God is Love: Devotionals for the Heart: God cares about every s...

God is Love: Devotionals for the Heart: God cares about every s...: Tears in a Bottle A devotional by Angela Anderson “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You ha...

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SOSA (Survivors Of Sexual Assault) 14-Day Devotional

Before you forgive

The act of offering forgiveness isn’t as simple as one might expect. This action takes a strong-willed individual willing to erase the entire matter without prejudice. Whether we’re forgiving a debt or an incogitable act of violence against ourselves or a loved one, forgiveness is a key element in pursuing life without the dead weight of hate. Though the jury is still out on whether holding a grudge is a sin or an iniquity, I'm sure God does not hold either in high esteem.
As a matter of fact, God actually hardened the heart of Pharaoh in the book of Exodus against the children of Israel as a testimony of how forgiveness works. Forgiveness is a two-way street, so to speak. God forgives as we forgive. So why would God harden the heart of a wicked Pharoah? Exodus 10:16 Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste; and he said, I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you. 17 Now therefore forgive, I pray thee, my sin only this once, and entreat the Lord your God, that he may take away from me this death only.
I’m sure Moses was just as confused as we are centuries later. However, God has a plan more divine than man’s logic. So that the Pharaoh, his host, and the Egyptians would know that the Sovereign God of all creations, galaxies and eternity is the Lord God, He devised a plan of salvation so profound and unprecedented that His existence could never be denied or excused as a fable.
Today, as we maneuver through the contemptuous maze of life and attempt to maintain a drama-free lifestyle, we are constantly challenged by co-workers, friends, family members, associates, and strangers. In most cases the trespasses are simple and easily forgiven, however, there are occasions when our hearts are ripped open by deceit and treachery so “unforgivable,” that it truly takes an act of God just to escape causing bodily injury to the offender. This is where the true gift of the Holy Spirit becomes a life-saver and a trusted guide. Yet, we who aren’t as committed to religion or have an intermittent relationship with God struggle the most. The root of forgiveness is planted in the heart of God, and without having a 24/7 relationship with God we are lost in an abyss of uncertainty.

The foundation of love is God, and only God can supply humanity with the necessary nutrients required to sustain friendships and common relationships. Though we have innate abilities which require human contact and nurturing as babies, it is possible during puberty that we define how long we will hold on to hurt or grudges. As we enter adulthood we make choices concerning how we will handle our emotions and enemies. Most times as adults we mature to the point of accepting loss or disappointment with grace, or we lash out each time we are faced with controversy. It is imperative that we find a suitable median. We are entitled to as human beings, Christians or otherwise to experience fear, hate, unforgiveness, hurt and anger. However, when we hold on to emotions which cause stress or anger to the point of taking a life, hurting ourselves or taking the law into our own hands, we are treading on very dangerous grounds spiritually and lawfully. God knows our limitations and planned before the foundation of the world to provide divine intervention when humanity fails our many expectations. Human beings are complex creatures and need constant reassurance and emotional strength to overcome the vices of darkness. As a matter of fact, some folks gravitate to the dark side of spiritual warfare and seem to thrive.

But, in all of life’s scams and hateful attacks against cultures, individuals, and truths we need a constant reminder of why forgiveness is the key to success in life.
Jesus Christ; a man born of a virgin and nurtured by an earthly father, was actually divinity clothed in humanity. Though many groups challenge the authenticity of the Holy Bible or the existence of God, the clear and concise evidence is overwhelming in favor of God existing as Spirit and His son bearing all of humanity's sins on a cross as prophesied. Whether one believes God died through His son; Christ Jesus or believes Jesus the Messiah was just a prophet, one fact will never fail to convict mankind. We were all born of flesh, and we all have a spiritual context. The spirit of a human being contains many attributes that only a Spiritual entity of superior magnitude can nurture, amend or restore. Jesus Christ professed-all souls are mine. And to that end, we have an advocate who never sleeps nor slumbers. There will never be another human being who will gladly lay down their life for the sins of strangers and barely a friend. As the Bible declares; “we were bought with a price.” And with this price comes an infinite reward of forgiveness equal in dispensation to every human being who chooses to seek this spiritual gift. The act of forgiveness is, as mentioned, a two-way street. Forgiving a trespass takes courage, and receiving forgiveness should be received with humility and grace. However, before we forgive there are a few points we should take into consideration.

