carlton (a.k.a Mello Melanin), thank you for being my muse. In short, you are my polarity...a beautiful divine reflection of the divinity in me...the masculine expression of my feminine energy that balances me and together we become a perfect unique expression of Spirit as WE. I will always cherish the day we met and remember "The Night I Fell in Love". Happy D-Day My Love (Our Date with Destiny Day).

Until Next time...I surround you in Love & Light!

A Christmas Prayer

Let us give thanks oh Lord,

a special thanks to you

Let the bread we break bear testament

that your undying love for us is true

Let us give thanks oh Lord,

for the abundance on this day we share

Let our hearts be fountains

of your love and may we spread

joy everywhere

Often the worldly meaning of Christmas

makes us forget to celebrate in your name

So let us give special thanks oh Lord,

for this day on whence you came

A One Love Production

By Anna M. Hendricks

Original Copyright 1996

Revised copyright 2012 

Tis' the Season

Morning frost and holiday cheer

These are the signs that Christmas is near

Snowflakes falling while

decorating the tree

Shopping for gifts and spreading

joy with glee

Houses covered with blinking lights

Sleigh rides and snowball fights

Marshmallows in hot cocoa

Kisses underneath the mistle toe

Lovers snuggle by an open fire

while wishing for their hearts desire

Caroling your favorite Christmas songs

Listening for Santa's reindeer all night long

Making angels in the snow

Children waiting anxiously to know

what Santa Clause will bring this year

...Tis' the season Christmas is here!

A One Love Production

By Anna M. Hendricks

Original copyright 1996

Revised copyright 2012

The Prospering Power of God in Action

Here's a testimony and demonstration of God's power, to heal AND prosper at the same time, that's absolutely too awesome for me not to share. I have not written and posted any Inspirational Love Notes until recently because I've been experiencing a health challenge with my eyesight for the last month. It has been extremely scary to say the least. I woke up one morning and everything was hazy as if I was looking through a very dense fog. Even scarier, I was home alone with my six month old baby girl when these symptoms first occurred. I could barely see her or how to care for her as my eyesight got worse throughout the day.

Over the course of the three weeks that followed, I woke up to find these symptoms continually progressing for the worst. Even with my glasses on I was unable to see clearly how to perform my normal daily activities like driving, caring for my baby girl Khaliah, cooking or even read anything. I immediately began taking the situation to God in prayer. More specifically, I prayed giving thanks to God in advance for the symptoms being reversed and my eyesight fully healed and restored to optimal health.

After seeing several doctors, of which none could give me a definitive answer to the problem, I was finally referred to an eye retina specialist.  He saw inflammation in my eye cells that left untreated would've resulted in permanent damage to my eyesight. So my family and I continued to pray. In addition, I also continued to stand on the scripture of Jesus healing the blind man, in Mark 8:22, and saw God doing the same for me.
Here's were God began to prove Himself through me by demonstrating His awesome, unfailing power to do what man cannot.

First Praise Report: Two of the first three doctors I saw waived the fees for their services. So all the examinations and test they ran for my eyes while trying to find the problem was done at no charge to me.

Second Praise Report: When I went to my follow up appointment with the retina specialist yesterday, ALL of my test results for the various serious diseases they were testing me for, like Lupus, were negative. The inflammation in my eye cells he saw a few weeks ago is almost completely healed and reversing itself. My vision has made such an impressive improvement and rapid response to the eye drop medicine he gave me in such a miraculously short period of time, that even the doctor himself was amazed.

He told me he could not explain what caused the problem. Even more puzzling to him, was that he could not explain how or why my eyes have shown such remarkable healing progress, especially in the short time frame of two weeks ago when he first saw me and prescribed me the eye drop medicine. In fact, he was so moved by my demonstrated faith in God that he took my chart back and waived his fee for my visit as well before I left.

Now that’s the Prospering Power of God in Action!

Until next time, I surround in Love & Light! ~ Anna Ms.Poet Hendricks

Awakening the Joy-Full Happiness in You

Pondering the Questions

Recently during my daily ritual to begin my day in communion with God, I asked Spirit two important questions. First, to clarify for me the difference between being happy and having joy. Second, I asked Spirit to reveal to me the things in my life that make me genuinely happy and brings me true joy. As I began pondering these questions during my morning meditation time, I heard the following responses from my inner voice of the Super conscious or Higher-Self, where infinite wisdom within us resides.

