113: Love Lifted Me

 The Art of Love

 

"The Moment of Love" by Leonid Afremov

Great thinkers think BIG.  There is nothing small about you.  Created in the image of God, you are a masterpiece—a work of the Master Planner, Master Builder, Creator of all the Universe and everything in it.  It’s time to stop thinking small about yourself and explore the many wonders going on inside of you which make you unique from any other person you know.

 

Jake is strong, full of energy, pleasing to look at.  Joshua is a little shorter, shy, and has trouble with picturing himself handsome in any way imaginable.  What’s going on inside Joshua is that he is looking at his outward appearance (like everybody does, right?) and comparing himself with Jake.  What he and others can’t see is that what’s going on inside of Joshua is absolutely equal with what’s going on inside of Jake.

 

Yes, all humanity is created equal, that is, with the same amount of love from our Father. Concepts, or institutionalized ideas of ‘inequality’ are man-made, with some so far-fetched as to be rooted in devilish constructs.  Where did the ideas of the African slave trade or the Jewish holocaust come from?  The repercussions, or consequences, of these and other acts of terror still shock the psyche system of today’s generation rendering them confused with identifying who they are, what’s their purpose in life, and how to find pure love in a world where love is swallowed by hatred.

Today is the time to stop looking outward for love, and to focus inward until you tap into your special Source of Love.

 

"In God's Hands" (female) by Lester Kern

"In God's Hands" (male) by Lester Kern

Made in the image of God, you are given special talents which must be developed over time with schooling, apprenticeship or training, and experiences to apply that talent.  Jake is an outstanding painter.  Given a palette and brushes with oil paints, his canvasses come alive in impressionism, cubism, and all out Jake-style imagery.  He also is a super athlete.  Joshua is a writer and a master at mathematics.  His free verse poetry can pour out tears from a reader or eject crazy laughter from his blank verse and rhymes.  His ability to calculate is so phenomenal, he’s helped lead his high school to many victories in inter-schools’ mathematics competitions. 

This is what’s going on inside of every one born of a woman.  In our last conversation, we discussed how love is patient.  Love allows you to explore and identify who the real you is.  It takes only you and your Creator to figure that out.  A parent or loved one or friend can guide you to bring out that special gift in you, but only you know for sure.  That gift, or talent, is God’s love poured into you to give you purpose for life.  He wants that you use your life to make this world a place where His love is shared among everyone.

Self-destruction was not part of the plan of your Creator, dearly beloved.  Changing any part of your outside will never ever change what’s inside of you. Cutting, mutilating, piercing, suctioning, injecting, lightening, or darkening can never destroy or alter the image of God in you.  Drowning out your thoughts, or perceptions, about who you really are in any kind of addictions will not kill what’s inside of you, either.  The image of God is not a physical body you can manipulate on your own.  What you are made of is very good.

 

"Thank God" by Fred Mathews

So, why not submit to what is good and wonderful and unique and special in you?  Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and give glory to the Father who created that light in you (Read Matthew 5:15 -16). Stop trying to conform to what everyone else is doing; and love yourself enough to connect with the only Source of Love who can lead you to a future blessed with power, peace, and prosperity.

Love is patient and kind. Our last conversation described love as patient, being able to get through both the good and tough times with singleness of purpose.  Kindness usually refers to how we treat others, but in this “talk”, we’ll interpret kindness as accepting the uniqueness of the image of God in you and loving it up enough to flow outside of you for the benefit of others.

 

Allow Love to lift you up into greatness.  Allow love to remove the shackles of conforming to standards of worldly beauty and success and re-direct yourself onto a path of true beauty and sustainable success—a life full of hope and joy while living in your godly vision.  Aren’t you ready for a change in the right direction?  If you are, join us in our next conversation. 

In the meantime, continue with your journal writing by listing the talents or gifts you “see” inside of yourself.  Write about what would actually make you happy if you had opportunities to use that gift or those special talents.  Remember, it’s not about how many talents, or gifts you can identify.  It’s about finding that part of you that brings out the most joy when you are using or applying it for something good.

 

© 2021 by Patience Osei-Anyamesem. All rights reserved.  Published by The Light In Me Enterprise.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—without the prior written permission of the publisher.  The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews or other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Unless otherwise stated, all scripture quotations are from The New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.  Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Take My Hand Inspirations

112: What is Self-Love?

