Adding Sparkle and Spirit to Life is the subtitle of Shirley’s book. And Radiant After 70 does just that—show you how to add sparkle and spirit to your live as you live through your 70s. Although targeted to women in their 70s, the principles apply to all ages. But if you want one more tailored to you, Shirley has also written Fabulous After 50 and Sensational After 60!
Shirley quotes Theodore Roosevelt, who once said, “Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” Shirley does anything but live the gray twilight and encourages all of us to look forward to these, our later years, and seize the opportunities we have to enjoy them to the fullest.
Shirley encourages us to be DIVAs—divine, inspired, vivacious, and anointed! The keys to being such a woman are:
#1: Follow the law of love, God’s prime commandment—“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind … you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
#2: Squeal with zeal!
#3: Have a vision for your future.
#4: Embrace true women friends.
#5: Look smashing while dashing!”
#6: Stay fit, fun, and forever young!
#7. Bring out the reflection of Jesus in your life.
Shirley’s motto verse is Psalm 90:17, and having met her, I can tell you she lives it, “Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea the work of our hands establish thou it” (KJV).
As we enter the decade of our 70s, we can truly celebrate life, according to Shirley. We can be independent, true to ourselves, dare more, live more. We have fewer responsibilities and, if we’ve kept ourselves fit and the Lord gives us good health, we can do more than we could when we were constrained by the duties of homes and children. We can spend more time with God—get to know Him even more intimately. Most of all we can live with confidence—confidence that God has brought us this far and He will bring us the rest of the way Home.
I’ll leave you with this thought from Radiant After 70. Shirley quotes the apostle John speaking to his friend Gaius in 3 John 2, “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.”
To purchase Radiant After 70, click here: Radiant After 70: Adding Sparkle and Spirit to Life
I was privileged to spend a bit of time with Shirley and her agent at the International Christian Retail Show in Orlando this past June. She told me a bit about her growing-up years. She was raided on a sixty-acre cotton farm that was her grandparent’s and parents. She says she had lots of good food, Christian love, and family. She attended Montevallo College in Alabama in 1956 and met the heir to Mitchell Grocery in Albertville. They married and traveled extensively so Shirley was exposed to various countries and people and the “finer things in life.”
Shirley writes for the Baby Boomer market—to feed the market with Christian love, values, and spirit. She is a very determined woman—her first book, Fabulous After 50, was rejected twenty-five times before her manuscript was finally published. She told me, “Every time it was rejected, I changed it and made it better. I learned from every rejection.”
An accidental meeting at the International Society of Poets led to her meeting Cruiser Small from Maine. They had lunch and after getting to know him over time, Shirley asked him to be her agent. Thirteen years later they’re still going strong.
Shirley says she is having the time of her life, following her biggest passions: writing, speaking, traveling, and being a mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, but her greatest passion is being fabulous at any age. Her final advice? “Stay in the Word and you will find joy, peace, and anticipation of tomorrow.”
To learn more about this very busy, dynamic woman, go to Aging Outside the Box
Whitaker House gave me a copy of Radiant After 70 in exchange for my candid review.