Success Looks Different Through Spiritual Eyes

As my wife and I were writing “I Left My Prostate in San Francisco-Where’s Yours?” I thought to myself once our book is published I will have fulfilled a life long dream to become an author. Not exactly, it was my dream to write books for children.  I wrote one titled “Ike & Mike Like to Fight” After multiple publishers rejected the book, I gave up on the idea of writing a book for three decades.

After I was diagnosed with prostate cancer I began an on-line diary for two reasons. First, to preserve my thoughts in real-time in case I would write a book, and second, to help others along their journey. It wasn’t long before I felt a call from the Holy Spirit to write a book in order to help men, and couples cope with the diagnosis of prostate cancer and life following prostate surgery. Based upon my previous experience with publishing, I wasn’t very optimistic a book I’d write would ever see the light of day. I forgot a very important spiritual lesson, when God calls you to do something, if you are faithful and obedient, it will come to pass. Now that said, God didn’t promise me a  #1 best selling book. (I became the one who wanted that.)

It took my wife and I close to 3 years to write our book, and it’s now published. The fact I can go to Barnes & Noble or Amazon.com and see the book in hard cover, soft cover, kindle, and in ibook edition for the ipad is amazing to me. I anticipated I’d feel some degree accomplishment and a huge feeling of gratitude that God decided to use our experiences with prostate cancer to help other people.  I felt these things for a day or two , and then those feelings rapidly vanished.

I stopped seeing this achievement through spiritual eyes and began to see them through the eyes of the world. With that view in place I asked myself the following: “What good is it to have written a book if no one buys it?”  With this view in place, the only way to achieve success involved developing a marketing campaign to make the book nationally known and selling hundreds of thousands of books. I must confess, for a time, I really got lost. Fortunately, my spiritual outlook returned. The following formula:
 success=number of books sold,  is now null and void.

So I’m left with the following question: What does success look like though spiritual eyes? I’m still working that answer out. This much I do know, it means I’ll be going way beyond my comfort zone. At some point in the future, I believe Brenda & I will be involved with newspapers, radio, and possibly TV.  I’m no longer driven to achieve instant success. I know I must be on my knees in prayer asking for what directions to go. It means trusting in where we are in the moment, and feeling grateful we’ve been brought this far in the journey. It means learning to do things I’ve never done before, such as having an author Facebook page, and hosting a website at: http://www.whereisyourprostate.com/. It means blogging, which something I’ve never done or wanted to do.

It God’s MO to send people to places they’d rather not go, to do things they’d rather not do, in order to bless people you never thought to bless before.  I suspect doing all those things is part of my new definition of success. As this definition evolves I’ll share it. The question each of us must ask, is how do we define success, and does our definition come from the world or our faith? How we answer that question makes all the difference in the direction our lives will take.

Book Promoting Ideas

Writing I Left My Prostate in San Francisco was a very different very different task than advertising and marketing the book. Unless men and couples coping with prostate cancer know about this book it won’t sell.

So, how do you go about making your book known? Here are some of the useful steps that every author needs to take:
1. Obtain book reviews. While there are some lists on-line that have lists of book reviewers, I’ve spent dozens of hours on-line looking for book reviewers. Every author needs to decide whether they want free reviews and/or paid book reviews. I decided to go for both.
2. Develop an on-line presence.
A. I have an author page http://www.whereisyourprostate.com/
B. A Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Left-My-Prostate-In-San-Francisco-Wheres-Yours/336668756422536?ref=ts
C. A blog: http://whereisyourprostate.blogspot.com/
D. An on-line diary: http://www.mdjunction.com/diary/journey-from-diagnosis-treatment-recovery

If you Google my name, Rick Redner, Brenda, or the book title I Left My Prostate in San Francisco-Where’s Yours? You will find dozens of links and mentions on Google. So we have a strong internet presence.

3. Enter the book into book award contests-We’ve entered our book into 4 of these contests.

4.   Get your books in the hands of readers. I have a 25 book give a way in the month of March on Goodreads.

So far this means very little in terms of book sales. Much more is required. The next step is generating the kind of publicity that will help sell books and generate traffic to our website and on-line support forums.
If you as an author can afford a book publicity agent, that person may have the skills and contacts you get your book into the mainstream media.

