Heart and Soul: 1

By Pertunia Lehoka

The emotional being is full of wounds, infected with extremely potent poison which in turn can be communicable to others we come in contact with. These wounds run deeper than anything we can ever imagine.

Declaring love to a love interest or accepting the declaration can be very frightening, as we always wonder if we would be safe in the company of these people. We then put up barriers of protection to keep others at bay. However, those barricades also keep us insise our shells and in perpetual misery, thereby restricting our freedom to experience God's magnitude in the form of love.

Love supersedes all other emotions we may feel and if its intensity is not experienced, we are inclined to feel vulnerable. This is why we rarely open up to our mates about our past or any scars we bear, which might have a bearing on our relationships and quality thereof.

This emotion requires total surrender and this book is about the importance of that surrender. It guides us through many relationship intricacies, while encouraging us to re-visit our childhood imprints that left gaping wounds which never received appropriate dressings. The idea is to allow ourselves to be free to love and to receive love freely.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pertunia Lehoka
• Release date: Nov 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9780620815659

Book preview

PART 1

HEART AND SOUL

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SECTION A: GOD’S WILL

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We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass – grow in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls. – Mother Teresa

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The kind of life we’re living is not problem-free, but even in the midst of trouble, God is still there for us. He makes joy and peace available, but we must access them through correct thinking, right attitudes and correct actions. The following Bible verses will help us find the pathway to joy and peace, while helping us understand God’s will, purpose as well as his promise to us:

And if God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith? Luke 12: 28 NLT

Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Ephesians 5:17 NLT

Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know. Jeremiah 33: 3 NLT

God’s love for us

I am with you and I will protect you wherever you go...I will not leave you until I have finished giving you everything I have promised you. Genesis 28: 15 NLT

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous – how well I know it. Psalm 8: 3-5 NLT

For I hold you by your right hand-I, the Lord your God and I say to you, Don’t be afraid. I am here for you." Isaiah 41: 13 NLT

The Lord gave me this message: I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart." Jeremiah 1: 4-5 NLT

This is real love – not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. 1 John 4: 10-11 NLT

Our Character

Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.  Luke 16: 10 NLT

God blesses those who are humble, for they will inherit the whole earth...God blesses those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy. God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God. Matthews 5: 5, 7-8 NLT

We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. II Corinthians 4:8 NLT

Walk with the wise and become wise; associate with fools and get in trouble. Proverbs 13: 20 NLT

There are friends who destroy each other; but a real friend sticks closer than a brother. Proverbs 18: 24 NLT

Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others too. You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Philippians 2: 3-5 NLT

If you fail under pressure, your strength is too small. Proverbs 24: 10 NLT

If someone claims, I know God, but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and not living in the truth. 1 John 2: 4 NLT

Reflection: - It is important for us to know what our ultimate purpose on earth is. As we keep searching for God’s will, we should always remember that our most noteworthy calling is to be a child of God and that is what should be upper most in

our minds, while looking for guidance on less important issues. 

OUR THOUGHTS

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"By the right choice and true application of thought, man ascends to the divine perfection. By the abuse and wrong application of thought, he descends below the level of the beast. Between these two extremes, are all the grades of character and man is their maker and master."

James Allen – "As a Man Thinketh"

Thoughts are very powerful, particularly in relationships. Whether we are aware of this or not, we are constantly thinking and speaking to ourselves. We make decisions based on thoughts, whether hasty, crude or refined. Thoughts make up most if not all of what we engage ourselves in.

This is why it is very important to always bear in mind that our thoughts and subsequent actions based on those thoughts, affect others, particularly our romantic partners. We literally become the products of our thoughts. What we advance to our mates, regarding what should be done or not, emanates from all our thoughts and perhaps even our childhood imprints that we might believe we have no control over.

It is therefore imperative that we constantly interrogate our thoughts, particularly if the subject of our thoughts will affect those we love and care about and the ones who share their lives with us. Let us remember that what we choose to think about persistently, will ultimately determine what we will become.

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It is what comes from inside that defiles you. For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you. Mark 7: 20-23 NLT

Then, turning to his disciples, Jesus said, That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life – whether you have enough food to eat or enough clothes to wear. For life is more than food and your body more than clothing. Look at the ravens. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for God feeds them. And you are far more valuable to him than any birds! Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? And if worry can’t accomplish a little thing like that, what’s the use of worrying over bigger things?" Luke 12: 22-26 NLT

Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. John 14: 1-3 NLT

Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you. 1 Peter 5:7 NLT

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SECTION B: EMOTIONS

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"We might be masters of our own thoughts, still we are the slaves of our emotions." – Author Unknown.

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Emotions are generally one of the many feelings man possesses, that make life what it is today. We either succumb to some of those emotions, or are bound to experience them, based on what has either happened to us, around us or influenced us.

For us to truly appreciate the sun or the light, we need to have known darkness. Then we feel happy that dawn has finally arrived.

The whole gamut of emotions that we experience on a daily basis, allows us to understand ourselves better. This way, we are able to come to terms with what we like, what we don’t like and how we are inclined to react to anything that we might come across. More often than not, this emanates from our upbringing.

Emotion of Sadness

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According to Wikipedia, sadness is defined as "an emotional pain associated with, or characterized by feelings of disadvantage, loss, despair, grief, helplessness, disappointment and sorrow. An individual experiencing sadness may become quiet or lethargic, and withdraw themselves from others. An example of severe sadness is depression. Crying can be an indication of sadness."

