It's the Little Things . . . .

I have been a nail biter all my life. Looking back I don't ever remember not biting my nails. And it has been a bad case of nail biting--down past the quick, leaving bloody, painful digits, sometimes the pain would last for  days.

In the summer of 2010, God healed me of gallstones. Big, bad ones. I remember thinking to myself, "I'd better quit biting my nails or the stones will come back." Of course that was something that would never happen because biting my nails is an unconscious action. It's just something I do. When I'm watching television, or listening to a sermon, or reading or writing or anything, my fingers find their way to my mouth and before you know it, every nail is gone, some of my fingers are swollen and bloody, and I have failed again..

Since August of 2010, I've been trying to live according to Jeremiah 29:13 which says:

 . . . and you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.

I have been seeking God, searching the Word to get to know Him better and trying to live my life according to the two commandments He gave us in the new testament. To love Him with all my heart and to love others as much as I love myself.

I can say it has been a busy and very exciting time for me. I have finally come into the heart knowledge that God really does love me. Me! Despite all the bad choices and awful sins, He loves me very much. What a precious gift, that knowledge.

During this hard time of writing my moral inventory for CR, while God is stripping away from my life the people I don't need to be around, the things I don't need to have in my life, pruning me so that I can grow strong in Him, God has given me another gift. A simple one for Him, but one that means so much to me. I have long fingernails!!!! They are MY fingernails! Somehow in the midst of learning and praying and seeking, God removed from me the desire to chew on my nails!!  A small but visible reminder that He is with me and loves me and truly wants to give me a good life.

What has He given you?

Tonight I would say to God:

Thank You so much for this visible reminder of Your love for me. This small thing that can't be important to You, but that has lifted me up, especially lately while I'm letting go of some relationships and starting the very painful process of trying to rebuild some relationships. Thank You for this visible reminder of Your love and Your power.

I know that people laughingly say, "Never pray for patience!" They say that because when you pray for patience, God doesn't just GIVE it to you---He sends people and situations and drivers and family members and even strangers to give you opportunities to practice being patient. And I always said I'd never pray that prayer.

Instead I've been praying that God would teach me to walk in true love toward others. I've been praying that He help me do "the next right thing." To say that it has been a difficult few days is a pretty big understatement. I'm not being very successful at the moment. It seems that I fail more tests than I pass right now. But I'm not going to stop praying those prayers.

I thank God that He doesn't give up on me!

Tonight I would say to God:

Thank you for the people You have placed in my life to help me get through this walk to You. I also thank You for the situations You give that help me to grow and become more like You.

Thank you for reminding me that I am not who others think I am, and I am not who I think I am, but I am who You say I am!!!

The Next RIGHT Thing

I heard in my CR group a saying that insipred me to live by it. From this point forward I will strive to wake up each morning and simply "Do the next right thing." I mean, if I am listening to God and walking prayerfully through my day, that should be the way things happen, right? I have several women who are becoming dear friends through this program and a few men as well. They walk this way, too.

Doing the next right thing should also help me to walk in true love as God has been directing since last August. I know I can do this with help from my friends.

Today I would say to God:

Thank you for blessing me with such wonderful friends who are striving with me to continue in doing the next right thing. Help me to be a good friend to them as well, living by example as they do.

With a Little Help From My Friends

After a long spell of having not too many people in my life that I considered "true" friends, these days I find myself surrounded by people who truly love me with Christ's love and are here to help me, to encourage me, to hold my feet to the fire, so-to-speak. My Celebrate Recovery family is a family like my blood family can't be, they are walking this Christian walk alongside me, learning the same lessons, going through the same steps, and sometimes struggling with the same things I am.

Lately I have been struggling with my tongue and with resentment. I have resentment from past hurts and lately I can't seem to keep my mouth shut about these feelings. And once I say one thing, other things start spilling out right behind the first. Each sentence gets harsher as I grow angrier from hearing my own words. In my mind I am thinking to myself "Stop it! Shut your mouth!" When I finally am able to shut my mouth and stop the hateful words, I can see the devastation they have caused on the faces around me.

So tonight as I confessed my sin to others in my group, I asked them for scripture to study about resentment, about the relationship between parent and child, about the forgiveness of God, so that I can study the Word this week and have victory over this terrible thing. I know these precious women will help me.

Tonight, this is what I have to say to God:

Thank you, Lord, for giving me these wonderful women to walk with me on this journey. Thank you for their compassion and their encouragement. Forgive me for letting my resentment get the better of me, and help me learn more about controlling my tongue so that I don't hurt others. Please help me to see people through Your eyes of Love and Compassion. Your commandment to me is to love my neighbor as myself. Help me live that commandment. Help me show other people Your love.

Tests, Traps, Thorns, and Various Other Obstacles to My PERFECT Walk

Tonight I thank the Lord that although I am not where I want to be in my Walk, Praise God I am not where I used to be!!

Today I encountered a test in my love walk. I failed. As a matter of fact, I didn’t just fail . . . I bombed so completely miserably that the aftermath looked (and felt) like a nuclear bomb had detonated.

I love this person dearly, but this is one of two people in my life who can push my buttons like no other. I don’t think I even made it ten seconds after the argument started before I was yelling at the top of my lungs, screaming accusations and insults. Whew! It was bad.

I could hear the Holy Spirit when it first started, prompting me to STOP TALKING and pray before I spoke hurtful words. But I ignored Him because things were said that hurt me. He kept at me, even though I only got louder. It finally got to the point that I had to shut my mouth and leave the premises.

