Everlasting Love

By Dennis Perkins

Everlasting Love is a book which depicts the relationship between two people""a man and a woman""whose paths divinely meet and culminate a more than thirty-year journey of learning about God's love through friendship, separation, adversity, marriage, and beyond. Love does not begin with a mere infatuation or affection that two people have for each other but, in essence, comes forth from the revelation of first knowing that we, as individuals, are loved by God. When we, in our hearts, comprehend how much God loves us, then we are more easily able to reciprocate that love back to Him (1 John 4:19). Secondly; as we learn how precious we are to Him, we then take a different look at ourselves, and upon doing so, we place a higher degree of value on the deposits and the spiritual gifts imparted to us by Him. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). Do you see the word everlasting? Does this give you and me a clue that when it is over here, that it is really not over? This book is meant to help settle that question that many may have, especially them who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. We have to change the ways in which we think about life, love, and even death. For we should know that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Luke 20:38). Everlasting Love will help to transcend your thinking about prayer and God's plan for your destiny in this life, and what ramifications one life can have on turning even generations to Him. Make your impact in this world through revelation of His everlasting love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9781645153023

Dennis Perkins

DENNIS PERKINS is the author of Leading at The Edge and CEO of Syncretics Group, a consulting firm dedicated to helping leaders and teams thrive under conditions of adversity, uncertainty, and change. A graduate of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, he successfully completed his first Sydney Hobart Race in 2006. JILLIAN B. MURPHY is the Director of Client Services at Syncretics.

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Everlasting Love

Dennis Perkins

Copyright © 2019 by Dennis Perkins

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.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Everlasting Love

Turning Point

A Season of Separation

Submitting to One Another

A Call to Ministry

Never Forsaken

A Season of Listening and Preparation

A Season of Tribulation and Testing

God’s Favor

Through Adversities

Starting All Over Again

Manifestations

A Prayer For My Eternal Salvation

Everlasting Love

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).

Iam the sixth of eight children (not including a stillborn baby sister) born in Yazoo City, a small Mississippi delta town, to Robert and Rosemary (Doll) Perkins. My daddy was hardworking, outgoing, and friendly. He loved family. Mama was more of an introvert, but extremely kind and very strong in her beliefs which came from a very tough upbringing. I felt that we all were loved by our parents. We would really feel that love when we saw their feelings for one another openly expressed through a kiss, hug, or just laughing together. Even among all of this family, I knew that there had to be more. I would still find myself feeling alone, insecure, and misunderstood. There just had to be more, so I would find myself daydreaming about a more perfect, loving family as portrayed on television shows of the sixties. I would hear people openly telling their spouse or children that they loved them, but I never heard anyone say that to each other in my family. That phrase seemed so foreign to me, although it was acceptable.

I distinctly remember from my early childhood a scripture that my parents hung on the wall in our living room. That portion of scripture is found in 1 John 4: 8b, For God is love. Of course, I did not know anything about the depths of what I saw as an invisible God’s love at that time. Both of my parents were church-going, God-fearing and believing people who made sure that all eight of their children attended Sunday school and church services at St. Peter Missionary Baptist Church every week. It would take years to even begin to understand the greatness of His love for me. It is difficult to imagine God’s love for the world when there is an absence of understanding the working revelation of its availability and how it is extended to every person. I began understanding much later in life when I met my beautiful wife of twenty-eight years, Deborah. She encompassed the beauty of that love. It wasn’t the outward appearance that I’m referring to but the inward person. She was the wife that I literally prayed for when I was probably a preteenager. I remember once saying to God in my nightly prayer, God, please give me a wife that loves people. I truly didn’t know why I only asked that, but I was pleased with what came out of my mouth and even more so when I realized the manifested outcome of that prayer. I prophetically envisioned a beautiful brown-skinned girl with long black hair but never saw her face clearly. It was interesting that God showed her as a girl that was closer to my own age and not as a fully grown woman.

Many times, God imparts a vision years before it comes to pass. God showed that my wife was a little girl at the time I prayed for her. Little did I know that she would be so instrumental in shaping my spiritual life in the Lord. In the process of time, which was years before I met Deborah, there were so many broken relationships and disappointments, none of which had Jesus Christ at the center. All of these efforts proved to be fruitless. I wanted different results but was enslaved by the wages of sin, even though I had professed Jesus as my Lord and Savior at age twelve. Of course, in doing so, there was no change in my lifestyle. I seemed to have this unquenchable hunger and thirst for true love that couldn’t be fulfilled. I desperately tried to fill my life with a lot of time-consuming activities that would quickly bring me full circle. There was no true intimacy with God, so even though I seemed to have a semblance of peace and stability, there was none.

One day, my youngest brother Sam, who was a graduate student professor in the Department of Business at Jackson State University said to me, You know, I know a very nice young lady that I want to introduce you to.

I said, Who?

He said, Deborah Norwood. She is an undergraduate student who has good looks and good moral character that I know you will like. Then he showed me her picture in the Jackson State Annual.

I said, She is cute! Yes, I’d like to meet her.

He called her and introduced us over the phone. We talked for a little while, and I let her know that I would like to formally meet her in person. She said that I could come over to her mother’s house on a specific day/time and gave me directions. I clearly remember the first time I visited her. Everyone was cordial. She introduced me to her mother and her grandmother. I got more questions and interest from her grandmother than anyone else. Deborah was certainly not going out of her way to impress me. She had rollers in her hair and a scarf tied around her head. I thought that she looked very beautiful just as she was. Deborah was very natural, unapologetic—which she didn’t have to be—and focused on things that she was involved in within her environment more so than with me. She was in her twenties but seemed very mature for her age. She didn’t frequent nightclubs, although she had often been advised to do so to find her a man, so to speak. Deborah wasn’t that kind of woman. She kindly responded by saying that her husband would find her at her home or dwelling place. I hoped that that would be me. I felt like I loved her from the very moment that I saw her. We started seeing each other for a while, but that soon ended because she was not ready to commit to any relationship of a romantic nature, being that she had just come out of a