Write and Win Great Prizes In the Wisdom4Winning Writing Contest!

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WIN fabulous prizes in the inaugural edition of the wisdom4winning contest. All you have to do is inspire, encourage and motivate someone with your story. It's simple, just tell us a story of how defining a problem helped you look at it from a different perspective which eventually helped you solve the problem!

Winners will have their stories published on the blog. Other prizes include recharge cards of any network of your choice.

Click to read the devotional Every Solution Begins With a Definition and enter your story for the competition as a comment.

COMPETITION GUIDELINES

1. No story should exceed 300 words.
2. No use of vulgar or publicly unacceptable language will be allowed.
3. You must be a follower of wisdom4winningwithed.blogspot.com and/or the wisdom4winning twitter feed. Facebook followers shall also be entertained.
4. Comments or stories should be published on the blog using ONLY the first comment box. Comment with your Facebook, Yahoo or AOL account.
5. If you do not have a story yet, be part of our judging by simply voting for your most inspiring story by liking the comment.
6. The entry with the highest number of likes wins the competition
7. The current competition closes on the 29th of July, 2013.

So what are you waiting for? Start writing. Let's hear your story.

Injustice and Curses

Wisdom Nugget: He has told you, O man, what is good; and what is required of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your Maker?             

Scale of Justice

All through the book you will notice that "The fatherless and widows" come under the same omnibus and are always grouped together. Literally, "the fatherless" means those without fathers and "the widows", those without husbands. But the spirit of the text goes beyond that simplistic application. They both represent people who are defenseless,. helpless, vulnerable and with no one to fight for them.

In most cultures in my country, when a father dies and his children are not of age, relatives take away all of the father's assets from you, everything. As for the widow, she is only a piece of property bought by the husband while he was alive. At his death, all her husband's properties are seized, she is subjected to demonic rituals like drinking the water derived from the washing of the corpse, shaved and must not leave the solitude, confinement and darkness of the room she shared with the husband for several months. When she finishes with the mourning rites, the house would have been swept, her; children, reduced to housemaids and everything her husband labored for would have disappeared. Often, young widows are forcibly remarried to one of the deceased's kinsmen; or contend with being raped as a matter of right. And sometimes, she may have to sleep with those who are to pay her late husband's gratuities.

Once there was a young girl who went to her late father's colleagues for assistance for her school fees. This man whom she called uncle, gave her a condition: she was requird to sleep with him before he would offer her any assistance. What these  traditionalists don't know is that these cultures bring great curses upon our communities . When the bitter tears of these fatherless girls and poor widows flow down their cheeks and fall to the ground, a lamentation against the land is raised. And a curse is invoked upon the people.

As Job put it : "But maybe you sent widows away without giving them anything.And maybe you took advantage of orphans. That is why traps are all around you,and sudden trouble makes you afraid. That is why it is so dark you cannot see,and why a flood of water covers you."

Have you ever wondered why many of our communities are so blessed in natural resources but the people are still poor ? Foreigners come in and prosper but the owners of the land are blind and in darkness and can't see the opportunities and for centuries the flood of poverty covers the indigenous people. Violence against women, rapes, mutilation of the female genitals are only a few of the evils that are responsible for the downward spirals of our economy and the violence and fears that we live with daily.

"...maker of the fatherless, and judge of the widows...will bless a people who respect the right of orphans and widows and vice versa."

 “If you listen to what I say, you will get the good things from this land. But if you refuse to listen and rebel against me, your enemies will destroy you.'... She was a faithful city. What made her become like a prostitute? In the past, the city... was filled with justice, and goodness... Instead, there are murderers. Once you were like pure silver, but now you are like the impurities that people throw away when the silver is purified. You are like good wine that has been weakened with water. Your rulers are rebels and friends of thieves. They demand bribes and accept money for doing wrong. They take money to cheat people, and they don’t speak up for widows and orphans. They will not even listen to their cries for help."

Another sage says, “You must never do anything bad to women whose husbands are dead or to orphans. If you do anything wrong to these widows or orphans, Their Maker will know it; will hear about their suffering; and will be very angry...

Conclude with Imelda Marcos words: "Continuous persecution of widows and orphans is a crime. Even the Bible says there is a specific place in hell for those who oppress widows."

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The Curse Of Injustice II

Wisdom Nugget: To trick a blind man into going the wrong way is to attract a curse.

A curse is an invocation of a supernatural power  to afflict or injure grievously; to harass or torment, to inflict serious harm or punishment on someone or to cause misfortune, evil, doom or unhappiness etc to  befall a person, group.

In the noun, to be blind means "People who are unable to see."

