Guest Post by Vanessa D. Werts
Have you ever wondered what your life would be if you could conquer your fears, fully connect with your purpose for being alive, and love yourself and others unconditionally? Well, if you believe in the healing power of love, there is a pre-destined path for you to get there.

Anything love touches, comes alive and grows. The heart responds to love with exuberance, and also knows and reacts when there is a lack of it. Without exception, God put a spirit of love on each one of us when his hands touched and formed us in our mothers’ womb. After we were born, that same touch created a void that the heart is wildly in search of as we look to people for this radical love of God we once knew.

If you asked ten people what love means to them, you would probably get ten different answers. However, there is a definition and demonstration of love that every heart would acknowledge as true love, and it looks like this: “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NLT). There isn’t a heart beating that would dispute being treated in this way.

My nonfiction book Lies and Love: Cleansing The Heart To Make Room For Radical Love (November 2016), a 30-Day Heart Cleanse for Women, is a tool for inner healing. In the Bible, it says that the heart is “extremely sick” (see Jeremiah 17:9), and it also says to “guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life” (Proverbs 4:23 NLT). Lies and Love offers a spiritual approach to identify and cast out the residue left behind from traumatic life experiences, then fills up those empty places with love. The cleanse is also designed to activate your God-given gifts and talents.

In the opening of the book, I share my own heart story and how daddy issues and being sexually assaulted as a teen affected my self-worth. Then God got my attention one day and taught me to value and honor myself; by his love, he healed my life and defeated every enemy of my soul.

What is your heart story? This is the question I ask in Lies and Love. As you follow the spiritual journey through the heart, you will be able to pinpoint your own heart issues. These issues or chaos, would be feelings such as anger, bitterness, fear, frustration, grudges, rejection, resentment, shame, and even hatred, that have become trapped in the heart, affecting how you view yourself and how you interact with and treat others. A chaotic heart is unhealthy and often leads to feeling insecure, unloved, unworthy, and sorrowful. Though we all may experience a range of these emotions at some point in our lives, if you feel like this most of the time, your heart needs to be healed.

Any attitude, behavior, or habit that is counterproductive to your life is an indicator that something is going on in the heart that should be addressed. Do any of the following issues play out in your life or concern you on a regular basis?

• Are you angry often and take it out on those close to you?
• Is sarcasm your way of communicating with people?
• Are you frustrated with your current station in life (career, personal, spiritual)?
• Are you single and discouraged by the dating scene?
• Does your childhood still haunt you today?
• Are you indifferent about major decisions you need to make?
• Do you have a bias against a particular group of people?

This is a short list but it makes the point that, just as the issues of life vary, so do the issues of the heart that affect how we function day to day. Only you and God know your heart story, and he wants to heal the hurtful memories of your past that keep you from living fearlessly and loving fully, today.

Before the actual 30-day cleanse commences, the topics of lies and love are explored from a heavenly perspective. Lies are considered to be anything that God did not say or provision for your life, according to Scripture. For instance, living with regret is living a lie. Why? Because having regret causes you to hold something you’ve previously done, against yourself now; it’s like having a vendetta against yourself. But the Bible commands us to always forgive, which also includes forgiving ourselves.

During the cleanse process, chaos is expelled from the heart through daily activities that are guided by scripture, encouraging women to forgive, pursue love, celebrate their lives, and live on purpose. The 30- Day Heart Cleanse is a literal and spiritual step forward into a new season of your life.

Do you want to live that abundant life you dream of, now? Believe that it is possible; let go of emotional baggage, and always remember to love. Love is the undisputed, undefeated, champion.

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VANESSA D. WERTS is the author of Lies and Love and other fiction books about relationships, love and forgiveness. She’s a military veteran, minister, and champion for women achieving a healthy selfimage. When she’s not writing, you can find her speaking to church groups and to college students about the messages in her books. Vanessa has an abiding love to bridge the gap from people’s life experiences to the promises of God. Her website is www.VanessaWerts.com.

