How to Avoid the Landmines of Love and War

This isn’t your normal story of surrogacy, but it is one that many have missed the point of. We all have a purpose and a divine plan for our life. However, what we think and what actually is our destiny somehow are often quite different. This is a story of a grateful Mom, the womb of life that fulfilled her dreams and of a grateful Dad for an answer to his unspoken prayer for FREEDOM.

This thing called Life is quite the curiosity to some, and some see it as a curse to be endured. Some see themselves living on “borrowed” time, and still others are able to live in the NOW of LIFE. For those that are able to live in the Now of Life appreciate the past but are focused on the future. Sadly those that are stuck in the past fail to recognize the perpetual blessings of God ahead of them.

1. Blessings are like the daily manna that God sent each morning to the children of Israel; good for NOW, but if you try to hold on to it, it turns to rot filled with maggots.
2. Living in the past is like getting stuck in the mud; you keep spinning your wheels trying to get back to where you were, while you are slinging mud over the blessings that are trying to chase you down and help you be your way.

We recently went through a situation with our oldest son where he ended up in the hospital the evening before his 31^st birthday and was kept the entire weekend. Through this situation, it was as if God has allowed us to look through time to gain an understanding of one of life’s mysteries, the Power of an Unspoken Prayer.

Every couple who falls in love expects that their life as one to be a life filled with a cozy bed of rose petals. Problem is life is an ever growing organism that is always looking onward and upward.

• Once the “stuff of life” begins to happen and more and more snapshots are taken.
• You will either focus on what comes next, or remain stuck in the mud.
• Spinning your wheels but getting nowhere.

Whether you are getting married barefoot on the beach, in the finest of wedding chapels, or the local J.P.’s office these are but mere snapshots within the Bigger Picture of our Life and lives and that Life more abundantly. The important part to the snapshots of life is what comes after the lights have gone down and the crowd has gone away, that’s where REAL LIFE is.

1. The Bigger Picture always looks different than what the puzzle piece or snapshot portrays.
2. Enjoy the individual piece, but NEVER forget there is more to come, than that little snapshot can contain.
3. Your Hopes, Your Dreams, and your Life are contained within the bigger picture that is a collage of snapshots.
4. Every Individual and Couple has Unspoken Prayer requests. Sometimes we are blessed enough to recognize when our answers cross our paths, and sometimes we recognize it’s the dirt that holds the key.
5. And sometimes we would rather sling mud on a blessing in disguise that is to be your ever present help in a time of need.

However only those with the Spiritual Eyes that your Heavenly Father God gave you can grab a glimpse of the future and hope that is found in the ever growing and expanding tapestry of LIFE.

Divorce and unhappy relationships are as old as Moses, and aren’t going away anytime soon. The challenge is to guard your heart through the “stuff of Life”. Unfortunately, while one is blaming the other during the breakups and shakeups of life, one thing is to be sure; Where envy and strife are, there is every EVIL work. Whether separation, divorce, first or subsequent marriages all this “stuff of life” is a literal minefield lying in wait for its next victim. The heart of all involved!

• Navigating through is not for the Faint of Heart, but the Faith of your heart.

The landmines that are set in this “stuff of life” are offence, anger, bitterness, resentment; the list goes on and on. The ultimate purpose of these landmines is for:

• The captivity and destruction of all Hearts involved.
• Before you enter any phase of separation, divorce, or new marriage, Your Heart better be established toward good, before you ever enter.
• This is what we have termed an:
• Apocalypse of the Heart.

When the light of love has gone out of a relationship it’s the unspoken prayers we are left with. This is a time that good and evil are unleashed into an apocalyptic event. You may be smiling or showing no emotion on the outside, but there is a torrent of emotion raging on the inside. It’s the unspoken prayers of your heart that are now in control of the situation for good or bad.

Here is a Hint to help you navigate your heart safely through this Apocalypse of the Heart.

• Choose LIFE

While that may sound easy, it is the most difficult for most everyone. Every moment of everyday we all are making Life and Death decisions, whether we realize it or not.

• It’s the choices that we make as we are walking through this LIFE that determines where our heart is established.

Here are a couple of hints to help insure you are on the path of choosing life:

• Be angry and sin not against life.
• Never let the sun go down on your anger.
• You aren’t battling a person you are in a spiritual battle and the landmines hidden within your walk in this life are designed to bring Death!

When we hear the word death, we automatically think of the death of our bodies. However, there are three distinct parts to the “Death Experience” and each contains the same landmines against life just in different forms:

1. Death of the Spirit – Your Life Force
2. Death of the Soul – Your Heart in the matter
3. Death of the Body

While this article won’t go into all the different facets to the landmines against LIFE and life more abundantly we can offer some helpful navigational beacons. For a deeper understanding we recommend reading our book “Sharing your Faith effectively” by Cammy Walters

• Death in whatever form or context can only be recognized with Spiritual Eyes.
• Death is revealing itself from the moment that we are born.
• Death has a cycle seeking to steal hearts and lives down your generational lines through YOUR animosities and offences.
• Sweeping the dirt of life under the rug only piles up in the middle of your relationship.
• Placing a guard around your heart filters out the landmines of life.
• Death Bed Promises and expected commitments to the dead or dying are many times a trap designed to steal, kill and destroy the hearts and future of those that are left behind.