But in the verb it means "to Cause (someone) to be unable to see, permanently or temporarily: eg "eyes blinded with tears".

Life always brings us in contact with people who are temporarily blind , due to a situation they have found themselves in. The young girl who is in a relationship crisis; the fresh graduate who badly needs the job but must sleep with someone; the student (as a lecturer) who is struggling to pass your course and can't figure out why she keeps failing it; the young man in mid life crisis who comes to you for answers to 101 Questions of life; the young student who is confused about which career path to follow or who cannot figure out where the next school fee will come from; your congregant (as a pastor or religious leader) who looks up to you as God's representative; your subordinate in the office who regards you as their father or elder brother, depending absolutely on your (in)sight to make it to the top some day; and finally, your patient whose nakedness is only known to you and her husband. These people are blind, confused, defenseless and vulnerable before you.

Oftentimes, you hold in your hands the power to either make or destroy them, either help them or abuse them, either love them or lust after them, either tell them the truth or mislead them, either cover their nakedness or take advantage of their vulnerability, either be their stepping stone or stumbling block, either be their father or their sugar daddy and to either be their mentor or tormentor. The choice is yours to either be their hero or their villain but whatever is your choice they will remember you either for fame or for shame, either for the problems you solved for them or the ones you created for them. And we have enough history to show that those blind people you tricked into going the wrong way, sometime in the past, always have a bad habit of showing up somewhere at the crossroad of your future/destiny, just when you are about to be crowned, and spoiling your party. If you doubt, ask Anthony Weiner, John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, Barney Frank, Larry Craig, Kwame Kilpatrick, Senator David Vitter, John Ensign,Mark Sanford.

US President Thomas Jefferson (1802): was accused of fathering the children of his slave, US President Grover Cleveland (1884): had sexual relationships with a number of men; US President Warren Harding (1921-1923): had extramarital affairs with two women; US President John F. Kennedy (1963) was linked to a number of extramarital affairs;
US President Bill Clinton (1998): Monica Lewinsky had oral sex with Clinton in the Oval Office; Jacob Zuma (2005-2006): was charged with rape before becoming President of South Africa
Ramzan Kadyrov, Prime Minister of the Chechen Republic (2006): appears in a sauna sex party video; Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s Prime Minister (2011): paid for sex with a minor on a bunga bunga party and has just been sentenced to imprisonment for other of fences. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California (2011): had fathered his housekeeper’s son, now aged 15 and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Head of the IMF (2011): charged with the sexual assault and attempted rape of a housekeeper was disqualified from participating in the French Presidential elections.

To trick a blind man into going the wrong way is to attract a curse. To you who feel the pain of injustice, this is my advice : "The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly." -Richard Bach

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The Curse Of Injustice

Wisdom Nuggets: The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly.

                                                                                                          -  Richard Bach

confident injustice

In the next couple of days I shall be drawing your attention to an explosive truth which many in this generation either do not know or ignore. It is called The Curse of Injustice. Many are aware of The Power of Blessings. That is why in the US you hear people say "God Bless America". But what is equally potent is the power of a curse provoked by injustice.

Understanding the complexities of human existence in all ramifications; acknowledging the inevitability of our defenselessness and vulnerablilities can help us understand the inherent dangers of injustice. There exist designed laws which make it obligatory for the strong to protect the weak, the informed to protect the ignorant and the powerful to protect the defenseless. To violate that law is to attract a curse (Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the foreigner...)

In 2009,  I sat next to a young man from Miami Florida to Haiti, on board an American Airways flight, and we naturally became friendly. It was my first trip to Haiti and it was soon after the earthquake. I was on a fact finding mission to see how my country could assist Haiti. So I was quick to befriend the young man so I could find my bearing when I arrived Port au Prince. On arrival, we drove around. I was shocked at the sorry state of Port au Prince, many months after the earthquake. Corpses were still trapped under the rubbles, collapsed buildIngs still leaned against one another, people still lived under the UN refugee tents and hunger was endemic. My Haitian friend had told me even the eggs sold in Haiti were from the nearby Dominican Republic. Turning to him, i told him i needed to change some dollars so I could take care of my hotel bills and other miscellaneous expenses. So he drove me to a dirty street, asked me to wait in the car, called a friend with whom he disappeared for a while. When he returned, he told me that the exchange rate was 1$ =30 Haitian Gourde. I was so shocked because I realized how poor the country was and I couldn't reconcile it with the high value on their currency. But I felt I was in the protective custody of my new found host and thus, couldn't dare question his facts (and figures). After all, his wife had joined us. They both communicated in Creole and I couldn't understand a word of what was said. I exchanged about $700 (because he had insisted I must take him and his wife to the most expensive restaurant in Port au Prince). Then I got to my hotel and asked the receptionist who told me the rate was $1= 35,000 Haitian Gourde. Next day my friend insisted that I paid him $500 dollars for taking me around in his car for half a day. As I boarded my flight to leave Haiti the next day I said to myself, "Now I understand why they are so poor !"

