Hey there!

I woke up this morning knowing that I needed to send this email to you to let you know that WHY DID I GET MARRIED? opens this Friday.

I know that I needed to tell you to please check your ticket stubs to make sure that they say WHY DID I GET MARRIED? And I needed to say, "Please go this weekend, the first weekend is very important!" I know that I needed to ask you to please not buy this movie on bootleg, but to see it in the theaters. I know that I needed to send this email to stress all of this, but I also felt so compelled this morning to talk to you about something else.

Yesterday a reporter asked me a question.  He said, "With all that is happening to you now--when you were growing up in New Orleans did you ever imagine that you would be in this position?"

I told him, "Yes, I did imagine!"

He was shocked. He said, "You don't think that's a little arrogant?"

I told him this--and I want to share it with you because the way he looked at me I know that he won't print it.

I said, "I had to imagine myself in a better place.  Sometimes the nights got so cold and the days so hard and long that if I wouldn't have then I wouldn't have made it."

The Bible says that you should speak things that are not as though they were, and that you must cast down imaginations and everything that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.  It also says that the power of life and death is in the tongue. So, you can speak life or you can speak death.

I chose to speak life into my situation. I chose to use my imagination to take me higher. Not just in this life but higher in Christ.

I want to ask you some questions today. And this is mainly for the people that are going through right now. When you think about your tomorrow are good things waiting for you? When you imagine your future are you happy and blessed?  Is your family happy? Are you in a better place than you are now? If you don't see good things in your future then nothing good will come your way. You must think good about you so that it can come to you.

So, start seeing yourself in a better place. I promise you that it works.

It worked for me and it can work for you.

And just a side note, when you start to dream and see yourself in a better place, don't share it with everybody. Long ago I stopped telling people my dreams because I would always run into dream stealers--people who are so miserable and so mad at the world that all they can do is bring you bitter words of hopelessness. Stay away from these people!  They are poison.  I had a few people in my life like that. I had to get rid of them--and some of them were family members.

It's time to come out of it. And it starts in your mind. If God can bring me out of poverty and despair and place me right in the middle of the life that I've always dreamed of then He can do it for anyone…if you believe.

As you head to the movies this weekend my prayer is that you begin to live in the place that God has prepared for you. Use your imagination. It is a glorious tool. See yourself doing better and it shall come to pass. It has no choice.  Remember, as a man (or woman) thinketh so is he (she).  In other words what "you" think of "you" becomes who "you" are.

So, what are "you" thinking of "you" today?

Be blessed,

Tyler Perry

P.S. I'll see you at the movies.