 The Art of Love-2

 

Self-love is a quiet gentle spirit that whispers, “You are beautiful. You are special and so precious.”  As a creation of God in His image, we were made very good.  Hold on to what God says about you: Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good (Genesis 1:31a).

What we focus on becomes our reality.  What are you looking at, and, more importantly, what’s looking back at you?  Mirroring the cult of worldly fashion and following that idol can lead to a series of wrong choices from the way you colour or style your hair to the attire you wear.  Reflecting the cult of worldly behavior and following that idol of selfish desires can lead to a series of wrong choices involving how you use your body in a fleshly thirst to “drink in” everything from fornication to drug and injections to “make this bigger” or castration to “make this go away.”

 

Words We Never Said by Muhammed Salaam

Words We Never Said by Muhammed Salaam

Our Creator God is an omnipresent source of love so pure and without any strings attached, completely unconditional; and He wants to share His love inside of you.  Why reject this kind of love, agape?  His love letter to us is found in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a beginning with “Love is patient and kind.”

You must be patient with yourself.  Being patient with yourself means to acknowledge the strengths or gifts or talents you have in you which make you unique from anyone else.  Each of us is special in his or her own way—that’s the way God planned it.  He did that so that we can learn to “love our neighbor as we love ourselves” in order that we share our uniqueness in ways that glorify His perfect design for our lives.  When he contributes his gift of music and she shares her gift of digital multimedia development, the outcome is a fantastic multi-platinum hit—millions of copies of a collection of songs glorifying the Lord sold all round the globe.

Patience means the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, problems, or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious; tolerance, understanding, determination, staying power with singleness of purpose.  Life will not always go the way you want it, and you may “see” yourself at times struggling with the choice to either conform with what the world forces you to “see” or to “see” what your Creator wants you “envision” yourself to be.

 

At the Crossroads by Lester Kern

But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

(James 1:4).

Self-love starts with humility, the fruit of patience, which is an emptying of every thought that goes against what God says about you, and allowing Him to fill you with the image of who you really are—intelligent, gifted, splendid, outstanding, creative, and purpose-driven unto excellence.  All this was put in you the moment you received His breath of life.  You were made in the image of God.  Therefore, you possess His qualities.

 

Picture That by Frank Morrison

Do let anyone or anything take that affirmation, that knowledge, away from you.

 

Ready for the application of self-love?

1. Get into a quiet place with a journal or a small notebook, pencil and pen.

2. With pencil, list what you don’t like about yourself (your weaknesses).  Examine that list for a moment.

3. Ask yourself, “Why do I hate this about myself?”  Take time to hear yourself.  This is called introspection, taking time to listen to what’s

    going on inside of you.

4. With pen, number 1 to 100 and list all your strengths or good qualities by starting each sentence with, “I am . . . .” For example I am            giving.  

    You must complete the 100.

5. After reviewing your 100 special qualities or strengths, take your pencil and ask God to help you remove every negative thought you          have about yourself and to transform your weaknesses into strengths.  These are lies; and must be erased right now. Go on, erase            them all.

You may be asking yourself, “How do I ask God for anything? I don’t know how to talk to God.”  Jesus is God.  He is your best friend.  Talk to Him as you would a best friend.  But first, in your humility, ask Him to come into your heart as Lord of your life and Savior from everything attacking your soul or peace of mind.  Let Him fill you with His love and wisdom, the capacity to understand who you are and to love yourself patiently one day at a time.  To love yourself completely, you must first love the One who created you.

 

I Surrender All by Lester Kern

Please, after reading this blog, if you have any questions or comments, send them to me.  Let’s talk.

 

© 2021 by Patience Osei-Anyamesem. All rights reserved.  Published by The Light In Me Enterprise.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—without the prior written permission of the publisher.  The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews or other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

 Unless otherwise stated, all scripture quotations are from The New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.  Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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111: What’s Playing On Your Mind?

 The Art of Love-1

 

Back in the day, groups of teens “partied” round the D.J. as he scratched the vinyl to quicken the shaking hips and body twisting in incredible styles called “break” dancing.  Why “break” dancing?  This kind of dancing “broke” the formalized ideal of what dancing was supposed to be setting new standards of the art form.