We're all defenseless foreIgners. The new staff in your office, the new girl or family in your neighborhood, the new student in your class, the new member in your church/club, the new entrant into your line of business, and the new wife your brother just married into your family, without exception, are all vulnerable and defenseless foreigners whom the fates have brought across your path. Before you take advantage of them remember the words of Plato, "He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it."

 Don't  ever forget, the wheel of injustice always spins around. Today it is someone else, tomorrow it may be you. Whatever a man sows, that he will reap.

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Love Is Never Happy With Injustice

Fighting Injustice

Wisdom Nugget :  “You must be fair in judgment. You must not show special favor to the poor. And you must not show special favor to important people. You must be fair when you judge your neighbor. You must not go around spreading false stories against other people. Don’t do anything that would put your neighbor’s life in danger... “You must be fair when you judge people, and you must be fair when you measure and weigh things. Your baskets should be the right size. Your jars should hold the right amount of liquids. Your weights and balances should weigh things correctly..."

Today, permit me to demystify and simplify injustice.

When Mrs Potiphar falsely accused Joseph of attempted tape and without trial, he was thrown into prison, that was an injustice.

When Samuel’s sons Joel and Abijah, refused to follow their father's footsteps but  accepted bribes and took money secretly and changed their decisions in court and cheated people in court, that was injustice.

When Jezebel got some area boys to testify against Naboth in court and thereupon had him executed so her husband could acquire Naboth's family land, that was injustice.

"... we pushed Justice away.Fairness stands off in the distance.Truth has fallen in the streets.Goodness is not allowed in the city..." This is another face of injustice.

When against all known rules of natural justice, equity and good conscience, innocent people are convicted, that is injustice.

Unfortunately injustice is real and happens everyday. As St. Augustine advised, "If you are suffering from a bad man's injustice, forgive him lest there be two bad men." Only love can transform calculated  injustice into creative justice. Love makes justice just. Justice without love is always injustice.

 We may seem now to be surrounded by chaos -- war, disease, injustice, oppression, death. But we can rise above these societal ills. Things are not what they seem to be. It is only a matter of time until it becomes clear to all that we are more than conquerors.

Hate injustice but be careful never to hate the perpetuators of injustice.

 Let's end with this quote by, Moore, Olive: "Hatred is a passion requiring one hundred times the energy of love. Keep it for a cause, not an individual. Keep it for intolerance, injustice, stupidity. For hatred is the strength of the sensitive. Its power and its greatness depend on the selflessness of its use."

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Love Detests Injustice

Wisdom Nuggets: Love is never happy with injustice,...it is happy with the truth.


Dr. Martin Luther King's Words on Injustice

The two pillars of any genuine civilization, the two pillars of the happiest and most prosperous nations on earth, the two pillars of any great lasting and exciting relationship or marriage and the two pillars of any great organization and government are  RIGHTEOUSNESS & JUSTICE.

While righteousness means "doing what is right at all times", Justice implies "rewarding good and punishing evil". Anything short of these and society would be  brutish, cruel, animalistic and poverty-stricken. On these two pillars, you can draw the line between the world's wealthiest nations and poorest nations.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca said " A kingdom founded on injustice never lasts." I still remember the day I vowed that I was going to become a lawyer. Someone had just been falsely accused and she was crying because she'd been innocent. Nobody believed her, but me. I concluded that the world was filled with this kind of injustice and that somebody needed to fight for the innocent. Injustice is rigging an election and stealing the people's mandate; injustice is denying a widow and her little children of their late husband's and father's property; injustice is promising to marry a lady only to abandon her later for her best friend. Now, you aren't just expected to desist from unjust acts, "Don't even rejoice with those who did it".

Martin Luther King, Jr.said: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
Desmond Tutu wrote "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality".

Elie Wiesel postulated "There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." I am convinced that "A just war is in the long run far better for a nation's soul than the most prosperous peace obtained by acquiescence in wrong or injustice."Henry David Thoreau said "If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law." That was what the Egyptian midwives Shiphrah and Puah did when asked to kill innocent kids and they were blessed for disobeying the government.

Where is the justice today? I fear for how insensitive, uncaring and lethargic we have become in the face of injustice. These days people loot valuables from their work places and pay heavy tithes, It's sad that we have stopped our ears from hearing the cry of the oppressed, the poor and the widows so that we even stoop so low as to celebrate the perpetuators of these injustices.

