A Labor of Love: A Journey to Find One's True Self and Reunite with Our Heavenly Father

By Chief Loving Eagle

Labor of Love is about God laboring to build a bridge of pure love so that His lost and dying children might cross over and come home to live with Him forever. Any parent who's ever lost a child would move heaven and earth to get them back home where they belong, and God has done that. This book is about all of our journeys from being the lost sinner and victim to become the saved saint and victor. It's about our finding our true selves in the light of just how much our heavenly Father loves each one of us personally and so intensely that it's impossible for the human mind to comprehend just how wide and deep that love truly is. It's about finding our true worth since we are a complete masterpiece of the creator of the universe to be perfectly imperfect for such a time as this. God has given each of us a special purpose and mission that only we can accomplish. This book lays bare the false teachings of modern Christianity and points everyone back to the real source of truth which is the Word of God and paints a true picture of what the church Jesus built should look like. The Apostle Paul wrote, "If anyone even an angel of heaven should teach a doctrine other what was originally taught, let him be accused" (Galatians 1:8-9). Know the truth and it will set you free! Jesus said, "My sheep know My voice and they follow Me!" Are you following Jesus or the traditions of men and what they claim is the truth? This book declares the true salvation process as was established from the first day the church Jesus built started. You are not being told the whole truth and nothing but the truth about Jesus's church. Most don't know what to believe so they turn aside and believe nothing or everything, but now you can know for certain what the truth really is. Within the cover of these pages, you will learn how the human mind operates both the subconscious and conscious mind. You will learn how to uncover the truth about yourself if you are brave enough to want to know the truth. You will also discover how post-traumatic stress can affect us and how to recover from it. Love is the super glue, the duct tape that heals all wounds. Imagine yourself wrapped in a blanket of God's unfathomable love. Your life can drastically change for the better if you would open up your whole mind and heart to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9781643005324

Book preview

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A LABOR OF LOVE

A LABOR OF LOVE

A Journey to Find One’s True Self and Reunite with Our Heavenly Father

Chief Loving Eagle

ISBN 978-1-64300-531-7 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64300-532-4 (Digital)

Copyright © 2018 Chief Loving Eagle

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books, Inc.

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

Table of Contents

Introduction

A Journey to Find One’s True Self and Reunite with Our Heavenly Father

What Should the Church That Jesus Built Really Look Like?

Introduction to the Inner Workings of Your Mind

Introduction

About the Author

"If I tell you the truth

And the truth hurts,

Will you make me your enemy?"

"Are you so afraid of the truth

That you will make truth your enemy?"

The Apostle Paul warns, "In the last days perilous times shall come…

They shall be ever learning and never able to come to the

Knowledge of the truth" (2 Timothy 3:1, 7).

Introduction

I should tell you that

I am a survivor from being physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually abused as a child. I won’t be sharing that story in this book, however, but I will share it with you in another one. My road to recovery, I believe, you will find to be quite interesting. I have spent most of my life helping others because I didn’t want anyone to have to endure the pain of a harsh life without help as I did.

It’s been a long, slow, hard, and painful process of recovering from my own post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s quite sad to say, but victims begat more victims. It shames me to have to admit that I have left a number of victims in the wake of my pre-recovery for which I truly regret. I was able to help others quite effectively, but it took quite some time to help myself. While my healing has been taking place through the years, it wasn’t until the night of October 13, 2001 when Jesus showed me the mountain of my sins that I had amassed and His willingness to forgive all of them that I entered into the final stage of my healing.

It is so interesting how God works. I had enough credits in high school to nearly graduate one and half times. I took very few electives. I did take typing because I knew I’d be the only boy in the class. And, boy, am I glad I did. Knowing how to really type has come in quite handy in my life. Anyway, I took all the hardest math and science courses. I even took Latin. Why? I have no idea, except it was a hard class and I thought it would help me get into college. But the train I was on got derailed in my senior year and it took me another twenty-seven years before I was able to finish a degree. Not sure what I was planning on being when I grew up, but I knew it would have something to do with science and math.