The first point is what role did we play in the alleged offense? Sometimes we are as culpable as the offender. Are we willing to forgive and seek forgiveness? Are we willing to evaluate the offense fairly? Here’s a scenario which may explain the point: “You and a friend decide to unfriend a mutual friend due to a hurtful lie the mutual friend spread throughout a group. To also add injury to insult, you decide to treat the offender rudely, and never talk with the ex-friend about the initial rumor.” Who owes the first apology? In most offenses, we involve emotions which may or may not be valid.

The second point may or may not hit home concerning, how to forgive. Sometimes we forgive the worst portion of the offense, but the entire matter may not be settled or completely forgiven. For example: “A friend wrecks your car with no injury or damage to property or another driver while driving drunk. Though you are glad there weren’t any injuries and you forgave the damage to your vehicle, days later there are still details laying dormant which weren’t addressed. Such as a strong dislike for your friend’s drinking habits, and other details you never addressed in the past.

Lastly, are we willing to forgive ourselves? There are times and will always be situations that take our lives by storm, which may be due to our attention to detail being less than admirable. There are countless examples, but there is one such example that resonates clearly with most single adults. The case of the “ex,” from hell. Too many relationships are pursued due to loneliness or underlying desires to get back at an “ex,” before this now “ex.” Sounds complicated but it's a common dilemma. When we are the culprits in defying logic and common sense in our lives, we need to think long and hard about how to avoid future chaos. That man/woman in the mirror needs to be reassured daily.

Forgiveness is a way of life, not just a part of life. When we forgive quickly, be aware of the process of forgiveness. Analyze the entire matter and dissect those hidden agendas which are just as important as the injurious portion of the offense. Our feelings matter; our person matters, and more important our spiritual man matters. To balance each aspect of our being takes prayer and daily reflection. Learn to forgive in its entirety, and count the entire cost. Forgiveness has many doors, and aspects we may not realize or expect, however, we owe it to ourselves and God to reason the entire matter.

Sunshine and Umbrellas

The sweet success of Floridians during the fall to winter months is well-documented statistics. Rain with a chance of low temps in the evenings proceeds daily high temps in the eighties, which also bring subtle reminders we are enslaved to our umbrellas here on this great peninsular.

So is the life of most humankind. We are enslaved to protecting ourselves from raining trends of network manure, and politico storms of hell. No need to seek shelter from mainstreaming racial rants, or wicked winds of internet stench, since the life-sustaining ethics and morals roof has a consistent leak. It behooves parents to arm themselves with young empathy and basic urban colloquialisms while maintaining as strong a distrust for clergy members as the local dope fiend. The weather down here is fierce with precipitative gusts of hypocrisy and domestic terrorism. The floods of change will one day free our society of destructive debris harboring pedophiles and social deviants posing as teachers and tutors.

Let’s face it society; gas emissions are slowly but surely destroying our planet’s natural infrastructure. Solar energy is slowly becoming a household word, and our ecosystem suffers needlessly due to massive human belligerence and disregard for generations to come. The human-seeds we birth and nurture are growing by the grace of a tolerant God, only to be pruned by ruthless hands of greed. The soil of our poor to affluent neighborhoods are rich with gullibility and the propensity to gloat over low-end to high-end...stuff. Yeah, it’s raining stupidity all over the world, and a societal fog has blinded our purview of common sense and compassion for the disabled and homeless.

Sometimes we just need to dance in the rain until we’re soaking wet with happy understanding.

