Patti LaBelle - Pattis Pearls: Lessons in Living Genuinely, Joyfully, Generously

Grateful acknowledgment is given to quote from Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou, copyright 1978 by Maya Angelou, from And Still I Rise by Maya Angelou. Used by permission of Random House, Inc.

PATTIS PEARLS. Copyright 2001 by Patti LaBelle and Laura Randolph Lancaster. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Warner Books,

Hachette Book Group

237 Park Avenue

New York, NY 10017.

ISBN: 978-0-7595-2625-9

A hardcover edition of this book was published in 2001 by Warner Books.

First eBook Edition: October 2001

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PATTI LABELLE AND LAURA RANDOLPH LANCASTER

La Belle Cuisine

Dont Block the Blessings

This book is dedicated to Zuri, my heartbeat, who has taught me so much of what I know about loveits patience, its power, its glory. In these pages may you find treasures worth more than gold, the secrets of living genuinely, joyfully, generously. And may they help you learn long before your mother did the ultimate secret of happiness: to grow wise before you grow old.

F irst and foremost, thanks to God for His boundless grace and blessings. And for allowing me to wake up each morning and say the words of Isaiah 12:2 without fear, hesitation, or doubt. I will trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation.

Thanks to Jamie Raab, dream editor, who understood and believed in this book long before it was writtenand who did all the right things with it once it was.

Thanks to Allen Arrow, whose knowledge of the law is equaled only by his knowledge of peoplehow to steer them, support them, and surround them with what they need when they need it most.

Thanks to Al Lowman for his belief in this book and his tremendous skill at getting others to believe in it, too.

Thanks to Armstead Edwards for shepherding this book through its many stages. But most of all for helping me show our son that respect shouldnt cease just because romance doesand that the end of a marriage doesnt have to mean the end of a friendship.

Thanks to Kristin Clark Taylor who helped in so many ways that only she knows.

Thanks to Reign, my rottweiler, who stays up with me whenever I cant sleepand watches over me when I can.

And last but by no means least, a special and heart-felt thanks to my friend and collaborator, Laura Randolph Lancaster, who has a rare and special gift: the ability to turn words into music.

For wisdom is better than rubies;
and all the things that may be desired
are not to be compared to it.

Proverbs 8:11

A ll my life people have told them to me. Pearls of wisdom worth more than rubies. Sentence sayings filled with the wisdom of the ages. Timeless truths that, if followed, hold the secrets of living genuinely, joyfully, generously.

It started when I was a kid. Every summer, when I visited my grandmother Ellen at her farm in Florida, she would tell them to me. From the day I arrived until the day I left, she would tell me some pearl of wisdom that usually went in one ear and out the other. Bloom where youre planted, child, she used to say whenever I talked about all the things I was going to do when I got back home, back to the city, where we had all kinds of thingsstores, televisions, indoor plumbingthat she didnt have in the country. Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

My mother did the same thing. To the tenth power. Until she died, Chubby never stopped telling me pearls of wisdom. Words to live by. God brings men into deep waters, not to drown them, but to cleanse them, she would always say when I was facing some crisis that I didnt know how to handleor if I even could.

Almost thirty years later, my family and friends are still telling me pearls of wisdom. And theyre some of the wisest things Ive ever heard. Just a few months ago, for example, in the last conversation we ever had, my aunt Naomi told me some words of wisdom I badly needed to hear. Theyre in the book. But all I want to say about them now is this: I will treasure them my whole life as much for their wisdom as for what I know it took for Aunt Naomi to summon the strength to share them with me when she was lying in a hospital bed.

And while Ive always heard these pearls of wisdom, only recently have I started to heed them. Live by them. Abide by them. Thats because only recently have I come to understand their full meaningand magic. I know what youre thinking: Why now? Why have these pearls of wisdom, pearls Ive been told my whole life, suddenly become the blueprints for living it?

Ive asked myself that question a thousand times, and I think there are two answers, really. The first is age, pure and simple. By the time you reach fifty-six, if youve paid attention at all, the School of Life has taught you a thing or three about how to live it. As the Bible says, With the ancient is wisdom; and in length of days understanding. The second reason is a book. A book that made me look at myself and my life in a way I never had: my life story. Writing Dont Block the Blessings forced me to take a long, hard look at my lifethe good, the bad, and the ugly. But more important, it forced me to try to make some sense of it. To look at my mistakes and what they cost me. To acknowledge them, accept themand then come to terms with them. Some of those mistakes are in this book. The ones that I like remembering the least but have taught me the most.

But let me explain why Im bringing up Dont Block the Blessings. When I was writing it, thats when it started to happen. Thats when I started to understand how much pain and heartache I could have spared myselfand a whole lot of other people in my lifehad I done one simple thing: listen to the pearls of wisdom Id been told from the time I was a little girl. Everything I needed to live the way we all want toin peace, with passion and pleasure and purposeall the secrets of living genuinely, joyfully, generously, I knew. Because at some point in my life somebody far wiser than I had told them to me. All I had to do was follow them.

If youve ever been to one of my concerts, theres a good chance youve heard me sing the song When Youve Been Blessed. I perform that song a lot because I love what it says: When youve been blessed, pass it on. This book is my attempt to do just thatpass on to others all the wisdom that others have tried to pass on to me.

Which brings me to something about this book I need to tell you. Something important. While its called Pattis Pearls, I didnt write them. As I said, people far wiser than I did that. But, like so many of the pearls of wisdom we all grew up hearingA penny saved is a penny earned; Half a loaf is better than none; Dont count your chickens before they hatchI have no clue what wise soul actually composed them. And I doubt if the people who told them to me know either.

So why do I call this book Pattis Pearls? Because of all the timeless truths Ive been told in my fifty-six years on this earth, the ones on these pages have made the greatest difference in my life. They have either spared me a whole lot of pain and heartache, or could have had I had the good sense to listen to them when they were first told to me.