Discovering the Answers

Once I presented my questions to Infinite Holy Spirit (God), the answers came to me effortlessly. The first thing I heard in regard to my question on the difference between happiness and joy, is that you can experience happiness and still not have joy. Yet, you cannot have true joy without also experiencing with it genuine happiness. The difference is that happiness is temporary. It is motivated by an outer source that usually comes as fleeting moments of feeling good in direct response to a particular situation or action of or in relationship with another person. However, once the situation changes, the relationship is over and/or the person is no longer a part of your life, all those wonderful feelings of happiness suddenly disappear as well like blowing kisses in the wind.

In contrast, true joy is sustaining. It is unaffected by the inconsistency of actions and behaviors of another person or the constant changes of outer circumstances. This is because unlike happiness, joy is not dependent upon or evoked by any source outside of us. To the contrary, the source of true joy comes from within the heart & soul of every person respectively. It is found in the things that give us deep inner fulfillment. It is expressed through the unique things we individually love to do that is our creative self-expression (i.e. God's individualized expression through you...as you).

Things that bring me joy

For example, some of the things that bring me true joy and deep inner fulfillment are, cooking, creative writing (i.e using my talent for write poetry and articles such as this), music, and being a new mommy, just to name a few.

I love to cook rather I'm single or in a relationship. I'm very focused when I'm cooking. I find it very therapeutic and I pour my heart & love into every meal I prepare. The feeling it gives me is like an artist painting a beautiful masterpiece on a canvas. It is a form of creative expression for me. I enjoy sharing my cooking with others. Yet I find equal pleasure in eating my cooking if I have no one around to share it with just the same.

The joy and inner fulfillment I get from writing is also a form of creative self-expression for me that I love sharing with other. Writing gives me a deep sense of clarity and emotional freedom. In between each poetic word, sentence and verse eloquently strung together to form a complete thought as a profound message or idea, is the freedom to be my authentic self.

More simply put...writing purifies me. It lifts me up into the realms of the higher consciousness. It allows me to cleanse all the impurities picked up along my human experience and become centered in Spirit. I enjoy most using my gift of creative writing to help others find that same inner awareness which is why I created this Inspirational Love Notes blog.

As for music, I find immense joy from listening to various genres of it. Like my writing, I also enjoy inspiring others through music. I truly believe in the healing power and universal language of love with which we can communicate through music. Hence, the reason for my career background over the last decade in radio and why I created my own radio show Love Notes, in the process of conversion to a podcast show.

When it comes to being a new mommy, I absolutely enjoy my baby girl Khaliah. In fact, I enjoy watching her grow and helping with her development each day so much that even though I'm exhausted at the end of the day I still find it all worth while. I go to sleep each night completely taxed of my energy. Yet I feel peaceful and fulfilled from knowing my efforts made a major impact on her life. Going to bed each night knowing that spending quality time teaching her, playing with her, loving on her, reveling in the beauty and miracle of her, is having a major influence on the person she becomes, is a total mind blowing joy-filled blessing within itself.

The Revelation and Miracle

In closing, while meditating on the difference between joy and happiness I was compelled to take a closer look at the word, "Enjoy". In doing so I began to see the break down of this word in a different way. I began to see it as, "In-Joy". In other words, to say, I enjoy something, is really saying I receive or have, "Inner-Joy" when engaging in that particular activity. Moreover, true joy is inner joy...joy that comes from within leaving lasting feelings of deep inner fulfillment.

The miracle is that when you engage in the things that bring inner joy you also discover genuine happiness along with it. This is because the source of this kind of happiness comes only from within your own heart and soul, where our true power resides rather than an outer situation, person or circumstance. Ironically, by spending more time engaging only in those things or spending time with only the persons that bring you genuine inner joy, and less time on the things or with people who don't, you miraculously begin to have more time available to do those things.

Suddenly increased money begins to attract to you to invest in or support your desire to continue doing those joy-filled activities. Strangely, we find ourselves having more energy to contribute to spending quality time with the people with which we have a genuine affinity or doing those activities that bring us joy. Every area of our lives become infected by the positive changes and new attitude living a joy-filled life brings us. Instead of being affected by the negative energy and feelings of depression that result from chasing happiness through validation of sources in the world outside ourselves.

This is what Jesus meant in John 15:11 when he said, "I have spoken these things to you that MY JOY may be IN YOU and that YOUR JOY may be FULL." (i.e. Joy that is Complete).