In Germany during World War II there was a Protestant church which stood near some railroad tracks. These tracks often carried Jewish families on their way to Nazi concentration camps for extermination. The cries for help and justice were sometimes so loud and disturbing especially as the congregation worshipped. The solution was a call for the congregation to sing louder so the cries wouldn’t be heard.

How many times have we tuned up our worship music, or stuck our noses deeper in the hymnal so we can pretend not to be aware of the injustices that abound around us?

Henry David Thoreau wrote "Justice is sweet and musical; but injustice is harsh and discordant". Truth is, evil thrives because good men do nothing.

Why You Must Forgive Yourself

Wisdom Nuggets: "We achieve inner health only through forgiveness - the forgiveness not only of others but also of ourselves." - Joshua Loth Liebman

Don't hide from your feelings

It's important to deal with this issue of unwarranted sense of guilt, which  many people struggle with. This is not talking about guilt which occurs as a result of un-confessed wrongs; but the feeling of guilt which continues to trouble us even after all has been forgiven and forgotten.

Feelings of guilt experienced as a result of un-confessed sin in our lives is a proper response. This guilt may, sometimes, linger for a while as a consequence of a grieving conscience, and that is a proper guilt. To ignore this kind of guilt is as dangerous as harbouring unforgiveness against yourself.
Guilt is a form of guard (or guage) for the conscience. But we must assume that we should be deprived of the freedom of forgiveness. Holding unto feeling of bitterness (and unforgiveness) can deprive us of peace of mind.

A woman told a story about her inability to forgive herself, when she fell ill. Her story begins thus: "When I was growing up with type I diabetes, I felt a sense of guilt as if somehow it was my fault. I reflected back on everything in my life that I had done wrong and immediately saw them as the reasons for my ill-health ...I'd also made some choices in life which proved to be wrong. Again, I laid carried the pain of guilt around. In times as this we tend to hold ourselves to harsher judgment than we do others. Suddenly those little things we did, which seemed so small, would  gloom and brighten the blemishes on our lives, so tha we see them as unforgivable. These emotions can quickly snowball into a mess of trouble as they did for me. Suddenly I viewed everything and everyone I touched as if they were my victims. I reached a point where I had little joy left deep inside of myself because all I could understand through the fog was that I was ruining all the hopes and dreams of those I loved, even though that was not true. I felt as if I had single-handedly ruined the lives of my siblings, husband and children solely because I was ill or because of the wrong choices I had made in my life.

Similar feelings of guilt can be experienced by someone who loses a family member to death. All they can think of is "What if I had done...?", "If only I had been there..." or "I wish I had told them...." With time i came to understand that i wasn't being fair to myself and that i needed to forget about the past, so i worked harder towards forgiving myself. Blaming yourself after an event must have occurred (and after you've obtained forgiveness)  is very wrong. You shouldn't. In as much as you have forgiven those who've wronged you, you must also forgive yourself. Don't blame yourself; and quit taking those guilt-trips down memory lane. What's to be gained from blaming ourselves for things we had no control over? The most compassionate thing you can do for yourself and others is to forgive yourself.

An unknown sage once said: "You can't undo anything you've already done, but you can face it. You can tell the truth. You can seek forgiveness. And let God do the rest."

According to Jane Fonda, "The people who did you wrong or who didn't quite know how to show up, you forgive them. And forgiving them allows you to forgive yourself too"

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Dealing With Guilt And Forgiving Yourself

Wisdom Nuggets: “I have learned, that the person I have to ask for forgiveness from the most is: myself. You must love yourself. You have to forgive yourself, everyday, whenever you remember a shortcoming, a flaw, you have to tell yourself "That's just fine". You have to forgive yourself so much, until you don't even see those things anymore. Because that's what love is like.”

                                                                                                              -C. JoyBell C

Forgiving Yourself

Larry Sorensen lives in Lake Wobegon. He'd been saved a dozen times at the altar of a Lutheran church that never gave altar calls. He would come to the altar time after time and weep buckets and buckets of tears and come back the next Sunday and do the very same thing. Larry Sorensen kept repenting and repenting; but somehow, he couldn’t get beyond the repenting stage. Pretty soon even the “fundamentalists got tired of him.” Larry couldn’t believe that he could totally be forgive him. The guilt of all he had done eroded his will to forgive himself. Instead of being free to move on, he came to church week after week constantly feeling guilty and trying to get back on track over and over again.

Have you ever heard this quote: “You cannot give what you do not have”?

It is worthy of note that people cannot give something they do not have. Someone once said, “forgiveness is something you do, not for the other person, but for yourself”. How can you forgive others when you cannot forgive yourself?