Since our book has a Christian orientation, we’ve asked both Focus on the Family and Family Life Today to consider using the book in their ministry. We’ve also asked them to consider doing a talk-show about prostate cancer. This is a story that has national interest because 1 in 6 men will receive this diagnosis in their lifetime. Additionally, a man is diagnosed with prostate cancer every 2.2 minutes and a man dies from prostate cancer every 18 minutes.

We are hoping our local newspaper the Modesto Bee will do a feature story about our book and on-line ministry. We are also looking into interviews with other radio stations.

Selling a book is an uphill battle, which takes time and persistence. Since my wife and believe in what we are doing we bring both of those personality traits to the mix.  We will see how all of our efforts come together in the coming months and whether those efforts will impact book sales.

If you have an idea for a book I want to encourage you to follow those dreams, but don’t expect over night success.

What you want to know before you have a Da Vinci Prostate Surgery

This week a man who had prostate surgery posted a message on a forum that touched my heart and quite frankly ticked me off at the way men with prostate cancer are treated. Just 9 weeks post surgery he said this:

The physical pain from the surgery is gone but everything else is
deteriorating. There is not a minute where I don't regret my decision and
prefer to just evaporate. There is no denying it; I am now a freak. I don't
respect myself and, in all honesty, I don't know how others would respect
me either. Sleep is now my only comfort. Perhaps a very deep sleep will
help me to evaporate, permanently.

The despair this man feels is gut wrenching to read. The permanent changes brought about by prostate surgery are extremely difficult to cope with. I know because I've had to adjust to these changes myself.  If you go to the websites that promote robotic prostate surgery, you are given the impression, afters surgery all will be well in a few short weeks. This is partly true but mostly a lie.

The truthful part is the recovery time from robotic surgery is amazingly quick. I had my appendix removed in my 20’s and it took me a few weeks to walk around the block following my appendectomy.  3 days after robotic surgery I was able to walk a mile without any difficulty what so ever. Big deal. I've known men who returned to work 2 weeks after Robotic Surgery. Not me, I needed to stay home for 3 months. I found  living in diapers, and needing to change myself 15 times a day was as close to living in hell as I want to experience in his lifetime.

My sexuality came to an abrupt end. Constantly leaking urine is a romance killer.  I wasn't leaking small drops of urine, it was a lot of urine and that was during foreplay. It got much worse at the time of orgasm, because ejaculation was replaced by urination. Rather than ejaculate, I’d urinate. That was not a welcome change or one I was prepared to face. For me this, development ended my desire for sex.

If all of that wasn't bad enough, it get’s worse. Erectile dysfunction is another common side effect of prostate surgery. The majority of men loose the ability to obtain an erection for 18-24 months. I’m 19 months post- surgery and I've yet to experience a spontaneous erection since my surgery. It takes a heavy toll on a man’s sense of value and self-worth. It also has a major impact on a man’s relationship with his partner.

If you are thinking about Robotic Surgery often called Da Vinci Surgery I invite you to read my book titled I Left My Prostate in San Francisco-Where’s Yours? Available at:
Barnes & Noble
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/i-left-my-prostate-in-san-francisco-wheres-yours-rick-and-brenda-redner/1114216951?ean=9781449779627

Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Left-Prostate-San-Francisco-Wheres-Yours/dp/1449779611/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1360343731&sr=8-1

The Kindle Edition sells for $2.99
http://www.amazon.com/Left-Prostate-Francisco-Wheres-Yours-ebook/dp/B00B5V575G/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1360343731&sr=8-1

If you need support or have questions prior to prostate surgery please visit me at:
http://whereisyourprostate.freeforums.org/index.php

If you are having trouble adjusting to life after prostate surgery, please buy my book and visit me here:
http://whereishisprostate.freeforums.org/

If you’ve had surgery, I’d appreciate you participating in a 4 question poll here:
http://www.whereisyourprostate.com/Forums.html

It's time to speak the truth so men aren't surprised by despair after their prostate surgery.