With that said, I leave you with this video, that's both a classic and timeless 1986 song by R&B Artist, Anita Baker, as the perfect compliment to the message of this article. Listen to it not from the perspective of a romantic relationship love song. Instead, try listening to it in terms of your immensely profound love for the things you genuinely enjoy doing or the person (s) you enjoy spending time with (including yourself). Reflect on the deep inner feelings of "full-fillment" you receive from spending time with those people or activities as you listen to the hypnotic soulful voice of Anita Baker sing, "You Bring Me Joy." Then go do something that really awakens the Joy-Full Happiness in you.



Until next time, I surround you in Love & Light...


A One Love Production
By Anna Ms.Poet Hendricks
copyright 2012

Remembering My Dad: A Poem in honor of his Birthday and Memory

Remembering my Dad in a very special way
Reflecting on his life and what would've been his 76th Birthday
Reminiscences of his smile and the funny things he used to say

Wishing he was still here to see my baby girl laugh & play
Missing him...

so much but it's okay
He often told me even death couldn't keep us apart
And he was right cause his spirit lives on
here in the depths of my heart

When I was just a little shorty
he used to stand me on top his feet
Together we'd sway to the rhythm of the music,
As One we'd dance in harmony to the sound of the beat

Oh how I wish I could go back in time
and dance with my father like that again
But since I can't I'll hold my baby girl
in my arms tonight and dance with her in his memory
like the song has no end
And my Love for my Dad in spirit I'll send

~Anna Ms.Poet Hendricks
In honor & memory of my Dad, William L. Hendricks
(November 2, 1936 - May 16, 2010)

Hollywood vs. The Holy Bible: Who Has The Most Passionate Poems and Love Stories Ever Written

Some of the most epic love stories, poems and letters ever written about love, that are often over looked and underrated, are ironically not exclusive to Hollywood movies but are also found in the Holy Bible. As both a poet and hopeless romantic, I have received much personal enjoyment from Hollywood romantic movies like most people. In fact, a few of my Hollywood favorites in my personal movie library include, Love Jones, starring Lorenz Tate and Nia Long, The Notebook, starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, and the Jane Austen classic, Pride & Prejudice, starring Keira Knightly and Matthew Macfadyen.

However, many of my favorite love stories, and most of my creative inspiration as a writer, have come from reading the many beautiful and profoundly poetic messages and stories of love found throughout the Holy Bible as well. Although there are several love stories in the bible that are more popular and equally worthy of reading like, Samson and Delilah, Jacob and Rachel, David and Bathsheba and, the most notable of all, Ruth and Boaz. My favorite among them that's rarely, if ever, mentioned as a biblical love story is The Book of Esther. It's a short story in the old testament about a Jewish girl, Hadassah, who later in the story becomes Queen Esther after winning the heart of King Xerxes, who ruled the throne in Susa, Persia.

After falling deeply in love with King Xerxes and becoming his Queen she saves her native Jewish nation from their arch enemy by courageously revealing to the King his secret plot to destroy her people, which resulted in his own death. After reading the bible version of Esther and watching the movie version, One Night with the King, both several times, I found this to be a profoundly heart warming story full of epic love and romance.

Contrary to popular belief, the bible is also full of relationships where couples express their very romantic and passionate feelings for one another through steamy love letters and erotic poems. One of my favorites to read, for example, are the poems in Song of Solomon (also recorded in some bible translations as Song of Songs). This book of the bible follows the relationship between a man and woman who are deeply in love and write poems to each other throughout their courtship that leads to marriage.

In closing, I share with you one of the eloquently written love poems from the woman in Song of Solomon about her persistent and determined search for her soul mate that goes as follows:

"Upon my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loves;
I sought him but found him not.
I will rise now and go about the city in the streets,
and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loves;
I sought him but I found him not.

The watchmen that go about the city found me;
I asked them, Have you seen him whom my soul loves?
Scarcely had I passed by them, when I found him
who my soul loves;
I held him, and would not let him go
until I had brought him into my mother's house
and into the chambers of her that bore me.

I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem,
by the gazelles or by the young roes of the field,
that you stir not up nor awake my love till it please."

~Song of Solomon Chapter 3:1-5
Holy Bible, Lamsa Aramaic Translation

Now that's epic! Until next time...I surround you in LOVE & Light!