CR Email #1

This is the first official email from the CR facilitator:

Acts 20:30-31
"Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears."

May we be on guard from the enemy that tries to distort us from the truth that sets us free. Be on guard as you are on a path of changing your life and finding freedom from your hurts, habits, and hang-ups, and the enemy will NOT be too pleased with that. God is your strength and the source of power to endure life's daily battles.

GREAT group this evening ladies! The transparency already within the group speaks that God is already working on hearts,and what a blessing it is to hear your honesty. It was great having a few more ladies this evening. We (like we discussed) will most likely close this week. Thank you for welcoming the new ladies with beautiful smiles and encouragement.

We will begin with lesson one next week!!!!(YEAH!)
Just a reminder, keep mediating on the scriptures as an additional quiet time through the Denial lesson in your CR bible. This is also a great time to begin getting in the habit of journaling.

Here is the scripture/page numbers you will read through to prime the pump through your question answering:

LESSON 1 - DENIAL
Celebrate Recovery Bible:
Read Principle One: Pages xiv-xvi
Read "Denial" Lesson: Pages 1564(D), 744(E), 717(N), 5(I),1479(A),
934(L)
Read "Devotional Day 1" - Denial: pages 1623-1624
Answer: "Take a Look" questions: Page 1624
Participant Guide:
Review "Lesson 1 - Denial": Pages 17-19
Answer "Write About It" questions: Pages 19-22
You should be through at least question 6 by next Tuesday.

God releases the captive

God released me last night from the grip of my first and biggest stronghold. It took me until this morning to realize it. I was reading the Bible, something totally unrelated, when God ran a movie in my head (something He sometimes does), and I saw clearly how that particular event was not really a super big deal and should never have had the effect on my life it had.

All the very bad things in my life have been the result of that event, and it should never have had that power over me. If my parents and the other adults around me had been a little saner, and maybe if I had been less sensitive, my life would have been so different...

Personal Holiness

I just found out where personal holiness comes from!!!!!!

2 Cor 7:1 says it develops over time when we reverence God.

Reverencing God creates progressively more holiness. Cool!

Rebellion Against Culture of Death

A young lady I know - the daughter of a friend - talked to me the other day about her favorite book series. The books tell the story of young people rebelling against a dictatorship in the future.

The symbol of the rebellion is a bird, a hybrid that occurred accidentally. It is the symbol of the rebellion BECAUSE it was never supposed to exist...like me...transformed to fight evil.
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At Celebrate Recovery

I'm sitting here alone. I want all these people to go away. The woman I was supposed to meet isn't here. Stress! I hate being in a group of new people, anyway. But ...
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Hypocrasy

Wow. I did it again. I was telling a friend (again) that I wish Jesus would just tell me A-B-C what to do...and I would do it.

That still, small voice whispered to me in a kindly, not condemning way: Oh, yeah? You won't even read the Bible every day.

Right, so right. It is just not true that I anxiously await the Lord's commands so that I can obey.

I think I will read the Word.

Day 1 in Little Rock

Just prayed for a teachable spirit. I do not understand how 5 days in training will teach me any more than 3 days might have. However, Paul says I should obey my boss like I would obey God, and my boss is very definite about my doing this training.

OK. Off I go.

FFC, Biker Sunday, July 11, 2010

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Forgive us, God, for sinning against You.

I was reading Psalm 95: The world is the Lord's; the oceans are the Lord's and all things that live in it!

Lord God, we humans have fouled, have spoiled your possessions. Look what we have done to Your Gulf of Mexico!

Let us humans know our sin and repent.

I am so sorry!
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No Easy Way Out

One morning not long ago I was reading Solomon's message to the people upon the completion of his Temple. He quoted Moses a long. In particular, what caught my eye and mind was his statement that the people would be conquered if they rebelled against God, and if their hearts returned to God, then their conquerers would treat them kindly.

What I noticed was what Solomon did not say. He didn't say that God would immediate free all the people from bondage if they returned to Him. Instead, Solomon said the people might still be in bondage, but that their conquerors' attitudes toward them would change.

I guess that means there is no quick fix to sin.

Swimming

I have a problem with procrastinating. I have procrastinated for quite some time in writing this report of a very spiritual experience I had at church while we were doing praise and worship. No one knew; it was totally between me and God.