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This mood affects all of us and this includes even the super rich or everyone who seems to have it all together. It is unfair to label those that are feeling a deep sense of sadness and are seen to be mulling over their pain, as being weak. As mentioned, this emotion is universal.

We generally do not want to see anybody sad and are inclined to ask them to cheer up or pack it in and not be sad. The reason we do this is because this type of emotion, in fact most emotions are contagious and seeing a sad person, is likely to spill over and make us sad as well, particularly when it is experienced by someone very close to us.

This emotion however, is not all that bad in the sense that, it reminds us of everything we hold dear and are generally afraid to lose – whatever it is. It is therefore imperative that when we feel sad, we allow the process to feel this very important emotion to take place, careful not to plunge deep into depression, in order to allow our minds and hearts to help centre us and thereby allowing healing to occur.

Unfortunately, many of us tend to want to move quickly from that which has caused us sadness because we are afraid of the tag that might be attached to us if we feel sad. Usually when this emotion is suppressed, it can easily harm us in the long run, as we do not give ourselves enough time to wean ourselves off it gradually.

When we move on to new partners for example, after having successfully suppressed this emotion and convinced ourselves that whatever it was that made us sad, has not scarred us or left any wounds, this emotion is likely to resurface at a time we did not intend it to. The inadvertent consequences are likely to be dire and they include but may not be limited to those of constant pain, anger, bitterness, negative energy, frustration and even depression.

Below are the Scriptures to help soothe our sadness:

The Lord is close to the broken-hearted; He rescues those whose spirits are crushed. Psalm 34: 18 NLT

For He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. Psalm 91: 11 NLT

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Emotion of Fear

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Only when we are no longer afraid, do we begin to live. –

Dorothy Thompson

This is one of the most powerful emotions a human being can ever experience. It literally stops us from thinking clearly and to simply exist and stop living. There are many things that make us fearful. Some of these include the fact that we tend to get ourselves into dicey situations we don’t really need to be getting ourselves into. As a result, we now fear the repercussions, knowing full well that our spirit does not really desire to deal with all these, particularly after it had given a warning about not engaging in such activities in the first place.

Fear, though not pleasant to have, is a sign that our brains and spirit beings are functioning. However, we simply need to be aware of what it is we are afraid of and what the source is, so that this emotion never incapacitates us.

We tend to allow our past to cripple us to the point that our present ceases to exist or is constantly interrupted by our fear of our past experiences, from our childhood to our adulthood; in past relationships or even any experience we might have been through at any stage in our lives.

The origin of our fear can, most of the time, be identified. There are moments though, when children tend to censor whatever it is that brought about their fear. This fear then intrudes in their adult lives when they least expect it.

When we were still growing up, fear of darkness was imprinted in us, as a method of punishment at times by those whose duty it was to take care of us. Remember the boogey man that supposedly hid in our closet or under our beds? This made us stop being naughty as we feared that this elusive creature will come out and punish us for disobeying our parents or for not sleeping when we were told to do so. As young kids, we used to call it Kgokgo – I don’t even know how that name came about!

This made us believe that in darkness, there lay a monster we should fear. We dared not look through that darkness for fear that a monster’s eyes could pierce through ours and bring harm to us. Whether this kind of fear was nonsensical or illogical, we never even questioned adults as to why they would instill such a weakening emotion in us, based on hogwash that was perhaps imprinted by their own parents or caregivers – so the cycle went.

Having grown up believing that this elusive figure either lived under our beds or in our closets, it is still difficult to shake that feeling off, even though we can see that there is and was no kgokgo to begin with. I remember as a child visiting at my grandparents’ house, there would be that odd cousin who would make it a point that he showed us that he didn’t fear what everybody else feared and dared to stay up all night – in darkness. This took a lot of guts as he chose to act instead of reacting to what he didn’t even know. We envied his supposed immunity to fear. I still have to ask him what he was thinking back then when he did that!

Having said all the above, it looks like the boogey man is still very much rampant in our lives. It has now changed form. In fact, it comes in many forms – Fear of being alone; Fear of being laughed at or ridiculed by those who are supposedly our friends; Fear of the unknown; Fear of being judged; Fear of illness and the ramifications thereof, which at times might mean death; Fear of loss of material things; Fear of loss of life; Fear of not fitting in; Fear of going against the norm and the friendships we might lose should we dare not conform; Fear of vulnerability; Fear of our inadequacies and what those could mean for the opportunities that we so desperately wish to grab; Fear of not thinking the same way everyone else is thinking, as we fear losing the perks – whatever those are. The saddest one being fear of exercising our gifts that we were brought to earth with, as we desperately long to possess other people’s gifts because those seem to be the ones that are hailed by the world and for the most part, seem glamorous. This is the worst injustice one can ever do to oneself – never acknowledging your gifts, abilities, strengths or even comparing oneself to others.

This monster called fear, is nothing but a false sense embedded in us, eager to destroy our very essence, integrity and reality. Sadly, our minds will then be attuned to always fear what people would do to us should we simply be...ourselves! How can this be a factor? Why should it even be a factor? Why did we even allow this to happen? We were not born to fear these people who are exactly like us, some of whom have appointed themselves masters of this mystery of life.

I personally