Nothing I say will ever change this person’s mind about how awful I am and how badly I treat people. But I argue away regardless. I say hateful, hurtful, rude things because I can push her buttons too. And the whole time those mean words were spewing out of my mouth I knew it was wrong and felt helpless to stop. When I was finally able to drag myself away before saying even more, the Holy Spirit immediately started telling me to  . . . apologize . . . RIGHT NOW!

I still haven’t apologized. It would be a sign of weakness, wouldn’t it? That’s what I tell myself. This person has gone too far this time. I need to  show her that I can live without speaking to her or seeing her or having any part of her. Isn’t that what we do? To our parents, our children, our good friends, the important people in our lives? That’s what I do.

If I apologize, then she gets away with being hateful, hurtful and ugly to me. Can’t let that happen.

She’s to blame for my failures. It’s all her fault. I can’t help how I act when I’m around her, right? We all have people like this in our lives, don’t we? Don’t you? A sister, a parent, a child, a friend, an acquaintance, a coworker.

She must be the thorn in my side. She’s the trap Satan uses to offend me and keep me in a pit. She’s the test in love that I cannot pass, no matter how hard I try. She’s the stumbling block that keeps me from moving forward with God.

Or is she?

The truth of the matter is that I am responsible for my life. No one else is. I chose the way I react to people. If a stranger had said the things that were said today, I could have tried to be understanding and compassionate. I wouldn’t have lost my temper, but even if I had, it wouldn’t have been to that extent. My actions were wrong, regardless. That’s not the way God wants me to behave toward another one of His children.

While there may not be anything I can say to prove that I am a good person, there are things I can do to show love and compassion and understanding to others. Actions really do speak louder than words and today my actions were those of a spoiled, temper-tantrum throwing brat. I am not proud of my behavior today. I will work hard to not repeat it.

Tonight I would say to God:

Forgive me for my bad behavior. Forgive the wrong reactions I had and the meanness I showed toward one of your children. I will do better about getting along and being peaceful and calm. Thank you that Your mercies begin anew every morning, and that You give me more and more grace.

Jesus loves me, this I KNOW!

In my post about the difference between head knowledge and heart knowledge, I said to God:

Please heal me and restore me to the joy I once
knew with you. Please help me find the heart knowledge
of Your love for me.

Thanks to the prayers of those who read this and prayed with me and to the constant prayers of my accountability partners in CR, God has granted that request.

On Thursday evening, April 7, He used my accountability partners to show me that the things we often feel are so bad that God could never forgive, are such small matters in the big picture of it all.

Fearing that when I confessed my sins to them, my CR partners would turn and walk away from me, I screwed up my courage and admitted my sin to them. Then I waited for the scorn, the abandonment. It never came. They looked at me with understanding, love, and compassion and reassured me that they were still there for me; that they are in this journey with me, no matter what.

Later that evening during my prayer time, God spoke to my heart and said, “If mere humans are not moved by your shortcomings, why do you think that I, your Lord and God, would be?"

God uses such simple pictures for us to understand. He often tells me how He feels about me by the way I feel about my four year-old. He loves me more than I love her.

He loves me! My God loves me deeply! I know this now. In my hearts of hearts this is true and that knowledge will never change. I will spend the rest of my life acknowledging that love and trying to share it with other people by my actions. I want people to SEE Him in me. And I want them to desire what I have.

Thanks to all who prayed with me.

Tonight I would say to God:

Thank you for loving me no matter what. I open myself completely to you. Fill me with Yourself so that people see the difference in my actions and hear the difference in my words and attitudes. Teach me to share You with people in a way that draws them to You rather than turning them from You.

God Promises Me . . . . (and you too)

I'm broken tonight. Crushed by a situation I put myself into. Where was God when I got myself into this mess? I know where He was. He was right there wanting to tell me the right way to go, which decision to make. But I had pushed Him aside years before this decision was made and wouldn't have listened to Him even if I could have heard Him. I could run my own life. Sound familiar?

And Satan is really trying to beat me up tonight. Have you ever heard this record in your mind?

      " You knew that decision was wrong and did it anyway so you deserve this pain. All those years, WASTED and now it's too late to do anything for God. Besides, 17 years of sin is an awful lot for Him to overlook . . . oh sure, He'll forgive you and all like He said, but you KNOW you won't ever be worth anything to Him, right? You had your chance and you blew it. All you are worth now is filling a pew on Sunday mornings and being an example to all the children, youth and young people of what not to do!"

Yes, I know those are lies. I know in my head that those words are lies. I'm trying hard to make God's Promises to me into heart knowlege. Tonight I'm standing on these:

But I will never stop loving her, not let My promise to her fail. No, I will not break my covenant; I will not take back a single word I said. ~Ps.89:33-34

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in me will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. ~Phil. 1:6

God is my refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. ~Ps. 46:1

The Lord will fulfill His purpose for me: your love, O Lord, endures forever—do not abandon the works of Your hands. ~Ps. 138:8

The Lord is close to those who are brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. ~Ps. 34:18

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds [curing their pains and their sorrows]. ~Ps. 147:3

The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in His love He will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing. ~Zeph.3:17

Tonight I can only lay before the Lord in my grief, but this is what I have to say:

Forgive me Father. I knew when I walked away from you that it was wrong but I was so hurt and allowed myself to be mislead. Then a few years later I made a choice that destroyed my life, the lives of my children, and the lives of others whom I love dearly. I know that You are rearranging my life so that I may have the life Your Word promises. But it hurts and I am devastated, angry, full of remorse and guilt, hate and love, and regret for the many years I wasted. I can't do anything but cry before you tonight. Your Word Says in Romans 8:28:

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

I do love you, Father. I hope I am called according to your purpose. Please forgive me. Please heal me and restore me to the joy I once knew with you. Please help me find the heart knowlege of Your love for me.