Guest post by Anne Lyken-Garner

I am truly honored to promote Annie today and her memoir of Sunday’s Child.

Sunday’s Child is the remarkably inspirational true story of a little girl struggling to rise above poverty, appalling living conditions, food lines, violence, abuse, mental anguish and political hardships. It shows how she picks out little glimmers of hope and love and uses them as positive anchors in her life. She draws on everything she has – just to survive. (Published by Pulse Publishing).

About Sunday’s Child

Sunday’s Child tells of the harrowing systematic abuse of a little girl by her grandmother, while giving the reader a glimpse of the political and cultural climate of 1980′s Guyana.

In a desperate economic crisis, Guyana is forced to resort to food and energy rationing. Acclaimed author Anne Lyken-Garner’s tale picks up on the humorous aspects that the young girl experiences while forced to spend hours in food lines, simultaneously unfolding the sadness and desperation that is her everyday life.

A soldier in Jonestown, where more than nine hundred people committed mass suicide, the young girl’s uncle tells her of the dead bodies he’s seen – but she doesn’t mention the one that she herself has witnessed. When she loses the one person in her life who cares for her – and tries to save her – she knows in her heart that her life is about to end…

Click on this link to learn more about Sunday’s Child.

Thank you Annie for sharing your story with us!

Remember, may the possibilities of today excite us!

Anne Lyken-Garner encouargement, inspiration, motivation

Allow me to introduce you to Anne Lyken-Garner

The thing that struck me when we approached the lavender field was the fact that the ground was completely parched – so dry you could pick up the soil and crumple it into sand particles between your fingers. It made me wonder how such rich plants with such glorious scents could survive and indeed, thrive in such harsh and unwelcoming surroundings.    

I was later told the lavender plant loves dry soil. In fact, the very thing that makes them smell so sweet is the hardship they endure having to make it through without food and water. In other words, the harder they work to survive, the sweeter they smell. 

We’re like that sometimes, aren’t we? The harder we work at understanding life and building confidence to deal with difficulty, the better we become for it.

My kids don’t believe me, but I tell them often that they won’t learn patience unless they’re made to wait for things. The very thing that produces patience is that which induces the ‘hardship’. Likewise, the things that make us appreciate happiness in life are those which make us go through pain. For how can we truly understand happiness if we don’t know what not being happy feels like?

So, when you’re going through stumbling blocks in life don’t get stuck on wondering, ‘why me’. I know it’s difficult, but fully engage with the stumbling blocks by using them as stepping stones to climb to where you want to be. Why? Because those are the same blocks you’ll own later on, which you’ll use to build the foundation of a stronger you. Keep those stones well polished because you’ll also use them to create a more rigid confidence platform – a platform from which you can help your girlfriends cope when sanity is slipping from their grasps.

Embrace life’s little rocks with confidence because like diamonds, if they were soft and cushy they wouldn’t be precious – and they certainly wouldn’t be our best friends!

BIO

Anne Lyken-Garner is an author, freelance writer, blogger and editor. She writes for, and manages 4 blogs and edited The Writers Bureau online student magazine for 2 years. She specialises in relationship help and How to Build Confidence. Anne’s inspirational memoir, Sunday’s Child is due out later in Spring. It’s an inspiring story of a little girl struggling to rise above appalling living conditions, poverty, violence and abuse.

Anne Lyken-Garner, Uncategorized change, encouargement, insight, inspiration, motivation, Patience, positive thinking