As we same praise songs, I suddenly became aware that I was swimming in an aquarium. Air bubles were coming out of my nose and rising up all the way to heaven. I knew the bubbles were my prayers, and that I was swimming in the Holy Spirit.

The experience was so cool. The experience has not happened again, but it is really neat to remember. Sometimes, I can put myself in that frame of mind and realise that I am swimming in God every minute. Through Him I live and move and have my being

Yesterday, I could have helped someone in need, but I did not do it. It's not that I refused. I simply didn't think about it until it was too late.

A WIC mom could not pay for all the food in her cart. She was frustrated as she tried to decide, 1 item at a time, what to remove from her cart.

I moved to another aisle in order to get out of the store faster, and it did not occur to me until I was on the way to my car that I could easily have bought the woman's groceries for her and her child.

I got my credit card out of the car and returned to the store, but the woman was no where around. I never saw her leave. She may have been an angel, and I totally failed the test.

God Makes His Saints Face Their Rejectors

I was just reading Acts 7:30-50. What jumped out at me was the story of how Moses was sent back to the very people who rejected him. So was Jesus: He was rejected by almost everyone, yet the Father sent him to his rejectors.

The same thing happened to me. As a kid, I was rejected by all my peers, but the people who treated me the worst, who actively persecuted me, were working-class and under-class Americans. Those are precisely the people I teach at my college, and I have no doubt that God put me in my job.

Isn't that interesting? I am beloved by my students, with very few exceptions. Yet, these are mostly members of the class of people who treated me so badly.

I have marvelled at this before, but today I read Acts and read that God seems to do this on a fairly regular basis: send his followers back to the people who rejected them.

First Rose of Sharon popped out yesterday.

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Church picnic photo

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Vines and Branches

Looking back, I should have prayed more while I was in Haiti. "Apart from me you can do nothing." I'm just a branch attached to the vine; how can I do anything if I don't stay attached to the vine?

If I pray ALOT everyday, then I don't have to worry about trying to bear fruit - it will happen automatically.

Not me, but HIM!

How will I remember that in the daily hubbub?

God help me remember that you are the source. Here I go, back to, "When I am weak, I am strong."

Momentous Day

For the last 38 years of my 58-year life, I have hated my mother. I have probably hated her for a longer time than that. She was a promiscuous drunk who destroyed everyone who got close to her: her husbands and her daughter...until I finally let Jesus pick me up.

Today, as I was reading Psalm 119, I remembered (God put into my mind?) a time when my mother really wanted God. She was hungry and she tried to come to the Lord. But she made a wrong turn, and while she remained hungry for God, she never figured out how to get to Him.

My heart softened toward her. I was so hungry for so long, but I did not know how to find Jesus. Then, in a flash, I suddenly realized that my God had let me forgive my mother, the woman I blamed for everything bad that ever happened to me, and even for evil I initiated.

This is the most important day of my life. This is by far the greatest gift our wonderous God has ever given me. I am finally free; truly free; free in Jesus; free in God.

Always procrastinate

I always procrastinate about keeping a Christian blog. I think I am afraid to keep a record of the miraculous.

Scriptures I have come across recently that have spoken to me:
1. Jesus will never let me go. The Father gave me to Jesus, and Jesus will never, never let me go. Thank you, God.
2. I am not from this planet. I am not its child. I am a child of God; I do not belong here. That is why I have always felt like a stranger in a strange land. Duh...I am. Still, it's sad; I am sure Jesus felt that way, too.

Home, bed, dogs. I'm going to hide from world for a while.

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The big door: will I get a passport?

My experience behind this door was not overwhelmingly positive. I know how my students feel, now, when they HONESTLY believe they are prepared for a test...and are not.

There are two irregularities in my documents. The passport lady was nice enough to send them through anyway... But she is not sure I will be given a passport.

Gotta luv the government in this post-9/11 world.

My fate - and trip - are totally in Gods hands. Of course, they always were.
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One Year MP3 Bible

Jan 1, 2010 Man created before Garden

Something I noticed for the first time was that man was created BEFORE the Garden of Eden. In fact, Genesis says God created man from the mud of the earth. THEN, God planted a Garden and put the man in it.

This accounts for how humans could have been created in Africa from the mud of the Earth and then TRANSFERRED to the Euphrates area.

Wow. Perhaps God led the migration from Africa. Adam wandered (led by God) into the Garden. There, the rest is (Bible) history.