Guest post by Deirdre Hade

The (Not So) Little Book of Surprises was twenty years in the making.  My husband, Will Arntz, who created the film What the Bleep Do We Know!? got the idea to take my poetic writing and the mystical transcendental experiences I draw upon when I teach, and combine with the photos of the award‑winning photographer, Endre Balogh, in a book – creating a journey of thought, a journey of the divine, a journey of wisdom.  And when he came to me with this idea I said, “Great, let’s do it.”  And then he said to me, “No, no, it’s not LET’s do it, it’s I’M doing it,” and he actually would not let me see what he was doing in the beginning.

Because he made the successful film What the Bleep, I trusted his insight and intuition and I loved what he put together. He came up with the title The (Not So) Little Book of Surprise because he said this book is a Surprise!  There’s not a book like this book anywhere in the world.  You can look at just one page, read a few sentences and receive wisdom. You can experience the breathtaking nature photography. Or you can read the entire book in about an hour and a half, experiencing a journey as the wisdom story unfolds.

Transformation and consciousness always comes in a Surprise!  We can study, go to our place of worship, we can have a practice. But when those moments of awakening of awareness, the “aha”, when the world looks different…when That happens, it is always a surprise. Awakening comes in surprise moments.

Since a very young age I have been visited by angels, saints and different illuminated beings.  They speak to me, and I’ve seen them with my own eyes.  At an early age I began to write down what they would tell me.

These light beings feel strongly that they want their voices heard, because they want to bring hope. They want to share a map that will help us to get through our changing times with as much grace as is available. This map is inside of us. The (not so) Little Book of Surprises is a guide to one’s inner map of wisdom and awakening.

I say to people, “I’m not really here, I’m a simulation. I’m from the grand projector, I’m beaming in.” My messages come from a state of Irradiance, which is defined as the ability to radiate outward an energy that is felt and/or experienced into the environment.  (You can find this term in the dictionary.)  I use this definition because when the Angels, the Light Beings, when God speaks to me, I feel a palpable presence, like a heaviness of light – my body changes.  I go into a state of bliss and ecstasy, and then I hear their voices.  I’ve worked very hard to be very clear to hear them and to make sure that the voices I hear are who they say they are.  I then speak what they tell me, or I write it down. Surprises is a combination of my own wisdom, with what I’ve learned from God and the Beings of Light. It is my poetic understanding, and it is a combination of the Light Beings and of God sharing a greater reality perspective of our human experience.

Will picked out quotes for the book that resonate as true for the times we live in.  Surprises is a book of my life experience with the divine realms. This is what I’ve seen and experienced with my eyes, this is what I know.  If it rings true for you, great.  If you can’t go there, that’s okay too. The Book of Surprises is like a rock‑and‑roll song.  You get what you can just  enjoy the ride.  Enjoy the magic, the insight, inspiration – Surprises is a melody of sprit and beauty in the mystical. I highly recommend that the reader

Surprises is a “children’s book” for adults.  But it’s also very much a children’s book.  I find children today are very aware, awake, and they’re looking to be validated for the wise souls that they are. More souls are being born right now have this high level of sensitivity.  What I mean by that is, that they have an ability to feel and sense the natural world  outside of the intellectual two-dimensional processing.  These kids Know – and they’re being born by the millions. They want validation.  They have come to help us heal our world.  They come wrapped in a vibration of love. All children, are aware and sensitive, we must prepare a world for them to thrive.  They learn differently, they need different kinds of schools, they need to be honored for what they see and what they know.  The book Surprises  is supportive for young people – it’s a family book to sit around and read together.

I’m ecstatic with how The (not so) Little Book of Surprises turned out.  I love reading it myself.  Because of the through line that Will so artistically created. Each time I read it I experience something new – a spiritual experience of a different flavor.  I actually learn, even though it comes from “my work.” I see something deeper every time.  I’ve been asked, “Why read this book?” and I answer, because we are here as consciousness to experience the third dimension. We are here to create the magic, the miracle and the beauty – the justice, the truth – of what it really means to be human.  And that’s our journey, and it’s bumpy ride.  And we meet obstacles, but that’s really the journey of our human soul. And The (Not So) Little Book of Surprises was created for you to have an awesome experience in a book.