                                 What a Stray Cat Taught Me about Faith

I spent more than the first half a century of my life as a cat hater. I had no use for them. I’m a committed dog lover. I could never figure out why anyone would want to have a cat as a pet. During the peak of the housing defaults, many people in our neighborhood left their cats behind. It didn’t surprise me they would do this, because I couldn’t imagine anyone liking cats.

Our daughter Kate decided she’d use her own money (because I wouldn’t waste mine) to buy a bed, and supply cat food for those cats left behind. Skitty was one of the first cats to take Kate take up on her offer of food and shelter. Kate named her Skitty because for the first year she would get close but not allow anyone to touch her. Eventually she learned to accept affection from Kate. Now Kate can pick her up, pet her, or call her from anywhere, and she will come running to Kate.

My relationship to Skitty was weird from the start. For the first year, I noticed she was willing to rub herself on the box-wood. In fact she preferred to do this rather than accept affection from Kate. During phase I simply thought of her in the same way I thought of any cat, which was to say I thought Skitty was dumb cat. It wasn’t personal, my Skitty confirmed my belief that every cat was a dumb cat.

Over the course of the next 2 years, Skitty and I developed a strange relationship. Eventually, I took to feeding her. I discovered while she’d accept food from my hand, she’d never let me pet her. This confirmed my bias toward cats and even though I fed her, I still though Skitty was as I thought all cats are…..dumb.

Even though Skitty wanted nothing to do with me, she began doing something very strange. When I would take my dog for a walk around the block, she’d follow us the entire way. Sometimes staying so close, I have my dog sit, and I’d stop the walk just to sit down and take the time to feed both Skitty and my dog.  Skitty would follow us on a ½ mile walk any time she was around to see us begin our walk.

People who saw us walking together were simply amazed that a dog and cat would walk together. They assumed I had a close relationship with this cat who followed me and the dog around the block as if we were all best friends. They were always amazed to learn that Skitty who would come to me, put her paws on my pants and reach for food, would high tail it in the opposite direction if reached down to rub her.

Skitty and I have known each other for 3 years now. I can call her, and if she’s in earshot she’ll come running to me at the sound of my voice calling out “Skitty, Skitty, Skitty”. She’ll visit me in my garage without an invitation. She continues to walk around the block with us when my wife, dog and I go for a walk.

 On very rare occasions she allows me to pet her. I’ve learned never to assume that means we’ve become friends. In the next hour or on the next day she’ll run away at the site of my hand coming toward her. She hasn’t changed that much in the last 3 years, but I have. I no longer think of Skitty as a dumb cat. She’s become a loyal friend, who comes to me when I call, and continues to join us on walks around the block. A few days in every month she’ll allow me to spend time rubbing her and enjoying my touch. It never lasts. Skitty always returns to being skittish in my company.  Kate gave her an appropriate name.

You may wonder what I could possibly learn about my faith from Skitty. I learned I’m a lot like Skitty. I learned there is a lot of Skitty in me. Skitty will not permit me to offer my best to her on a regular basis. Most of the time, she continues to choose inanimate objects to rub herself on, even when sitting close by and long to pet her. On those rare moments she’ll choose my hand or my leg to rub on. More often and not I’ll sit close by hoping she’ll choose me over the box-wood, but that rarely ever happens.

I’m sad to admit this but my relationship with Skitty often resembles my relationship with the Lord. In times of crisis, I’m like Skitty, I cry out to the Lord, I want and seek out His intimate presence and comfort. I’m not alone in this propensity. In fact the entire Old Testament is filled this awful pattern. God reaches out and does something miraculous in the lives of the Jewish people and nation. For a short time they respond with a grateful heart. As time goes on they drift away.

This isn’t limited issue isn’t limited to Old Testament times and the Jewish people. A hymn was written about this very issue. The title is Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing. The words “Prone to wonder Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love, describes our doing to the Lord what Skitty does to me.

