(Akiit.com) Being About the Lord’s Business

Every so often, a self-published book beats the odds and grabs the attention of enough readers to draw an offer from a traditional publisher. I sure hope that this happens for this book. Dr. Linda Beed, an emerging Christian author and veteran educator has recently released her debut novel. Business Unusual is an inspirational contemporary romance that is Christian fiction in it’s purest form.

Bernadette Lewis is a very accomplished young businesswoman. She is the owner and President of B. L. Lewis Enterprises, a privately held consulting, software development and personal training service. Her company has been very successful in just a short period of time. Many wonder what her secret to success is. Hers is a success story grounded in faith and obedience.

As a young, single Christian woman; Bernadette has values and attributes not always understood by the secular world, but that still does not deter her from being who she was raised to be. The daughter of parents in the ministry, she and her sisters have built their careers on service to God and mankind. Their personal lives mirror that Christian upbringing and it is no surprise that as adults, they find themselves dealing with unlike personalities in the people that come into their professional lives. How Bernadette deals with these individuals is the core of this story.
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(Akiit.com) Domestic Abuse: A Generational Curse?

This book spans a 60 year period in the lives of a family of strong African American women who survived domestic abuse one generation after another. Very well written and easy to follow this book is a classic literary gem. Told by the very eloquent third generational daughter, Lydia; it is a tale that will keep the reader turning the pages late into the night touching the heart and giving rise to hope for victims of domestic abuse and admiration for these amazing women. This is a story of mothers and daughters, a story you may never forget.

Set in Philadelphia where the family settled after leaving South Carolina; we meet Eloise and her husband Issac Bingham. With their three young children, they have set up home in North Philadelphia expecting a better life but circumstances prevail that they never expected or even knew how to handle. Filled with unconditional love and Southern family values; Eloise had faith that she and her children would survive the most horrid abuse and pain that Issac wreaked upon his family.

Alcoholism, racism and depression played a major role in the demons that plagued Issac over the years. These demons continued to control him as he struggled to provide for a family that grew to include eight children and a dedicated stay-at-home wife. The harder he worked, the less he was able to prosper until he no longer cared that he was no longer the man he started out as. Both his children and his wife lived in constant fear of him. As he beat and degraded his wife and offspring the reader often wondered if this family would survive. But survive they did with their faith in God and the determination to turn tragedy into hope.
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(Akitt.com) “While the Constitution declares that all men are born free and equal, the wise corporation of the city of Washington… see proper to proscribe the rights of a certain portion of the community… Ought such laws to exist? Ought Congress to allow Washington, the spot which alone of all others should be sacred to the rights of man… to be polluted by the footsteps of a slave?

… Many who there plead for the equal rights of man, are the very men who… buy and sell their brethren like beasts of burden.”

—Excerpted from an 1827 editorial by John B. Russwurm (page 88)

Freedom’s Journal, the first African-American newspaper ever published in the United States, debuted on March 16, 1827. The short-lived periodical was the brainchild of two black men, Samuel E. Cornish and John B. Russwurm. The former was a Presbyterian minister who had been born free in Delaware, while the latter was a mulatto, the college-educated son of a white Jamaican plantation owner and one of his servants.

Although the pair printed the paper in New York City, their ambitious mission, as stated in the inaugural edition, was to reach the “five hundred thousand free people of color” spread across the country. And while Freedom’s Journal would fall far short of that goal and fold in 1829, it nevertheless must be credited with making a seminal contribution to the abolitionist movement by kick starting a dialogue about the evils of slavery which would survive its unfortunate demise.
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(Akiit.com) James Langston’s book, “GrandMamma’s Prayers is now available through Lulu Publishing Enterprises, Inc.

NAPLES, ITALY, July 2007 – When we think of GrandMamma, we often think of food, Sunday afternoons, and church. GrandMamma’s Prayers records a simpler time in life when people cared about you, not because of what you had, but who you were – another human being.

Life in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s was anything but simple. Yet, even with all the uncertainties inherent in those times, those still were some of the best of times and worst of times, seemingly at the same time. GrandMamma’s Prayers takes a nostalgic look at those bygone years. Times when a neighbor helped a neighbor and looked for nothing in return, when a ride in an old wagon was the highlight of the summer and Sundays’ were the official church days.

So often you’d hear people say things like, “You know my GrandMamma always said…” or “My GrandMamma always did this…” or “She taught me how to…” These words were testimonies to the countless grandmothers who through the ages had influenced and affected the lives not only of their grandchildren, but everyone around them.
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(Akiit.com) Balancing Christian and spiritual living with being a black American in a world that seems to be falling backward in time instead of going forward?

In the mid-1980’s, I read a book by Charles R. Swindoll titled “Strengthening Your Grip: Essentials in an Aimless World.” That book taught me a lot, and stuck with me over the years; but as timeless as its truths were it was too “americana.” Swindoll told his stories from the only perspective that he could, a young white man growing up in America during the 50s-80s. Much of what he said, I couldn’t relate to because I grew up in a very different America between the 60s and 90s…however, the beauty of his words stayed with me.

Here we are in the new millennium and black people can’t stop using the word “racist” yet because time seems to have shifted in reverse. The attacks against blacks in America are not new, but they have been reinvented to be more appealing to a more open and diverse nation than we had 40 years ago.

It can be confusing trying to wheel and deal in today’s world, and still grip the principles of God-inspired living at the same time. We keep hearing “we are in the last days,” but until that happens, there is still much work to be done in the here and now.
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