 

"Break Dance" by Carta da Parati

As time went on, hip-hop sounds found themselves bounding off cassette tapes blasted from a “boom box”.  Eventually techno-pop reached the era of the compact disc where more music could be stored for hours of sensual pleasure.  And today, we’re engrossed in the digital era from podcasts even up into the “cloud” where the raps of wordsmiths can be downloaded all around the world at the single touch of a button.

 

Yes, technology progressed from scratching vinyl to downloading, but what’s playing on the minds of adolescents (people between 10 and 24) has remained the same.  There is a culture of security and a cult of insecurity floating over the minds of young people.  

Culture is a way a group of people act and speak based on what they collectively think and has been developed over a long period of time.  

"Indivisible" by Larry Poncho Brown

Cult is a thing or idea that is popular or fashionable among a particular group or section of society often forming into a deep veneration wherein an object or person is ‘worshipped’ and can change within a short time.

 

The culture of security releases the real “picture” of you.  The cult of insecurity snaps a false “picture” of what others tell you how you should be.  Young minds often make the move toward being accepted by peers, often rejecting the encouraging voice of parents and elders, and begin defining themselves by the norms of “what’s hot” or “what’s cool” or “what’s in” or “what’s out”. What’s what?

 

The beauty of innocence and loving who you are as a child regrettably gets thrown away at adolescence in the thirst for being accepted among peer groups who compare themselves, never realizing that even the best sports player or the most gorgeous girl both struggle with their own bouts of defining who they are.  Everyone idolizes the “hot jock” and the “pretty beauty queen” forgetting that inside each and every one of us, there is a superstar and a beauty that makes you uniquely special.

What do you allow to play on your mind, young one?  In this series, The Art of Love, we will delve deep down into defining who you are and lift you up into the clouds of self-love.  The journey won’t be easy, but you’ll love the ending.

Step One is you’ve got to make a choice to take that step.  This step requires you to throw away the images in your head about “What is beauty?” or “What makes a real man?” and put a pause on all the stereotypes vibrating on the strings of your mind. Let’s get to the heart of the matter.  Loving yourself means “you being you” (especially when no one praises you) because the joy of self-expression is more than enough to make you live on a ‘high.’

 

"Hahahaha" by Isaac Opoku Badu

Self-love is the restoration of something you lost.  That something is self-worth.  Do you feel worthy of having what’s good in life?  Or do you feel you’re not good enough to have kindness, love, encouragement, and fond attention from others who want nothing from you, but really appreciate who you are—just as you are, flaws and all? 

Well, since you were made so special by the hands of a loving Father, should you allow human negativity to pull down your sense of self-worth to the bottom with belittling thoughts of “I am not good enough”?  Please, dear ones, do not confuse narcissism with loving yourself.  Narcissism is a disorder of the soul in which a person has an inflated sense of self-importance.  Doctors who study the functions of the mind by observing behavior (psychologists) conclude that there is no cure narcissism; that it’s chronic and can last for years or be lifelong.

As affirmed in the previous blog series, Growing Sexually Mature, the spiritual warfare afflicting the souls (and mindset) of young people is waging in the spiritual realm, against the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience (Ephesians 2:2).  There is a cure for lack of self-esteem or low self-esteem (which is the root cause of narcissism). You just have to go to the Person who holds it.

Loving yourself also requires inner courage, conviction, and fearlessness to piece yourself together as “picture of perfection”.  We get these superstar powers from the likeness of our Father who created us in His image.  You are not alone.  There are adults who have not yet mastered loving themselves because they didn’t take this journey, and, as a result, have passed on their insecurity to your generation.  Therefore, this journey toward loving yourself completely while living in a world so full of hatred, is for all of us who suffer from a sense of “I am not worthy.”

You are worthy.  You are important.  You are not a mistake. Your life is not a mistake.

The Art of Love opposes the Art of War in varying critical ways, but both do have some traits in common: self-discipline, time, and application.  This week, your assignment is to meditate on the word, “love”.  Write down what this word means to you and honestly answer this question: “What is love?”

 

© 2021 by Patience Osei-Anyamesem. All rights reserved.  Published by The Light In Me Enterprise.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—without the prior written permission of the publisher.  The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews or other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Unless otherwise stated, all scripture quotations are from The New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.  Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Take My Hand Inspirations