Coming Out Dressed To Kill

With all the sexual abuse allegations and reports bombarding the media, one has to suspect a demonic tell-all has unleashed its Pandora's box set to destroy lives, and unsilence the screaming shadows of guilt. Deep within the emotional confines of the abused, lays courage and resolve; closure and finality, one would hope. However, the unchained demons released from the emotional wells of victims have an agenda to fulfill. All public opinion, well that's if you are worthy of the news, is somewhat sympathetic with a dash of doubt. The embarrassment is unfathomable and the will to shrink only enlarges one's unwanted poster. Let's face it-few are the men willing to commit to a barrage of emotional meltdowns, nightmares and therapy sessions.

A couple decades back, the public outcry of "coming out," was received with controversial backlash and support. The open acknowledgment of living openly as a gay male or lesbian was finally rewritten in the archives of law, and no court in America would dare defy the later civil liberties fight for the entire gay communities civil rights. Gone were the laws governing homosexuality as a jailable offense. Currently, there are laws imposed as hate crimes and politically correct discrimination to make inferences or sarcastic and rude remarks concerning the right to live as a same-sex couple or transgender individual.
Today's climate of "coming out," has drastically taken on an unfamiliar and unacceptable agenda. Never has society accepted the secret allegations of sexual harassment, yet until corporate America demanded men and women be held accountable for committing unwanted sexual advances in the workplace. Yet women have always been victims of sexual advances and assault throughout history. There are innumerable unreported rapes resulting in pregnancy, as well as Black male slaves being emasculated by plantation owners, be it male or female. This truth has maintained its fable genre in the archives of American history.

This latest rash of celebrity improprieties has left a bad taste in the mouths and minds of fans, agents, and fellow actors. Well, I guess one might say in this case; feces rolls up the hill! However, because the entertainment field of foolery and paid dream-makers are literally held in high esteem; America suddenly feels victimized and dirty. Actors, politicians and the homeless are human. Humans are susceptible to mistakes, sin, evil and wickedness...no one is exempt. May prayers for brighter days to come maintain unmovable straits on future horizons. "Coming out," dressed to kill dreams and the self-esteem of victims in Hollywood's spotlight is an old familiar and tired demon. 

Mother (Ashanti) Mama Dedication

Daze...Come and Gone

Never a day escapes that I don’t think of my dearly departed Mama. What a beautiful soul! My Mama was a caring, but strict parent. How she and our Daddy decided to raise two sets of strangers ailing boy and abandoned little girl, is beyond me. However, they did so with all the love and parenting skills of first-time natural parents. Though we would overhear or suffer the verbal rebuke which comes with being “unruly,” we were raised comfortably. My brother and I were by poor to middle class standards, spoiled rotten. Not only did we reside in a three-bedroom and family room, one and half bathroom home, we were exposed to and participated in church activities, extracurricular activities and social groups throughout our elementary to high school years. My brother and me served honorably as United States Marines, and went about life as productive citizens and adults.

Well, that’s the normalcy of Black America in the sixties and seventies. However, the ugly truths which lurked in molded dungeons is as creepy as any other American family. There comes a time when humanity must recognize in today’s climate that we all have a testimony, and we all have childhood secrets and growing pains which were not defined by community status quo or ethnicity. There were and still are just as many below poverty level white Americans as there are Mexican business moguls. There aren’t any fine lines between pain and death. Just as there won’t be back door service to heaven, or a V.I.P., entrance to hell.

The condition of the human race is beyond wicked and lawless. Though we are desperate to “fake it-to we make it,” in our daily associations and workplaces, the bare truth smells as rotten as rotting corpses in East St. Louis, IL to Sierra Leone. Our news networks are as corrupt as Capitol Hill’s underlings tip-toeing through waxed halls of Congress. There aren’t any “Hail Mary’s,”, nor New Age anti-religious mantras of offer the gods. Hollywood has expedited their greatest of actors to rehabilitation centers in hopes of salvaging investments, while Black actors are one shade away from dominating the headlines at the Oscars. The music industry, though thriving, is as fluctuating as Florida’s weather in, well, now. Hot today; warm by lunch, freezing by sundown!