We might have gotten involved in some shameful (or dreadful things) in the past. There are things that we are unable to forgive ourselves for, so that we cannot even expect to receive forgiveness from people we've offended. We harbour feelings of guilt for mistakes made in our past and we allow them taunt us, even after we have prayed. We must  stop crucifying ourselves for nothing. Truly, it is useless to worry about past deeds because they cannot be undone. All we can do is ask for forgiveness (make restitutions were needed), forgive on our parts and let things go.

Bill Cosby said “People can be more forgiving than you can imagine. But you have to forgive yourself. Let go of what's bitter and move on.” 

 The ball is in your court. Forgive yourself.

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Battling With Guilt? Forgive Yourself

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If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”

Whenever you look within, you hate yourself. You could kick yourself over and over for your past failures and choices. You've repented of your past mistakes, but you haven’t accepted the truth that all has been forgiven. You still feel ashamed and guilty about your past and you keep holding it against yourself.

 Untangle yourself from these feelings of guilt and condemnation. You need to forgive yourself. Not even an exorcism can redeem you. Unwillingness to forgive oneself deprives that person's heart of true joy and liberation.

Mr. Barwick, had a serious and painful circulation problem in his leg but rejected the recommended amputation. As the pain grew worse, Barwick grew bitter. "I hate it! I hate it!" he would mutter about the leg. At last he relented and told the doctor, "I can’t stand it anymore. I’m through with that leg. Take it off. Surgery was scheduled immediately. Before the operation, however, Barwick asked the doctor, "What do you do with legs after they’re removed?" We may take a biopsy or explore them a bit, but afterwards we incinerate them" , the doctor replied. Barwick proceeded with a bizarre request: "I would like you to preserve my leg in a pickling jar. I will install it on my mantle shelf. Then, as I sit in my armchair, I will taunt that leg, “Hah! You can’t hurt me anymore!’" Ultimately, he got his wish. But the despised leg had the last laugh. Barwick suffered phantom limb pain of the worst degree. The wound healed, but he could feel the torturous pressure of the swelling as the muscles cramped, and he had no prospect of relief. He had hated the leg with such intensity that the pain had unaccountably lodged permanently in his brain.

This provides wonderful insight into the phenomenon of false guilt. People can be obsessed by the memory of some sin committed years ago. It never leaves them, crippling their ministry, their devotional life, and their relationships with others. They live in fear that someone will discover their past. They go out of their way to prove to everyone that they have truly repented. They erect barriers against the enveloping, loving grace around them. Unless they experience the truth in this text which stresses the importance of forgiving oneself, they become as pitiful as poor Mr. Barwick, shaking a fist in fury at the pickled leg on the mantle. Imagine the pain and loneliness you feel when you despise yourself.

 As American writer, Mark Twain, puts it, “The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.”

Life is a gift. And the recipient of a gift ought to receive it gladly and with joy.If the recipient receives the gift, but ignores it, the giver is mocked, belittled and feels unappreciated.

When we fail to forgive ourselves, we are like a child who is given a trip to Disney World for Christmas, yet keeps complaining that he can't go, even after his parents have already pulled the car out of the driveway and are waiting on him to get in! How would you feel if you were that child's parents? Wouldn't you feel terrible, knowing that you spent all that money on this trip: the tickets, the hotel reservations, etc.,And if your child rejects the gift because he doubts its (the gift's) reality? 

 Make up your mind today to forget the past so you can live in the fullness of your present. It's time to move forward.

Love Doesn't Remember Transgressions Done Against It

Wisdom Nugget : "...if you forgive others for the wrongs they do to you, then you...will also (be) forgiven your wrongs. But if you don’t forgive others, you will not (be) forgiven the wrongs you do.

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Thomas Fuller said "He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for every man has need to be forgiven."

As difficult as forgiveness might seem, it is for your own benefit, I have discovered that forgiveness is easier when i focus on "my own need for forgiveness", on a daily basis. Now, by human standards, I consider myself as decent and civil, but if as good as I am, I still need this amount of forgiveness daily, then I submit that any relationship, family, organization or community that does not make provision for plenty of forgiveness is brutish, barbaric and cruel.

