Snapshots of a Woman's Heart: Developing A Healthy Relationship with You

By Linder A. Hunn

“Sometimes all a woman needs to see is a snapshot of her heart”
Are you a woman who has given up her dreams for a man? Are you a woman who is “sick and tired” of being on an emotional roller coaster? Or are you a woman desperately searching for answers?

Snapshots of a Woman’s Heart will compel you to come into a healthy relationship with yourself as you discover the “truth” of your life. Linder revisits early life as she discusses childhood matters while examining the snapshots and portraits that make you the woman you are.

This book deals with “silent” issues that many women don’t want to face, yet it encourages women to come to a place of inner healing that enables them to take their rightful place in life.
Snapshots of a Woman’s deals with:
• Married life
• Single life
• Spiritual life
• Motherhood
• Mentoring
• Childhood matters
• Rejection
• Betrayal
• Neglect
• Low self-esteem
And, so much more!

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9780972113458

Book preview

PROLOGUE

There is one thing in life I believe really reveals the truth about ourselves when left intact—it is a photograph! I am not referring to portraits but snapshots. There is a difference between a portrait and a snapshot. Wikipedia states, A portrait is a painting, photograph, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this reason, in photography a portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. I am not talking about portraits where we get dressed up, made up and pose. I am not talking about the photographs we see on the cover of magazines where the models or celebrities on the cover have been airbrushed or enhanced to hide their flaws. I am talking about a genuine snapshot where what you see is what you get. A genuine snapshot reveals accurately who we are and where we have been in life. Snapshots capture a definite moment in time to tell our stories and reveal the truth about what’s really going on. In other words, we get the heart of the matter. Nothing like portraits which allow us time to still ourselves until we are fully composed which is merely a façade.

Sometimes as women we live our lives portrait style. We spend our time going through life posing, hiding, covering up, and airbrushing our lives never revealing who we really are. We seem to spend our time trying to be composed so others can get a good head shot. They are never able to see the snapshot of our hearts. Maybe we are posing for the wrong cameras and the wrong people. When you look at the cover of a magazine and see that perfect portrait, have you ever wondered what they had to hide? What had to be covered up in their portrait before being presented to the world? After their photo shoot was over their flaws or problems were still there. Even if we present a perfect image to the world everyday by wearing a smile, the trendiest fashions, most recent hairstyles, drive the classiest car, and live in the biggest house—the problems are still there. You’ve given a beautifully composed portrait of yourself but inside your heart is still bleeding and you are still crying. The problems in your life will stay there until you look at a snapshot of your life, face the naked truth about yourself and do something about it!

At some point during my lifelong quest of losing weight I ordered a makeover plan which required me to take pictures for road mapping. I was to take them and mark them so I could re-sculpt my body as I lost weight. I got the nerve up and had my daughter take those outrageous two piece swim suit snapshots with my digital camera. When I viewed my snapshots, I became flustered and ashamed at what I saw. It made me have to ask myself some hard questions: What happened to you? Why did you let yourself go? What are you doing with the body God entrusted to you? I couldn’t say my snapshots were a lie or there was an error. Like I said before, I believe untouched photographs are always honest and never lie. My snapshot was indeed a true external reflection of me. I had definitely allowed myself to become excessively overweight. I could have made excuses and placed the blame on having four children. I could have blamed my weight on not having time to exercise. I could even blame it on my job. As they say, the proof was in the pudding! My proof was in a 4 × 6 photograph. Those snapshots revealed the truth and I had two options available to me. One was to receive the truth about what I saw in the snapshots of myself and the other was to deny what I was seeing.

The truth was I had let my body go. I had to look at myself, long and hard and decide if I would continue living the destructive lifestyle I had chosen or change by living a healthy lifestyle. In order to develop a healthy relationship within ourselves we have to grasp truth. The truth is not overrated, out of style or the latest fad. The truth is very precise but it can also be very painful. No matter how painful it is, the truth must be seized in order for us to effectively change our lives. John 8:32 tells us, ...and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. We need to take a snapshot of ourselves as women, confront the hard issues in our lives and let the truth make us free. The good thing about truth is if taken at face value, received and used, it is guaranteed to make us better.

I believe we forget we are having snapshots taken of our hearts at all times in our lives. God is constantly taking snapshots, ...for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). There are many ways God will allow snapshots to be taken of our hearts. Some of them are: 1) through His Word, 2) through our speech, and 3) through our actions.

I have seen snapshots of myself in one of the world’s greatest portfolios—The Holy Bible. When I look at my life, a woman in the Bible and I have similar snapshots. I have heard it said many times the best way to learn is to look at history. Indeed, history is a snapshot of the past and history can teach us so much about our times and about ourselves. There are lessons to be learned and treasures to be found that are worth extracting for today’s woman. We will closely examine this woman’s life throughout this book because her life story is powerful. Even though she lived in ancient times her story is relevant to today’s woman. There are countless questions I asked myself about her: What is it this woman would want to speak to the women of today? What regrets might she have had? What would she do differently? What lessons can we glean from her life? What advice might she have for mothers to give to their daughters?