I would highly recommend to anyone within the visual context of this article to pray. Pray to whomever you feel comfortable, and pray your source has supreme power to comfort and strengthen your hearts and hands through these weary hours and days to come. I choose to pray to God the Father, through Jesus Christ. God is my guiding light and hope for tomorrow. Yet, if I only have hope, I would be miserably lost. I’ve experienced much in my half-a-century plus and I’ve conquered many an adversary, and yet I still battle disabilities every God-blessed day. But...I’m good! And that’s the best I can ask for in a dying world.

November Knows

Today marks another landmark of newness. A day we've never experienced or will revisit again. As for Monday's, the most mundane and least popular work-day of the week, gaining an hour to snooze is most appreciated. The month of November will position her easel abreast mountains highs and forest lows, and paint the most serene aesthetically sound hues ever imagined. Yet, every year she provides preparatory inventory for the hibernating qualms of winter. As summer’s sardonic egression favors Floridians with scorching heat, the eastern coastal regions suffer tornadoes and intermittent floodings and the aftermath of hurricanes, as Mother Nature displaces whole civilizations without compunction. Each year earth proves her reign is imminent and man is but a pawn. The earth has a seasonal mandate and supplanting crops and resources assigned to fortify human life with providence are punctual.

As communities prepare to decorate the halls, and bake-off family recipes while exhausting their nonexistent savings. One can literally hear the clicking of keyboards; ordering online, checking bank statements and surfacing for deals. The excitement of this season holidays should embody peace and more peace. It’s extremely hard to celebrate while border mandates continue to separate families, expirations of documented workers separate and destroy the nucleus of a growing culturally diverse society, while terrorism invades the peace of human existence. Nature is saturated with poisoned explosive remnants, as well as the environment suffers the controllable results of litter and harmful toxic dumping.

November 2017 should conjure up a demand for community accountability. America’s code of silence is destroying the once; land of the free, for some that is; and causing more disunity than the global populace. Hate groups and neo-nazis are renewing their vows, groups across the racial divide are arming themselves with deep-rooted hatred, likened to evil. Our thanksgiving for a day remiss of hate crimes and police brutality against innocent lives should be ongoing, not just limited to a day commemorating more controversy. The jury is still out on how Native Americans were victims of genocide and violent conquest. Nevertheless, we attempt to process and forgive. We attempt to, as humanity scarred by cultural indifference, move in a positive direction. Somehow, some way, maybe, just maybe we can incorporate prayer into yearly festivities. Corporate prayer for collective peace across this entire globe.

Sperm Syndromes

Again we have delved into a Pandora's box of trending colloquialisms and urbanese while strengthening the subtext of misogyny, homophobia, gender, cultural and racial bias. It is no wonder society is hanging on by a moral thread.

According to a Washington Post breath-halting article entitled; "The unbelievable rise of single Motherhood in the last 50 years.

reveals an incline in single motherhood in white and black single-family homes. However, black single moms under 18 or just a few years over 18 seemed to escalate inept skills in parenting. While a percentage of white single moms in the same age demographic are less, even though drug addicted, dropouts and recurring felons or ex-offenders. Black single mothers, unfortunately, are fighting a seemingly losing battle-well with their child’s or children’s fathers’ overpopulating the prisons, jails, trap houses and unemployment statistics due to felonies and worse.

Here lays the foundation of why the trending “sperm donor,” shout outs and demeaning social media post, public retorts are crippling and poisoning our black community and culture. Though the consensus of black men being less than the typical “American Dad,” this is not a new dilemma. Black slaves, coloreds, and negroes were just as absent; be it through violent lynchings, death or fulfilling sexual intimidation or manipulation by slave owners. Colored and Negro women were subjected to raising their employers' children as well as their own. The continuing saga of the infamous baby-daddy stigma continues infesting the Black American culture with a vengeance.