 In "The Christian Leader," Don Ratzlaff retells a story. Vernon Grounds came across in Ernest Gordon's Miracle on the River Kwai. The Scottish soldiers, forced by their Japanese captors to labor on a jungle railroad, had degenerated into barbarous behavior, but one afternoon something happened. A shovel was missing. The officer in charge became enraged. He demanded that the missing shovel be produced, or else... When nobody in the squadron budged, the officer got his gun and threatened to kill them all on the spot . . . It was obvious the officer meant what he had said. Finally, one man stepped forward. The officer put away his gun, picked up a shovel, and beat the man to death. When it was over, the survivors picked up the bloody corpse and carried it with them to the second tool check. This time, no shovel was missing. Indeed, there had been a miscount at the first check point. The word spread like wildfire through the whole camp. An innocent man had been willing to die to save the others! . . . The incident had a profound effect. . . The men began to treat each other like brothers. When the victorious Allies swept in, the survivors, human skeletons, lined up in front of their captors (and instead of attacking their captors) insisted: "No more hatred. No more killing. Now what we need is forgiveness." Sacrificial love has transforming power.

If our marriages will work, if our houses will be homes, if our streets will be safer, if our communities will be inhabitable again, then we must both embrace and dispense forgiveness. Remember, "if you don’t forgive others, then you will not be forgiven the wrongs that you do."

Love Keeps No Score Of Wrongs

Wisdom Nugget :"...Love does not remember wrongs done against it."



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The word "offense" was coined from the Greek word "skandalizein", and the Latin word "scandalum" from where the word "Scandal" originated.
The word was used to describe  "a mouse  trap with a springing device" especially the part with the spring that usually traps the mouse once it goes off. It was usually said to have "OFF" "ENDED" (i.e. severed the head of the mouse from the body) . In the New Testament, it was used metaphorically as "a stumbling block, offense or snare laid for an enemy." Nothing could be farther from the truth. An offense or a grudge is a spiritually scandalous thing. It spreads negative information (scandal )about you in the enemy's camp and alerts them that you are GUILTY, and consequently, you are vulnerable and defenseless, and if you still do not forgive, it OFF - ENDS your destiny.

Hannah More once wrote : "Forgiveness is the economy of the heart... forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits".

Ron Rose was preparing for a sermon in his office when a woman walked in to complain abouthow  Ron's sermons were always about forgiveness and grace. She said he needed to come down harder on the sinners, and in her words, "nail them."
After her rant, Ron asked, "So, you’ve got forgiveness and grace all worked out in your own life?"
"Well, Ron" she replied, "there are some things you can’t turn loose of, things that don’t deserve grace, or forgiveness. That’s just the way it is. I know it’s that way in my family."
She leaned over his desk and revealed a heart hardened by resentment and bitterness, "No, forgiveness is not an option. I’ve been hurt too much."
The grudge was too embedded. And she was powerless and trapped in the wilderness. Lack of forgiveness had turned her into a critical, judgmental woman.

Ron went on to say "She wanted me to make everyone else as miserable as she was."

A teacher once told each of her students to bring a clear plastic bag and a sack of potatoes to school. They were instructed to call to mind every person they had a grudge against. For every person they refused to forgive, they chose a potato, wrote on it the name and date, and put it in the plastic bag. They were told to carry this bag with them everywhere, putting it beside their bed at night, on the car seat when driving, on their lap when riding, next to their desk during classes. Some bags became quite heavy. Lugging this around, paying attention to it all the time, and remembering not to leave it in embarrassing places was a hassle. Over time the potatoes became moldy, smelly, and began to sprout "eyes." To bear grudges is to stink.

Often we think of forgiveness as a gift to the other person, but it clearly is a gift to ourselves.
To forgive is to set a prisoner free only to discover that that prisoner was you.

LOVE KEEPS NO SCORE OF THE SINS OF OTHERS

LOVE KEEPS NO RECORD OF WRONGS DONE

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Wisdom Nugget :"...Love keeps no record of being wronged."

 Love doesn't keep score of the wrongs of others. Love thinks no evil and it takes no account of the evil done to it; it pays no attention to a suffered wrong.

As long as you are in love or in any relationship which requires you to show some measure of love (and/or respect) to another person, you will be wronged; there will be unpleasant experiences in your dealings with the other party. Whether or not these wrongs are done intentionally or unintentionally, do not keep records. As you forgive, delete and format from the system so that the information cannot be retrieved (when badly needed for evidence) . Do not remember the wrongs done against you by your partner. This is not just an opinion; it is a law of nature. Something in the filing cabinet of the human spirit rejects files containing toxic materials such as offenses and wrongs done, and anytime you forcefully store those files they start manifest themselves in the physical through such  medical abnormalities as cancerous growths. Arguably, this is one of  the reasons why this generation has an astronomical increase in cases of cancer even in young adults.

It was H. Jackson Brown, Jr. who said "Never forget the three powerful resources you always have available to you: love, prayer, and forgiveness." Forgiving and forgetting are imperative to your well-being.