On those days I sit beside  Skitty longing for her to make the right choice and accept my affection. Most of the time it’s rejected. Skitty will accept some good from me, but keeps herself away from experiencing the best. Our Lord longs for us to draw close every day, and if we do, we will receive His best. If we remain like Skitty, we will miss God’s best blessings for our lives.

Jesus provides those us who are prone to wonder, the parable of the lost sheep. With this story, He makes it clear no matter how long or how far we’ve been prone to wonder, He will welcome us back with open arms. If we allow the Skitty in us to pull away in those moments, we’ll live our lives on the periphery of God’s blessings. If we accept the embrace the creator of the universe always and without fail welcomes us into His open arms.

                                                     What a Cat Taught Me about Faith

I spent more the first half a century of my life as a cat hater. I had no use for them. I’m a committed dog lover. I could never figure out why anyone would want to have a cat as a pet. During the peak of the housing defaults, many people in our neighborhood left their cats behind. It didn’t surprise me they would do this, because I couldn’t imagine anyone liking cats.

Our daughter Kate decided she’d use her own money (because I wouldn’t waste mine) and buy a bed, and supply cat food to those cats left behind. Skitty was one of the first cats to take Kate take up on her offer of food and shelter. Kate named her Skitty because for the first year she would get close but not allow anyone to touch her. Eventually she learned to accept affection from Kate. Now Kate can pick her up, pet her, or call her from anywhere, and she will come running to Kate.

My relationship to Skitty is weird. For the first year, I noticed she was willing to rub herself on the box-wood. In fact she preferred to do this rather than accept affection from Kate. During phase I simply thought of her in the same way I thought of any cat, which was to say I thought Skitty was dumb cat. It wasn’t personal, I thought that way about every cat.

Over the course of the next 2 years, Skitty and I developed a strange relationship. Eventually, I took to feeding her. I discovered  she’d accept food from my hand, but she’d never let me pet her. This confirmed my bias toward cats and even though I fed her, I still though Skitty was as I though all cats are…..dumb.

Even though Skitty wanted nothing to do with me, she began doing something very strange. When I would take my dog for a walk around the block, she’d follow us the entire way. Sometimes staying so close, I have my dog sit, and I’d stop the walk just to sit down and take the time to feed both Skitty and my dog.  Skitty would follow us on a ½ mile walk any time she was around to see us begin our walk.

People who saw us walking together were simply amazed that a dog and cat would walk together. They assumed I had a close relationship with this cat who followed me and the dog around the block as if we were all best friends. They were always amazed to learn that Skitty who would come to me, put her paws on my pants and reach for food, would high tail it in the opposite direction if reached down to rub her.

Skitty and I have known each other for 3 years now. I can call her, and if she’s in earshot she’ll come running to me at the sound of my voice calling out “Skitty, Skitty, Skitty”. She’ll visit me in my garage without an invitation. She continues to walk around the block with us when my wife, dog and I go for a walk.

 On very rare occasions she allows me to pet her. I’ve learned never to assume that means we’ve become friends. In the next hour or on the next day she’ll run away at the site of my hand coming toward her. She hasn’t changed that much in the last 3 years, but I have. I no longer think of Skitty as a dumb cat. She’s become a loyal friend, who comes to me when I call, and continues to join us on walks around the block. A few days in every month she’ll allow me to spend time rubbing her and enjoying my touch. It never lasts. Skitty always returns to being skittish in my company.  Kate gave her an appropriate name.

You may wonder what I could possibly learn about my faith from Skitty. I learned I’m a lot like Skitty. I learned there is a lot of Skitty in me. Skitty will not permit me to offer my best to her on a regular basis. Most of the time, she continues to choose inanimate objects to rub herself on, even when sitting close by and long to pet her. On those rare moments she’ll choose my hand or my leg to rub on. More often and not I’ll sit close by hoping she’ll choose me over the box-wood, but that rarely ever happens.

