TRANSFORMING LOVE (WHO'S THE "REAL" FOOL"

There are people who make commitments or promises and with everything in their fiber they remain faithful no matter what. It doesn’t mean that there are no challenges to being faithful, but its an inner value that lies within the heart of the individual who stands faithful. 

Faithful people want others to know they can be depended on and that alone provides the ones they love with a sense of emotional safety. However, too many of us have known or experienced the pain of unfaithfulness, especially in regard to romantic or marital relationships. 

The Good Book distinctly says that an unfaithful person lacks sense and destroys his or her own soul. Yet the faithful man or woman often feels like the fool or is called a fool because they remained faithful during the relationship. 

Further, one is never a fool who honors love by being faithful to their word, loyal to promises, and true to their own values. I know by experience the piercing arrow of unfaithfulness and I am determined never to do that to another human being.

 I walked away with my dignity and character in tact and have been fortunate to find a new, everlasting, faithful love. "...but the Lord is faithful.....God is faithful and ...GREAT is [his] faithfulness...." (2 Thessalonians 3:3, 1 Corinthians 1: 9 and Lamentations 3:23).

I truly value faithfulness in myself and others. Is it an awesome trait to possess and it is a trait most people hope to find in a person they pledge their hearts to. "A FAITHFUL MAN SHALL ABOUND WITH BLESSINGS....." (Proverbs 28:20).

A fool, you see, is a person who “acts unwisely” or is “deficit” in character.(Proverbs 28:26 KJV).  "Good understanding wins favor [from others], But the way of the unfaithful is hard [like barren, dry soil]. Every prudent and self-disciplined man acts with knowledge, But a [closed-minded] fool [who refuses to learn] displays his foolishness [for all to see]" (Proverbs 13:15-16 AMP).

Faithfulness demonstrates both wisdom and depth of character, so the question needs to be asked of the unfaithful: Who’s the “real” fool?

Dr. Pensacola Helene Jefferson

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TRANSFORMING LOVE (RITE OR RONG?)

I got my lists

My grocery list

My lists of names

My guest lists

My lists of games

But my favorite list

Is pretty long

It’s a list about you

And all your wrong.

       Pensacola Helene

Rite and Rong got married and like any other couple they had their share of arguments and offenses. Rong began to notice after a year Rite was keeping a list of his wrongs. One particular thing on the list was the piece of china her grandmother gave her and Rong had dropped it one day by accident. In the second year of marriage Rite actually bought the lists out in the middle of an argument and by that time it was four pages long.

In year six of marriage, she had over a chapter of Rong’s wrongs and the china was still on it. Rong felt pretty bad when he heard all the wrong things he’d done to his wife over the years, but he couldn’t undo many of them. So he apologized profusely, asked for forgiveness a thousand times, tried to improve, and even had the china repaired, but to no avail.  Rite’s list lived on. Even though Rong tried to fix the china; Rite felt it was not the same anymor.

However, by the tenth year of marriage, Rong decided to start his own list. He couldn’t wait until their argument. When the day finally came, Rong pulled out his list right along with Rite’s list. For every one of his wrongs Rite quoted from her list; he quotes one from his list. This argument went on for a while, but with every word it changed Rite and Rong into two distance shores. The love they once shared seem to disappear into their lists of wrongs.

Rite was really impacted by the fact that Rong was now keeping a list too. It may her feel bad to hear all her wrongs thrown up in her face like that, but she had done that to Rong for years. Rong had tried to tell her many times that Love doesn’t keep a record of wrongs.  He even showed it to her in the bible and she had heard it at church as well. She missed Rong, but her list had become the ocean between them. How could Rite have been so wrong and Rong so right?

One day, Rite went to Rong with her list, but this time she burned it in the fireplace and then she asked Rong was he willing to do the same. Rong shook his head and she looked perplexed. Rong then handed her his list, there was nothing on it. Rite looked confused. “I never really had a list, Rite. I love you too much and couldn't keep a record of your wrongs.”