Looking at her life, I feel it is fair to say she didn’t have a healthy relationship with herself and we will see snapshots of a woman with many internal struggles. She isn’t alive today, but we are. We have a chance to live, learn and turn our lives around. We have a chance to develop a healthy relationship with ourselves by applying the lessons we learn from someone else’s experiences in life.

This book is a book of inward reflection which can bring deliverance, healing and wholeness and I know this will be a blessing to your life. I don’t believe you picked this book up coincidentally. I believe it was a divine appointment. My prayer for this book is that it will fall into the hands of the woman who has been weeping and crying out to God for answers. For the woman who has felt no one understands. Even for the woman who doesn’t understand herself. I pray that the woman whose dreams have been placed on hold will find herself reading and finding hope. I even pray that women and men who don’t struggle with the issues I share in this book, but know someone who does, will read it and share it with them. Shall we begin?

Chapter 1

I began to pay attention to this woman I have been talking about in 1994 in Denver, Colorado at a Woman Thou Art Loosed Conference. It was Bishop T.D. Jakes who introduced her to me. Or should I say, he introduced me to myself. It was like looking into a mirror and seeing a twin, the resemblance was amazing and a little scary at the same time. When he preached about this woman at his conference, it seemed every emotion within me was touched. I wept and laughed, and at other times I was simply silent because he had hit a nerve. It was strange to me her life story happened many, many years ago yet it seemed to be so present—so now! Although, I didn’t want to admit it at the time, I knew I possessed some of the same destructive behavior patterns and habits she dealt with in her lifetime. In that conference, God used His Word and took a snapshot of my heart and handed it to me. It was like He was asking me, What are you going to do now?

What was her name? Leah.

She was not a fictional character of a story or an actress in a movie but a real woman who lived on this earth, just like you and me. Her apprehensions and adversities, just like ours now, were real. I never paid much attention to Leah. My focus was always on her sister Rachel and her husband Jacob. Leah never really stood out to me until the day Bishop T.D. Jakes shined the light on her while preaching about her. Afterwards, she took a front row seat in my life and her voice has become louder and more vivid in my heart. She can be located in your Bible beginning in the book of Genesis chapter 29.

Leah’s Story

Once upon a time there was a man named Laban who had two daughters, Leah the older and Rachael the younger. They lived in Paddam-Aram. Jacob was the handsome bachelor who waltzed into Paddam-Aram after he deceived his twin brother Esau and stole his blessing. Jacob’s deception caused him to have to relocate and flee for his life. His parents felt it was best for him to leave and sent him to reside with his uncle in Paddam-Aram. When Jacob arrived his eyes instantly fell on his beautiful and attractive cousin Rachel. It was love at first sight. He fell head over heels for her. Rachel was a shepherdess and was attending to the flock when he saw her. There were other gentlemen around who knew she needed to water the flock but were not assisting her. Jacob inquired about this and when no one budged he came to the rescue of his beautiful cousin. He put his manly muscles to work, removed the stone and helped her water the flock. I don’t know if his journey was long and hard or if he was just glad to see her but he kissed her and wept. After this event, Rachel ran home and told her father that his nephew Jacob was in town. Of course, Uncle Laban received his nephew Jacob with open arms and invited him to stay. He stayed for a month.

Near the end of his stay, Laban struck a deal with Jacob hoping to become his employer. Since he had fallen hard for his beautiful cousin it sounded like a great agreement. It was a deal! Rachel was to be Jacob’s wife in exchange for seven years of employment. After completing seven years of labor, Jacob was deceived by his own flesh and blood. This time Jacob was outwitted. Uncle Laban allowed him to go through the whole betrothal and wedding ritual while the true identity of the woman to be his wife was hidden. When Jacob awoke the morning after his wedding night, to his dismay the lovely bride who he had tenderly loved all night was not Rachel, but Leah. Jacob was furious about this betrayal and to say the least, he wanted no part of his new bride, Leah. I believe he was so outraged that he may have wanted to kill his new father-in law when he discovered it was Leah and not Rachel. After all, Jacob’s heart was for Rachel and he hadn’t worked seven long hard years, endured 2,555 days or 61,320 hours for Leah. He wanted what was rightfully his; he wanted his compensation, which was the love of his life—Rachel. When Jacob confronted his new father-in-law, Laban gave him the news of protocol and tradition in his country stating the eldest daughter has to be the first to be married. If Laban told the truth in the beginning he knew Jacob may have gone elsewhere. Yes, it was trifling and just downright nasty deception and betrayal. At this point, Laban and Jacob had to renegotiate. They agreed Jacob would work an additional seven years for Rachel. Finally, after fulfilling the wedding vows at