So how did we get to the “sperm donor,” labeling? Well, angry and deceived black and some white and minority women are fed-up with premillennial and millennial “deadbeat” dads. Well, might I park the meat of this article, and make a pit-stop of acknowledgment? White working corporate dads who never spend quality time with their in-house children, or are up on their alimony but absent in face-to-face terms of endearment are better than black dads in prison or stuck in an assembly line of baby-mamas? Just asking. Moving on….varoom!

The truth of the matter is; sleeping with your homegirls baby-daddy or venturing into the land of “turnt up,” one-nighters is as dangerous to both parties as to one’s children asleep on their babysitters-homegirls couch or their baby daddy's twin beds. Love is free, and most of us have the gift of procreation laying dormant in our members. Actually, some women are so fertile if they look at a man too long they’re pregnant. As well as the “Maury Povich,” debacle is as tired as a migrant worker during watermelon season.

In closing let me share one motivating and hopefully encouraging paragraph. It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. But...slow down yolo-young, thirsty-thirties, flirting-forties; sister-girls. It’s not a disgrace to carry a child. God regulates and nominates which womb a child shall be conceived. Whether the circumstances were less than honorable or unintended, incestuous or the result of a brutal rape, God still predestined the womb of choice. The circumstances of pre-conception may be overwhelming and unfair. However, of all the women who are paying for fertility drugs to no avail or unable to conceive, why would God allow an innocent woman to bear the disgust of conception from a careless or deceitful male being? Free-will? Well, the Bible declares that the first earthly mother lost her second beloved son at the violent hands of her firstborn seed. So, why did God allow Abel’s conception? Or why did God allow Lot’s daughters to become pregnant by deceiving their father into a drunken stupor and laying with him? Why are some women unable to conceive-those financially stable, emotionally and mentally stable; single or married-while others who society has deemed unfit are creating life like nobody’s business. Yes, the history of humanity is less than charming or acceptable by our fickle moral standards or our inconsistent compassion. However, God in all His infinite wisdom and knowledge compared to our finite foolishness paints a relevant picture we who are clueless to His actual trinity cannot comprehend. God is the author of our genesis and cessation at the same time...simultaneously.
Demeaning God’s plan or carrier of His chosen male vessel should be planned or accepted as His will with either thanksgiving or trust. Prayerfully all births profit humanity, though some have challenged our faith in God, and broken the very core of our fragile lives. Whether a child’s father that's if one knows beyond a shadow of doubt who’s the child’s father- is less than current on child support or even acknowledges his seed, should not be the catalyst of a mother’s anger and resentment. Especially when 99% of today’s mothers knowingly had consensual sex, hoping beyond all hope for a two-parent homelife. The mental and emotional attache one continues to burden the next relationship with or carry through life harbor mental anguish and disease awaiting exposure and spiritual birth. It’s disheartening for two-three, four or five plus siblings to wallow hourly, daily, monthly or yearly in a scorned or bitter mother’s sorrow, as she mercilessly rants on-and-on about their different fathers maliciously and falsely labeled as “sperm donors.”

Think of the image young, pre-teen daughters paint in their mind’s eye or the generational curse we acquire and continue to pour into a child’s spiritual context and future. We have yet, as a culture to cease speaking death into our children and begin to speak life into dry and bitter situations which we continue to feed. I submit we take a long hard look in our moral mirrors and cease to point penises and fingers at each other and start taking responsibility for our immature and selfish actions. The government assistance program was instituted to feed and house our children. How they were conceived is mute. Our dependency on assistance has become a mental stain in the loveless hearts of society. All children matter, yet it is the immoral fiber we continue to weave and blame “no good men,” “thots,” baby-mommas, and other such demeaning labels which stifle growth. We would rather garner labels and saturate social media with worse trash talk than neo-nazis and blood-thirsty white supremacist. There are way too many stigmas which we have signed sealed and delivered with “woe-is-me,” rhetoric and this less-than-a-man trash talk, and “she ain’t squat,” belittlement than prayers of submission to outgrow ourselves.

Blessings,

Tina Wilson (writing as May Will-Author)

Spectrasonics presents: MOONCHILD - "Cure"