The changed everything. Rite and Rong lived happily ever after. They learned that nobody is right all the time and wrong is not meant to be kept on a list. And when someone breaks your china and apologizes; the china is still broken, but forgive and let God repair it. For no matter how carefully they may try to put it back together, it won’t be perfect. Only God can heal completely and we must always give our broken china to God to heal.

No matter how hard we try, we mess up with the ones we love. We do wrong sooner or later. But don’t start a list or record of those wrong. Instead, forgive others in the same way you want them to forgive you.  

Wrong can come from either party in all relationships and forgiveness must fix it.. Therefore, expect wrong to come along, tap you on the shoulder, and says, “Tag you’re it!!”

 Will you be Rite or Rong?

DR Pensacola Helene Jefferson

BUY MY BOOK "TRANSFORMING LOVE" HERE!

TRANSFORMING LOVE (SMALL INDICRETIONS).

A few little white lies, small careless acts, a few unkind thoughts, a bad habit or two, a wee bit of sexual misbehavior, little bouts of selfishness, minor fits of anger, a little hatred or resentment, occasional dishonesty, small lacks of integrity, or some other small indiscretion shouldn’t really matter. It’s just a little bit. You’re still a moral person right?

17 year old Mary lied to get into a club one night and her friend went with her. They had drinks. It was the same night the club was targeted by the state police and everyone had to show some form of identification. Mary’s father was one of the officers. Even though the girls had identification, he knew they were phony. 

The father was mad at the owner for allowing minors into his club and gave him a piece of his mind. The whole club was closed down for the night. And the club owner ended up losing his license and the income he needed to provide for his family. Eventually, he couldn’t pay the mortgage, foreclosed on his home, and had to move his family to another state to live with his parents. 

Mary, on the other hand, got a slap on the hand and went on with her life. It was just a little bitty, harmless lie, but with big consequences. It’s a simple story, but I hope your get the drift of it.  If your little bit of wrong only hurts you that’s one thing, but when it reaches out and hurts others; it’s another thing.

Some of us get away with practicing a little wrong or acceptable wrongs; here and there, but if you don’t regularly examine your own heart – your little wrongs will spill over and negatively impact others. How many people do you know personally that have been devastated by a “little bit of wrong?” 

Most people get hurt by those who do not “check” their little bit of wrong at the door of their friendships and relationships with others. So please remember a LITTLE bit of ANYTHING wrong and negative is still SOME. Out of kindness, work on your “little bit” of wrongs and the small indiscretions of your heart before getting involved with others.

DR Pensacola Helene Jefferson

BUY MY NEW BOOK "TRANSFORMING LOVE" HERE!!

TRANSFORMING LOVE (THE DESERT OF INSIGNIFICANCE)

In the desert of insignificance you find people:

Feeding others; when they themselves are hungry

Giving out drinks; while being thirsty

Embracing others; yet longing to be embraced

Providing for other people’s needs and yet left with needs of their own

Calming the cries around them and holding back their own tears

Laughing out loud and crying silently

Surrounded by people and lonely

Loving others and longing for love from others

Looking fulfilled and walking empty

What happened? God says not to be selfish, not selfless. You are to help people full, not empty. The desert of insignificance resides in the heart. It’s an internal condition. It’s about the loss of significance of the Person. Somehow in all your busyness in life, you  somehow become forgotten and abandoned. While not having denied the needs of others; your own needs have been left depleted. You have paid sufficient attention to others, but have practically neglected yourself. 

It has left you in a place of emotional lack. Though you have been fulfilling your life with the busyness of living and collecting and gathering; a sense of insignificance have emerged in your own heart. 

Busyness, the desire for acceptance, the need to achieve or be accomplished, and the lusts for importance made all your offerings, trinkets, and stuff significant, but NOT YOU. 

Most people don’t realize it’s not them, but their stuff that’s significant until the quicksand is under their feet. The desert of insignificance is an emotional desert, a wasteland, a place of desertion, and a barren region in the heart and many go there to either visit or stay. Some visitors meet the Water of Life  and return saying:

I had to GO to the desert for a drink of water

Genuine love makes YOU significant and LOVE is the water that continually refreshes the heart and the spirit. People can care about all your toys, your stuff, your trinkets, your beauty, and your offerings, but not quite make it to caring about you. It may not matter in the beginning, but eventually it will. 