Writing a treatise on forgiveness,  Henry Ward Beecher said "I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note - torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one."
There was a widow who had “Rest In Peace” put on her husband’s tombstone.
When she found out that he left her out of his will, she had added, “TILL I COME.”
If truth be told, forgiveness is not easy. Mahatma Gandhi said "The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."

At a convention with their wives, two businessmen who had been roommates in college crossed paths. They sat in the lobby all night talking. They knew they would be in trouble with their wives. The next day, they happened to see each other.
"What did your wife think?"
"I walked in the door and my wife got historical."
"Don’t you mean hysterical?"
"No, historical. She told me everything I ever did wrong."

TRUE LOVE KEEPS NO RECORD OF WRONGS DONE AGAINST IT !

EFFECTS OF ANGER (2)

Picture Credit: Marriageinspiration.com

Wisdom Nugget :"And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses' anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain."

We have earlier said that Anger is one word short of Danger; and one of the Dangers of uncontrolled anger is the words we speak in the heat of provocation. Words are spirit, and either life or death. Now spirits either help or they haunt you (depending on whether they are good or bad spirits) and every time we speak we release spirits into people's lives and years after we have spoken, those words are still helping them or haunting them, and some words never go away until the people die. This wise saying spells out the Rule of the game: "...let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.

A furious father in a moment of rage and anger called Jude, his four-year-old son, a goat because the boy had misbehaved. This name-calling continued several times, for about six months. Then, one morning a visitor knocked on their door and was welcomed by the young Jude. “Hello my boy, what’s your name?” asked the visitor.
“My name is Goat,” answered Jude.
“No, no, no, your name is not goat,” protested the visitor. Just then Jude’s father came into the living room.
“Daddy I told just told Uncle that my name is Goat but he wouldn’t believe me,” Jude told his father with a glee.
“Shut up! How can you say that your name is goat?” queried his father.
“But father isn’t that the name you've always called me in this house?” Jude replied…

Today, ask yourself, as a friend, a teacher, a parent, a colleague, an elder brother or a spouse,how have your angry words affected people? Do your words haunt them like "Dracula", or are they motivational like "Yes you can"?

Donald Trump once told the very touching story of a young boy he met on a Prison visit who said to him "I am what my father always said I would be. Every time my father was angry with me he always said " John you will end up in prison, and today I have." And feeling very sorry for him Donald Trump said to the boy, "Interestingly, I too am what my father always used to say I would become. My father always used to say to me "Son you will be a millionaire" and today I am."
Getting angry can sometimes be like leaping into a wonderfully responsive sports car, gunning the motor, taking off at high speed and then discovering the brakes are out of order.

You may feel very much justified in your outbursts of anger, but be careful what you break (say). While you may obtain forgiveness, a person's life may never be the same again.

EFFECTS OF ANGER

Picture Credit: Godwordsecret.com

Wisdom Nuggets: "Do not be quick in spirit to be angry or vexed, for anger and vexation lodge in the bosom of fools."

Everyone gets angry. But according to Dr. Don Colbert, M.D., author of Deadly Emotions, anger can profoundly damages your health. “Depression, anger, guilt, condemnation, low self-esteem…these are only a few of the lethal toxins…,” Dr. Colbert warns. He supports these claims with scientific evidence about the effects of anger on the physiological aspect.
Simply put, the aftereffects of anger triggers a biologically-embedded “fight-or-flight” response. In ancient times, when human beings faced physical threats like animal predators, the fight-or-flight response saved our lives by pumping our bodies with hormones and chemicals necessary to fuel intense physical action. However, in modern life, that response is unnecessary 99% of the time.

Worse yet, the fight-or-flight response is actually killing us, according to Peter McWilliams, author of You Can’t Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought: A Book for People with Any Life-Threatening Illness—Including Life.
When anger kicks in, your body readies itself to respond to a perceived threat. Your muscles tense…your digestive processes stop…and certain brain centers start firing in ways that alter your brain chemistry.These functions reflect our genetically-coded response to danger. Unfortunately, nowadays, these strong chemical reactions are inappropriately triggered by minor annoyances—like getting cut off in traffic or being spoken to unkindly. For modern humans, even thinking about a stressful situation can spark a full-blown “fight-or-flight” response. In fight-or-flight, your body’s resources mobilize for immediate physical action. Any bodily function not directly related to fighting or fleeing is put on hold, including:Digestion, Assimilation, Cell production, Body maintenance, Circulation (except to the skeletal muscles involved in the fight-or-flight process), Healing, Immunological defenses.
The health consequences of continual fight-or-flight response can be severe. According to Dr. Mercola (a highly regarded and widely published natural health practitioner) our automatic anger response leads to health problems like:
Headaches, Digestive imbalances, Insomnia, Anxiety, Depression, High blood pressure, Skin problems, including eczema, Heart attack, and even Stroke.