I’m sad to admit this but my relationship with Skitty often resembles my relationship with the Lord. In times of crisis, I’m like Skitty, I cry out to the Lord, I want and seek out His intimate presence and comfort. I’m not alone in this propensity. In fact the entire Old Testament is filled this awful pattern. God reaches out and does something miraculous in the lives of the Jewish people and nation. For a short time they respond with a grateful heart. As time goes on they drift away.

This isn’t limited issue isn’t limited to Old Testament times and the Jewish people. A hymn was written about this very issue. The title is Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing. The words “Prone to wonder Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love, describes our doing to the Lord what Skitty does to me.

On those days I sit a long for Skitty to make the right choice and accept my affection. Most of the time it’s rejected. Skitty will accept some good from me, but keeps herself away from experiencing the best. Our Lord longs for us to draw close every day, and if we do, we will receive His best. If we remain like Skitty, we will miss God’s best blessings for our lives.

Jesus provides those us who are prone to wonder, the parable of the lost sheep. With this story, He makes it clear no matter how long or how far we’ve been prone to wonder, He will welcome us back with open arms. If we allow the Skitty in us to pull away in those moments, we’ll live our lives on the periphery of God’s blessings. If we accept the embrace the creator of the universe always and without fail welcomes us into His open arms.

I Left My Prostate in San Francisco-Where's Yours? Is Published

After 2 years of writing, our book I Left My Prostate in San Francisco-Where’s Yours is finally published and available in hard cover, soft cover, and with low priced E-book as well. Getting off track, I have a gripe with e-books. I can’t help but wonder why some titles remain so expensive in e-book format. As the author, I had the opportunity to set my e-book price. The soft cover edition retails at $19.95 but I set the e-book price down to $2.99. That price seems both fair and reasonable. In my opinion, E-books should cost much less than paper- back editions and I’m glad I control over the price of my e-book. That was a detour, now I’ll get back the point of this piece.

Even though my book went through two professional edits, and my wife and I read it over many times, our published book contains some errors, as the majority of my writing does. In a quest for perfection, it’s easy to get so discouraged you won’t begin a project, or you’ll quit in the middle of a project you started. I’m all too familiar with the quest for perfection.

 I have a tendency to leave out words in sentences. When I proof read, I fill in the missing words in my head, so I don’t see the error on the computer screen or hear it in my head as I read. Therefore it’s inevitable everything I write will contain multiple errors.

My editor told me, I Left My Prostate in San Francisco had more than 5,000 corrections. This averages to out to 19 corrections per page. I shutter to think about how many additional errors I had that were eliminated by spell and grammar check. If I included those errors, it’s likely before any corrections were made, I had some type of error every 5 words. That’s a pitiful statistic. Even with spell and grammar check my error rate was prior to editing was 1 error per 13 words.

Given my propensity for errors, one might easily conclude that I should stay far away from blogging or writing book.  Many people look at what they do poorly and stay far away from those areas. In matters of faith, deciding to avoid something based on our abilities or disabilities is the wrong thing to do. My favorite biblical example of this comes from the life of Moses.

God had a plan a task and a mission He wanted to accomplish through Moses.  He wanted Moses to go back to Egypt with a message from Pharaoh. The message wasn’t complicated or difficult to remember. The message was so short, even I could remember this message:
Ex 5:1
Thus says the LORD God of Israel: 'Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness.'

 Moses did was most of us do. Moses performed an assessment of this strengths and weaknesses. After his evaluation he said this to the Lord in  Ex 4:10
"O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue." He went on to advise God to send someone else!

How often have we passed up an opportunity because we disqualified ourselves from the challenge? More than once I became so discouraged with my propensity for errors, I wanted to quit writing I Left My Prostate in San Francisco-Where’s Yours? Like Moses I asked God: Are You sure You chose the right person to do this? What will I do other than to produce a mistake filled book? Those questions came from the place of discouragement.

Better, wiser, and healthier questions come from the place of discernment. Discernment recognizes the problem and looks for solutions. I didn’t want to pay thousands of dollars to an editor, but I had to if I wanted to produce a book that wasn’t filled with errors. In the process I learned that editors miss mistakes as well. Our book went through 2 rounds of professional editing. After that, my wife found more than 30 errors that were missed. Once the book was published we found a few errors both the editors and my wife missed. Oh well. If perfection were standard our book would not see the light of day.