The Desert of Insignificance is a dark place. God wants you to Love others, but not without first realizing his love for you!! God is a God of more than even and wants you to love out of your overflow and not from your lack. God loves you FOR YOU. People sometimes love your stuff and  NOT YOU.

If you find yourself IN THE DESERT one day, look for Water of Life to refresh your significance with everlasting Love “for YOU” and not your for what you can to for him (your stuff). God wants to know: WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU?

Pensacola Helene

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TRANSFORMING LOVE (HAPPY EASTER)

Pearl of Wisdom: Reason for Celebration

One of the main origins of Easter was the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the historical and present day Savior of the Christian faith. There are over a billion Christians -Followers of Christ - globally who celebrate Easter for this reason. 

Even though, people in the west celebrate Jesus Christ’s resurrection on different dates every year, they understand the exact date is not actually known. It is believed that Christ's death, burial, and resurrection happened around this time based on the ancient calendars and time frame. 

Christians celebrate Jesus Christ on a daily basis, but choose Easter holiday as a way to celebrate his resurrection corporately and to express the joy they feel about his sacrificial death. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son… (1 John 4:10).

Though Easter has become a mixture of both Christian and non-Christian themes the origin of the holiday remains the same for Followers of Christ. For anyone celebrating Easter there are traditions that we all share: Easter egg hunts, sending Easter cards, buying new outfits, going to a sunrise church service, gathering with family and friends for dinner, putting up decorations and baking sweets, buying lilies or orchids, and enjoying sweet fellowship with brothers and sisters in the Lord. 

Jesus Christ, for believers, also represents and embodies the Love of God for the World (John 3:16). So, whether you believe in Jesus Christ or not, when anyone says Happy Easter, they are simple wishing you love, joy and laughter as you join or respect them in celebrating the resurrection of Jesus on this Holiday “…Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:” John 11:25.  

I wish you and your family a very HAPPY EASTER AND RESURRECTION DAY!!

Pensacola Helene

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TRANSFORMNIG INTIMACY (GOD IS YOUR CAREGIVER, PART 4)

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TRANSFORMING INTIMACY

GOD IS YOUR CAREGIVER

“…that they might KNOW…..the only true God and Jesus Christ…” (John 17:3)

ONE SPIRIT WITH GOD

The role of the caregiver(s) is learned through God’s role as caregiver to his children. As God’s child, you are already attached to God, the ultimate caregiver, and “One Spirit” with him (1 Corinthians 6:17). Therefore, the relationship with God won’t shape or form you for future intimate relationships where bonding is meant to take, but you are already transformed to have intimate relationships “in” Christ.  

God, the caregiver, is attached to you through Christ and is now “One Spirit” with you, which is the ultimate and purest attachment relationship possible (1 Corinthians 6:17). God is attached to you through “love...the perfect BOND of unity.” (Colossians 3:14 NASB). You and God, the ultimate caregiver, are in an attached relationship, where bonding takes place when “....you are joined unto the Lord [and become] …one spirit [with him.]” (1 Corinthians 6:17 KJV).

A baby is born with God-given attachment abilities to stimulate (or draw) a respond from their caregivers. Your God-given attachment abilities are restored when you are born again (John 3:7) However, the attachment process changes with God. You don’t “stimulate or draw a response” from God, but he draws you. “…I … will draw all men unto me…” (John 12:32 KJV).  God, the caregiver, changes the entire attachment process.

The infant “stimulates or draws a response,” from their human caregiver(s), out of “need;” God draws a response, from you, out of “desire.” God “wants” YOU and purposely attracts you and attaches you to himself. Your original God-given attachment skills have been destroyed by sin. Therefore, no one can come to God unless God draws them (John 6:64).

HEAR AND LEARN

God wants you, and will “stimulate or draw a response” from you in order to attract you to himself. God does that by talking to you, so you can hear him, and by teaching you, so you can learn from him. Everyone “who hears” and “learns” about God, will come to him (John 6:45).