Is Your Anger Putting You At Risk for Heart Problems?
Unresolved anger is bad for your health:  Angry cynical people die young. Research shows that men who score high for hostility on standard tests are four times more likely to die prematurely than men whose scores are low.
Late one summer evening in Broken Bow, Nebraska, a weary truck driver pulled his rig into an all-night truck stop. The waitress had just served him when three tough-looking, leather-jacketed motorcyclists - of the Hell’s Angels type - decided to give him a hard time. Not only did they verbally abuse him, one grabbed the hamburger off his plate, another took a handful of his french fries, and the third picked up his coffee and began to drink it. How would you respond? Well, this trucker did not respond as one might expect. Instead, he calmly rose, picked up his check, walked to the front of the room, put the check and his money on the cash register, and went out the door. The waitress followed him to put the money in the till and stood watching out the door as the big truck drove away into the night. When she returned, one of the bikers said to her, "Well, he’s not much of a man, is he?" She replied, "I don’t know about that, but he sure ain’t much of a truck driver. He just ran over three motorcycles on his way out of the parking lot."

Our Wisdom Nugget says "for anger and vexation lodge in the bosom of fools." Remember we have said before you have a right to be angry, but to allow anger to "lodge" or "rest" in your heart is foolish. Remember the old chinese proverb : "You cannot stop a bird from flying over your head but you must stop it from nesting on your head".

That is why Mark Twain said: "Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured."

MANAGING ANGER

Anger

Wisdom Nugget: "Sensible people control their temper;they earn respect by overlooking wrongs."

Anger is not a cause. In effect, ask yourself, “why am I angry?” to get to the root of the matter. We often get angry:
(1) When we are hurt, (2) When we feel frustrated and
(3) When we feel threatened.

I learned one lesson from a pussy cat . When you back an animal into a corner, it comes out fighting. People can be the same way. Gentle teasing, personal insecurities, motives-questioned make us feel threatened and consequently, drive us mad. Anger is a choice, we get angry because we choose to. .

The third principle for taming temper is…

3. Resolve your anger quickly. Admit it, Understand it, Deal with it! “do not let the sun go down on your wrath”. That doesn’t mean people in Nome Alaska can be mad for six months straight every year with out dealing with their issues. Don’t finish the day with anger unresolved. Anger metamorphoses into resentment which cannot be justified. Do not prolong or put off settling the score. Do it quickly. Resolve each day’s anger by the end of the day, this is one great principle that should be practiced in every marriage.

**Principle: Never go to bed angry. Don’t cultivate a grudge!

Like the guy who said, “Do you wake up grouchy in the morning?” and another guy replied, “No, I usually let her sleep.”

4. Control your anger
Our hand is on the control knob. Uncontrolled anger can and will ruin your life. Do not let your anger gain control over your thoughts and actions. Guard your heart and thoughts diligently.

HOW DO YOU CONTROL YOUR ANGER?

Just as you learned to cross a street, remember these three words next time you start getting angry.

1.    STOP, and think before you speak. When we get mad we say things we cannot take back. Unringing a bell? "A closed mouth knows no foot. A sharp tongue is the quickest way to cut your own throat. A gentle answer turns away wrath, but harsh words stir up anger".

2.    LOOK at the situation from another point of view. Anger is temporary insanity. More often than not, overlooking wrongs can save one a great deal of trouble in the end. To forbear is divine. "A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult".

3.    LISTEN to people with whom you're angry. Most of the time, the people we’re dealing with are hurting and don’t know how to express it. An angry person is a hurting person. Hear each other out.  "Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry for man’s anger does not bring about a righteous life." This sums everything up: Man’s anger fails to fix anything.

In a 1994 article, "Wars’ Lethal Leftovers Threaten Europeans," Associated Press reporter Christopher Burns writes: "The bombs of World War II are still killing in Europe. They turn up--and sometimes, blow up--at construction sites, in fishing nets, or on beaches fifty years after the guns fell silent. " Hundreds of tons of explosives are recovered every year in France alone. Thirteen old bombs exploded in France in 1993, killing twelve people and wounding eleven the Interior Ministry said. "Unexploded bombs become more dangerous with time. With the corrosion inside, the weapon becomes more unstable, as the detonator can be exposed."

What is true of lingering bombs is also true of an untamed temper - it can explode when we least expect it. And there will be casualties.

How can I tame my temper?
By admitting my anger, understanding how it works, resolving issues quickly and exercising control.

 weaknesses.