I loved learning and I loved the hard sciences. You know, the ones that can prove all its claims scientifically; no guess work to it. I took one psychology course and I wasn’t in that class two or three days and dropped it. It’s the only course I’ve ever dropped. It didn’t take me long to figure out that it was a bunch of theories by men and not one bit of hard science in sight that I could see anyway. I dropped that puppy like a hot rock.

To make a very long story short, I got drafted. It was the last draft before President Nixon stopped sending troops to Vietnam. I tried to enlist in the Navy, Marines, and Air Force but none of them would take me. I bet you can’t guess why. Because I am color-blind and I mean color-blind. Out of the twenty-six colors, I think I recognized maybe three or four. Only the Army would take me. They didn’t care if I was color-blind or not. All they asked of me was to catch bullets. As at that point, they were still sending us boys to Vietnam.

But I wasn’t particularly interested in catching bullets as a profession, especially since I took their skill and IQ tests and scored extremely high. My test results came back indicating that I was qualified, intellectually speaking, for any MOS (military occupational specialty) the Army had. When I started going down the list, just about everything required me to be able to see colors. I wasn’t able to find one MOS that would allow me to utilize the hard sciences and math education I worked so hard on. At the very bottom of the list just before bullet catcher was behavioral science specialist which is social work and psychology all rolled into one.

Ironically, that’s what I’ve been doing in one fashion or another now for the past forty-five years. I have worked in nearly every aspect of this career field, and for the most part, have been placed in charge of nearly every program I have been assigned to or worked in.

The army didn’t really care about conventional educational degrees or lack thereof, at least at that time anyway. They cared only about who can get the job done, done quickly, and well. I had proven myself to be one of those shakers and movers that the army could count on to accomplish the mission, whatever it might be. I concentrated on learning everything I could about human behavior and the workings of the human mind so that I might be an effective therapist, clinician, and program director. The army handpicked me to take over several programs that were falling apart because of poor leadership. Programs where internal struggles were ruining the effectiveness of the program. Though armed with just a high school education at the time throughout my military career, I supervised folks with master’s degrees and even one with a doctorate. I was placed in charge of those who outranked me and who had more time in the army than I did.

I had learned a tremendous amount in my tenure in the army as a behavioral science specialist to be sure, but I give all credit to God for bringing this knowledge to light. I have no talents or abilities whatsoever, except they have been given me by God. I have been able to help a whole lot of folks in my forty-five years in the many different work environments I have been in. But now while I am hoping to retire from working in the everyday trenches, it is my hope and prayer that the books I am writing will be of tremendous help to even more people than I was able to help in my active duty time, if you will.

When I retired from the army back in 1993, I got a rude awakening. I thought I’ll just tell my prospective employers all about the things I’d done and accomplished in the military and I’ll be able to continue on that same road I had been on. But you know what their first question was? Do you have a degree? No, but…

The No, buts… didn’t play well on the civilian front. I went back to college, having taken some courses here and there in my military career, and was finally able to finish a degree. And yet I will tell you that the real learning had already taken place in the College of Experience. I even took one master’s program class but the professor turned out to be a paranoid schizophrenic, so I am like No thanks, I am all set.

While I am proud of my accomplishments, I never sit around and think about them. In fact, it shocks me every time when I go back and list them. It amazes me that God had worked so much good through me despite being a cracked vessel for such a long period of time. And now the only reason I list them is to show you, the reader, that I do have a vast experience and knowledge working in this field of human behavior.

Here is a list of some of my accomplishments:

I have nearly eight years working in prison systems;

Which includes minimum security prisons for youth in New York state;

Medium security military stockade where we processed Vietnam war crimes and those President Ford pardoned for evading the draft;

Maximum security prison including death row at Leavenworth;

I was hand selected to take over the eleven self-help programs for inmates;

I supervised thirty-five staff and over 700 inmates.

I wrote a play about the horrors of drug use, picked inmates to play the parts, we filmed it, and it was used as a training film across the United States Army. I took panels of inmates to high schools to talk to the students about drug and alcohol addiction and how it can lead to prison.