By listening to and learning from God, through his Word; it will draw you to God. "It is written in the prophets, 'AND THEY SHALL ALL BE TAUGHT OF GOD.' Every one that hath heard and hath learned of the Father, cometh to me (John 6:45 KJV).

An infant must use their God-given attachment abilities over and over to “stimulate or draw a response” from their  human caregiver(s) in order to get their needs met.

However,  when  “....you are joined unto the Lord [and become] …one spirit [with him]; …God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory BY Christ Jesus” (1 Corinthians 6:17 & Philippian 4:19 KJV). The supply of needs is given to those who are in union or attached (one spirit) to God through Christ.

An infant “stimulates or draws a response” from human caregiver(s) to get their needs met. The bible says God will “..supply  ALL [our needs] according to his riches in glory..” (Philippians 4:19). Ideally, a human caregiver(s) is rich in their ability to love, to provide for the child, and to guide their development.

God is rich in love, rich in character, rich in ownership of all creation, rich in grace and mercy, rich in goodness, and therefore is able to richly supply the spiritual needs of his children. God richly loves, provides, and guides his children into an abundant life to enjoy and prosper.

God richly (elaborately) supplied your salvation, through Jesus, and it was extremely costly. In addition, God richly delivered you from sin and darkness and all its affects and consequences. The “good news” of the gospel is Jesus Christ and all you have to do is “…believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shall be saved” (Acts 16:31KJV).

JOHN 6:45

When God “stimulates or draws a response,” from you; you respond in return by exercising your God-given faith via (listening & learning) about the “good news” (Ephesians 2:8).

The wonderful thing about God, the caregiver, is that he not only draws you to respond to him, but he gives you “the measure of faith” in order “to” respond period. Remember faith COMES (appears) when it hears the “good news.”

Faith comes to support you in fully experiencing the ‘…power of God unto salvation…” and to ensure “...you are joined unto the Lord [and become] …one spirit [with him.]” (1 Corinthians 6:17 & Romans 1:16 KJV).   Earlier, I wrote that an infant initially “needs and depends” on the human caregiver, which develops into “needs and wants (desires)” the human caregiver.

When an infant moves from total dependence to willful desire; a deeper mutuality, with the human caregiver(s), transpires. Some dependence is still necessary, but it decreases as the infant develops over the lifespan and willful desire, for the attachment relationship, ideally increases. In other words, the infant “wants” the attachment relationship with the caregiver, by choice, not simply dependence, and the caregiver “wants” the infant. Continual and long lasting mutuality is the goal.

Mutuality with God is also the ultimate goal where the shared “desire” to interactively love another is prominent, continual, and long lasting (eternal).  Mutuality is a conglomeration of reciprocal behaviors of love and affection. In mutuality there are relational benefits, relational growth and development, relational gains, relational commonality, and relational sharing.

The mutual relationship with God provides an opportunity to grow and develop into the image of Christ. The mutuality with God, therefore, offers purpose and fulfillment to one’s life. The quality of intimate interaction with God is reflected in the mutual love and affection between Christ and the believer.

 In this mutual exchange God is impacted by the believer and the believer is impacted by God. In other words, the believer gives his or herself over to God and God, through Christ, has given himself over, through his death, to the believer. The believer is therefore, opened to God’s influence and lordship and is transformed by responding to and being affected by God’s word.

God is receptive to the believer’s prayers, is emotionally available to their needs, and is influenced by his or her worship. God appreciates the believer and the believer appreciates God; they are actively interested in one another. Even though there are serious differences, God understands the believer’s plight with sin and the believer values God’s standards of holiness.

Respect and honor flows in order to demonstrate the responsiveness that God and the believer have for one another, which helps affirm them within the relational dyad. The prominent purpose for the mutuality, in the relationship with God, is to provide a safe, secure, protected, and intimate place for fellowship, affection, and love for the believer. 

 EXCERPT FROM THE  CHAPTER 

"GOD IS YOUR CAREGIVER" FROM 

BOOK "TRANSFORMING INTIMACY

BY PENSACOLA H JEFFERSON

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