July 19, 2024
SPARKLE:
Your Seven-Step Guide to a Joy-Infused Life
Dr. Pamela George
Aviva Publishing (2024)
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-63618-347-3
E-book ISBN: 978-1-63618-348-0
New Book Offers Process to Create a Joyful Life
Dr. Pamela (Pam) George’s new book, Sparkle: Your Seven-Step Guide to a Joy-Infused Life,does more than just offer ideas for finding joy; it’s a practical guide through life’s challenges, from enhancing your self-worth to spiritual fulfillment, overcoming fear, and healing past traumas. It’s an invitation to a transformative journey toward authentic joy.
Pam has divided Sparkle into two sections. Part I focuses on how joy gets sucked out of our lives. She uses the biblical metaphor of “leaky cisterns,” inspired by God’s words to the Prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah 2:13. These leaks are subtle but will gradually drain our happiness if the holes are left unchecked. Pam then discusses in detail the leaky cisterns of comparison, performance, and societal pressures and explains how they affect our ability to be joyful. For example, she tells us, “whenever I catch myself feeling less than joyful about someone else’s success, I recognize the culprit: the joy-stealing leak of comparison.”
Using a scripture-based approach, Pam offers ways to overcome these leaks, including providing practical exercises and room for reflection. While she knows there are many self-help guides out there, she considers Sparkle a “God-help” book and “a beacon guiding you from transient desires to eternal joy.” Part of why we have leaky cisterns, as Pam realizes, is that we look to human systems to bring us joy, only to have them drain our joy because they cannot provide us with security and happiness apart from God. When we quit abandoning God for earthly items and concerns, we will quit finding our joy depleted.
Part II of the book introduces us to SPARKLE, an acronym for the seven steps that will bring joy into our lives. The seven steps are:
- Secure Attachment to God: Anchor yourself in divine attachment love.
- Perseverance Power: Let perseverance flow naturally by taking steady steps.
- Amplify Appreciation: Draw strength from a wellspring of treasured moments.
- Rebuild Trust: Use your newfound insights to navigate life with confidence.
- Kindsight: Reflect wisely on the past, learning from it without being ensnared by it.
- Leverage Listening: The secret of a joy-filled connection.
- Embrace Growth: Bridge maturity gaps and let your Sparkle shine forth!
In addition, these steps focus on how we can both grow closer to God and retain our true identities. Pam states that her aim is to “guide you toward a life where you no longer feel the need to change yourself to fit a mold but can find joy and fulfillment in being unabashedly you.” Pam experienced her own struggle to fit in yet retain her true self when she worked as a missionary in foreign lands. Although of Indian descent, she grew up in the United States. She struggled to retain her cultural identity yet fit into the American way of life. Then, when she became a missionary in foreign lands, she states, “even among people who shared my skin color, my Western upbringing set me apart. The allure of assimilation, a melody spun from the threads of societal norms, called out to me. Each step I took as my authentic self yielded a diverse range of reactions from others—admiration, curiosity, and sometimes disdain.” She had similar experiences in school, trying to balance fitting into the American way of life with maintaining her Indian cultural identity. Pam shares her hard-won insights into how to achieve the delicate balance of staying true to who we are while navigating social expectations.
One of the most vibrant and fascinating sections of Sparkle is Pam’s discussion of “kindsight.” She coined the term, which she defines as “the power of reflection to learn from the past without getting trapped in it.” Think of kindsight as looking in the rearview mirror of your vehicle. You may still be moving forward, but you pause to review where you’ve been, and then you learn from it to help yourself move forward.
Of course, Pam reminds us to remember God’s role in kindsight. True kindsight includes perceiving our past through God’s eyes. We cannot change the past through kindsight, but we can come to view it the way God does, as a means to our growth. As Pam states, “Kindsight is not about rewriting history; it’s about altering our present relationship with that history.” In addition, I love when she refers to Jesus as our “divine chiropractor, who will align you with your true purpose and potential.”
Pam uses biblical stories throughout Sparkle to illustrate her points. In her discussion of kindsight, she refers to Ruth, whose story doesn’t start out well—Ruth’s husband dies and her mother-in-law, Naomi, chooses to return home, but Ruth follows Naomi and eventually is led into a joy-infused life when she meets Naomi’s relative Boaz, falls in love, and marries him. Pam states, “Ruth’s life imparts a profound truth: our beginnings don’t dictate our destinies. She embodies kindsight—the power to view our lives with empathy and wisdom, understanding that our deepest wounds can become our greatest strengths.”
Sparkle contains far more wisdom and advice that you can apply to your life. Each chapter concludes with exercises to help transform you into a joy-filled life. The spiritual practices can be used on an individual or group level. The entire book, and especially the assignments, are invitations to connect more closely with yourself and with God until you infuse them into your every aspect of your life. Then, watch out because others will want to know the secret of what makes you sparkle!
For more information about Sparkle: Your Seven-Step Guide to a Joy-Infused Life, visit Amazon.
— Tyler R. Tichelaar, PhD and award-winning author of Narrow Lives and The Best Place