I have worked in the school systems counseling the students. I devised an in-house program that provided drug and alcohol counseling in the high schools so that the students wouldn’t have to leave the campus. This, of course, saved valuable time and saved on transportation issues. It was adopted and utilized in all Department of Defense high schools in Europe.

I taught at the Academy of Health Sciences in San Antonio, TX, for three years. I was in charge of the classes for group therapy, drug and alcohol addiction, and correctional counseling. This included writing the lesson plans, as well as devising the test questions. It was here during the group therapy sessions which I led that I discovered that Gestalt therapy, role-playing, and a form of hypnosis were quite successful in treating some forms of post-traumatic stress.

I worked in both the mental health clinics and wards. Once again, being placed in charge of both.

In Europe, I established a peer counseling safe house where teens could come and hang out and be entertained with the latest fun stuff to do; at least, at the time anyway. This was a teen center, but we also provided peer counseling with adult supervision. It was a great success.

I worked in drug and alcohol outpatient clinics, as well as the inpatient programs. For nearly eight years, I was either the senior counselor and/or the director for daily operations of the alcohol treatment facility in Europe. This was a seventy-bed inpatient facility that treated military officers, senior enlisted, and US civilians working in Europe and their families. We also had a staff of about thirty-five folks there as well. My second time being assigned there, I was asked to take over the operations because a child psychiatrist who had been in charge wanted to treat adult alcoholics like children and it caused a major meltdown between the staff.

In all the places I was assigned, I spent a great deal of time and energy trying to help the Vietnam veterans recover from post-traumatic stress. In the mid-1980s, I wrote a twelve-step self-help program to assist them in their recovery. I started a group at the alcohol treatment facility just for Vietnam veterans and we utilized these twelve steps and they were most helpful in their recovery.

I have been a residential director for the severely mentally ill and the drug and alcohol addicted for the past seventeen years. Four of those years was at a YMCA. We had seventy-three single rooms, many of those no bigger than walk-in closets all lined up next to each other on two floors. These were all men who had been chronically homeless, suffering from severe mental illness, and drug and alcohol addictions. Half of the men spoke only Spanish and the other half only English. When I took over, they were drunks passed out in the hallways, with fights and nearly a war between the cultures.

I established a peer leadership system where the best men and leaders were picked to be on a committee to help lead the program. They elected their officers every six months. We got representatives appointed to the YMCA boards where they brought their concerns to. We established group therapy/Bible study groups where my wife, who speaks Spanish, interpreted for me. We had standing room only in those groups. We had dinners and recreational activities. We established a lending closet for food and clothing. We went on picnics twice a year and had barbeques and games with trophies and prizes. We established a helping hand committee. A group of men who volunteered to be available to anyone who needed a shoulder to cry on or just someone to talk to at any time of the day or night. My proudest moment came when one of the Spanish residents, having had his brother get killed in Puerto Rico and wasn’t able to afford to go to his funeral being completely distraught, was helped by his Caucasian neighbor. His next-door neighbor had just gotten a large Social Security check and decided to give it to his Spanish neighbor so he could go home to the funeral. We knew then that we had come a long way from those early days.

Now what of my biblical studies and education? I was raised in a conservative denomination. I have done a ton of exploration regarding looking at nearly all the denominations of Christianity, as well as world religions. My secondary MOS in the army was chaplain’s assistant. Later in life, I became ordained by the Free Willed Baptist, although I am clearly nondenominational. I have spent likely thousands of hours reading and studying the Bible, Bible commentaries, Bible reference materials, and even the writings of the early Christians. But in the end, the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ is as plain as the nose on your face. It’s Man that has distorted and complicated its simple truth.

I have always believed in God even as a small child. I’ve always had a relationship with Him, even though for a good part of my life my walk with Him was anything but Christian. Yet even so, I’ve always remained in a relationship with Him and He with me. And the reason I know this is because if it wasn’t for His watching over me and protecting me from my stupid self, I should have been dead several times over. Why He’s been so good and loving and protective of me I have no idea but am eternally grateful. Despite all my studies, I have learned most of the deep secrets and mysteries of God by listening to His Holy Spirit that speaks within my heart with His still,