The key to successfully navigating through life and avoiding most of the landmines from the stuff of life is being honest with yourself as to the question; do you see your life as a curiosity or a curse to be endured?

• Seeing your life as a curiosity allows you to live in the NOW.
• Seeing your life as a curse to be endured activates landmines throughout your generational lines.

A couple of questions that when answered honestly allows you a glimpse into what you believe about your life:

1. How often do you whine or complain about anything?
2. How often do you celebrate the cheese of life by avoiding the traps/landmines of offenses or animosities within the scope of your life?

Your answer to these two questions will show you exactly where your heart is established.

The reason why some people believe that they are living on borrowed time is because of some type of medical issues that seem to appear within a family line.

1. Whether it is the death of family through marriage to a so called “cursed” family line or
2. Through family members that seem to die at an early age in life due to a disease like cancer.

Both of these attitudes are a mine field waiting to ensnare the hearts of any who would buy into that lie!

While it does appear through medical science that somethings are carried biologically through our generational lines. Learning to walk in the Now of life trumps biology every time!

• Your heart attitude activates or deactivates the landmines left throughout the generations.

Every life is filled with snapshot moments whether an actual picture that you can see or an image that is seared onto your mind. We can obtain these snapshot moments either through experience, actual snapshots or through the offences and attitudes of others. Such was the curiosity of our oldest son’s 31^st birthday as he kissed me on the cheek when we were leaving his hospital room.

But before I can continue, I must backup a bit to bring the lesson together for you.

While attending a Minister’s Conference sometime 1998-2003, I had an encounter with a woman who also was in attendance at the conference and Evangelist Perry Stone who was a guest speaker at the conference.

Curious and Watchful Eye and the Painted Lady

As is typical with most any Christian Minister’s Conferences, at some point there will be a prayer line formed. While standing in the line waiting to speak with the Evangelist Perry Stone, a woman standing beside me began acting a little nervous. As I turned to look at her fidgeting standing there, I saw this woman, who had a TON of makeup on. Almost to the point of Clown like from my perspective with Bright Red Lipstick! I have just called her the painted lady all these years though.

As we looked at each other eye to eye, she places her hands on both sides of my face, searches for the perfect spot on my left cheek, kisses me and tells me thank you! Just prior to this experience, while I walked up to get into the line, I noticed it was as if the Evangelist was watching what was about to happen between me and this woman. Everything remained calm, just another curiosity I thought as I walked out to my car after the meeting. I told my girlfriend Nancy about what happened, and we just laughed it off to different strokes for different folks. However, we both admitted that it was all a very strange event. And the strangest part was there wasn’t a big red lip smack from her lipstick on my cheek. There was no evidence left of the kiss on the cheek, and I didn’t think about it again.

As time has gone on and the years have rolled by I hadn’t given much thought to the curiosity that day. That is until, that day on our son’s 31^st birthday he was spending in the hospital. As soon as he kissed my cheek, I had the image come into my mind about the experience with the Painted Lady. It was almost like my son’s kiss on my left cheek was electrified then the Painted Lady image popped into my brain. You see my son is my adopted son, and Don’s biological son.

While this may not seem earth shattering, when I was first met my destined son, he was introduced by his sisters. He had curlers in his hair, Makeup ALL over his face, wearing a dress over his clothes and high heels. Just as he appeared in the doorway, I heard in my right ear…this is your son. I chuckled a bit and we all had a good time that day. You can read more of the story how he became our destined son in the book, “A Life of Significance” by Cammy Walters.

While this article has been a teaching on How to Avoid the Landmines of Life, it is also a public thank you to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for our life together. Through all the fragilities of life, love and relationships, one thing is for sure. Regardless of what a snapshot portrays, it is what comes after the camera is put away that matters most. We live life very simply;

• We NEVER let outside influences of others come in between us.

Please watch the video by clicking on the link to celebrate LIFE and its ever expanding tapestry.

****Job considered not, the end of his faith.

****The more bitter life is the sweeter the TEA!

1 John 3:19-24

¹⁹ This is how we will know that we belong to the truth and reassure our hearts in God’s presence. ²⁰ Even if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts and knows all things. ²¹ Dear friends, if our hearts don’t condemn us, we have confidence in relationship to God. ²² We receive whatever we ask from him because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. ²³ This is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love each other as he commanded us. ²⁴ The person who keeps his commandments remains in God and God remains in him; and this is how we know that he remains in us, because of the Spirit that he has given to us.