The Bible was written to teach us about God, ourselves, our relationships, and most importantly our purpose in life.
God’s said this to Moses: Ex 4:11-12
Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the LORD?  Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.

That message wasn’t just for Moses. Those words are for us today. I needed God’s assurance as I wrote the book. Now that the book is finished I need this reassurance even more.  Finishing a book is the first step in the process of making a book successful. The next task is marketing. Marketing involves public speaking and dealing with the media. I’m blessed not only with the propensity for errors in writing, but also with speaking.

 An error in High School and the public humiliation that followed shaped my opinion of my self and my abilities for decades.

In a Social Studies class in the 7th grade the teacher asked: What right was protected by the First Amendment? I raised my hand and was called upon. I meant to say “Freedom of Speech” what came out of my mouth was “Speedum of Freech”  Forty seven years later, I can still  hear the laughter echo in my mind. I call that experience a shame anchor. Everyone has them. They are painful memories that shape who you are, and what you will and won’t do in order to avoid that familiar and painful sense of shame.

I have a choice of who and what I’m willing to believe. I can base my life and my life choices on my shame anchors, or I can base of my life and choices based on God’s promises.  God has promised He will help me know what to say and how to say it. I believe that. Does that guarantee I won’t mistake either in writing or speaking. Absolutely not! I will make plenty of mistakes. I’ve probably made some in this piece. God’s grace cover’s my mistakes, so I can laugh about them. If other people laugh at my mistakes, that’s Ok by me. We will all enjoy a good laugh together. It’s laugh without shame, it’s a laugh about our imperfections. The truth is our imperfections and mistakes can be quite funny!

The fact that I’ve published a book, blog, and I’m now engaged in marketing and public speaking I hope encourages anyone reading this to become all that God wants them to be, rather than be controlled by your imperfections, mistakes and shame anchors.

Transformations

 This weekend I joined the Alliance of Independent Authors. I was accepted into this association because I’m in the process of becoming a published author.  That's a transformation my wife & I worked to achieve for years. It's a transformation I'll be proud to attain. There are other transformations that I haven't worked for, yet taken years to achieve.

 In my wallet I currently posses a senior citizen discount card to a local restaurant. Somewhere along the line, I missed middle age. From my perspective I went from being a young married person to a senior citizen in the course of no more than a week. I often stare in the mirror wondering how I transformed from young married status to senior citizen status so quickly.

 I’ve developed a theory about this. When you are young, times moves oh so slowly. Waiting a year from the time I got my permit to the time I received my drivers license, felt like an eternity. Now decades move that quickly. So I’ve come to the conclusion that time actually speeds up the older you get. I can’t prove this scientifically, but if you ask Senior Citizens if time moves quickly you’ll get a much different than asking the same question to a teenager.

 Transformations occur over the course of time. Some are sought after, like getting a driver’s license or publishing a book. Some just happen over the course of time, like becoming a Senior Citizen.

 I have a have a hands down favorite transformation. It didn’t require any work on my part at all. One of the amazing aspects of this transformation is it’s available to anyone who asks. Once you receive it, it’s yours forever. Death cannot take away or defeat this transformation. The way to receive it is found in:
 2 Cor 5:17
 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

 I’ve experienced this transformation. Transforming into a new creation a Christ is by far the best and most valuable transformation available this side of heaven. If you have not experienced this transformation, your missing out on the best transformation that life has to offer.

 I spent decades of my life in disbelief. Now as I reflect back on every transformation I’ve experienced I’m most grateful to be a new creation in Christ. If you’ve not made that transformation, think about, pray about it, read the New Testament, seek out friends and family who’ve experienced this transformation, and ask them about it. Then you can make an informed decision whether or not you wish to become a new creation in Christ. It is by far the best and most important decision I’ve made in my lifetime. I believe that today, and I’ll believe that throughout eternity