I find it very interesting in that as the journey continues, the one/s on the journey may continue, but they are in continuous change.  By change I am talking about growing.  When we are young everyone sees us by the physical growth we achieve.  When you haven’t seen a friend or relative for some months/years, the first thing out of their mouth is something like, “My, haven’t you grown.”   In our later years the growth is all about the invisible maturity God is wanting us to experience and achieve.

There were three things that happened yesterday that brought home to me this thing about growing .  First, a friend stopped by as I was working out in the yard.  They wanted to tell me about their thoughts on the TV interview done last Friday.  Even though it had seemed to go ok in their eyes, the message was too incomplete in how to help a victim of child abuse.  I needed to tell more about addressing abuse.  They were aware of the time restrictions, but….  The 2nd and 3rd things happened as I got to choir practice last night for our church.  A new attendee to the choir was present as I arrived.  He had been a student of mine 30+ years ago.  I welcomed him and he said he was a tenor so he sat by me during practice.  He complimented the gentleman who had sung in church the day before during communion.   I hate true confessions, but I had a jolt of jealousy when I heard the compliment.  I’m not a “jealous” person, but I do have my moments.  The third thing happened as choir was ending.  The director asked the one doing devotions to pray for our quartet as we sing this weekend in McCall and to pray for me as I give my testimony.  When she said this I had that initial response to “flee”.  The person sitting by me (the newcomer to choir who had been a student of mine) likely didn’t know anything about his old principal having “a testimony”.  Of course I didn’t physically get up and depart, but I use to emotionally check out at this point.  However, I heard the voice in my head say, “Earnie, it is time to stay.  Accept support and others comments if they give any.  Stay in the present.”

I tell you all of this because this is a major way God is growing me currently as I’m on my journey.  At the end of our prayer time I thanked the newcomer for joining us and we shook hands.  I didn’t bolt to the exit door as I would have done any other time.  God is wanting us to grow into His likeness.  I do want my remaining years to look a whole lot more like Him.

Yesterday was a busy Sunday with church and attending a class on intercessory prayer.  After church we had our monthly Celebrate Recovery Leadership meeting which usually takes a couple hours because we do a dinner, provide some training and take care of the business at hand.  In all of this I had a couple of tremendous wake-ups to more that God is wanting to teach me.

This started in the intercessory prayer class where Luke 4:1&2, 14 were read.  It says that Christ was led into the wilderness where Satan tempted him.  After 40 days of this and fasting, Christ came out of this experience empowered by the Holy Spirit.  I was greatly struck by this transition from being led to being empowered.  We have all gone through trials and temptations but our obedience to following Christ’s leadership leads to a stronger empowerment by the Holy Spirit. This was my first awakening.  The second one came during the training time in our CR meeting.  Our training was about The Serenity Prayer.  We were listening to a CD created by John Baker, founder of the CR Ministry.  He used Matthew 5:13-16 to show that “You are the world’s seasoning, to make it tolerable.  If you lose your flavor, what will happen to the world?….”  Our testimony (personal story) is salt to the world around us.  It tells what Christ has done to take our mess and make it a meaningful message for others.  This was the second awakening.

Neither of these awakenings were new information, but the timing of them yesterday made their message very pertinent.  Our quartet is singing this weekend for a church in McCall, ID where I will be giving my testimony as part of the service.  I’ve stewed over what I should and should not be saying.  All of this yesterday simply freed me to trust the Holy Spirit to lead me in His message to share.  After all, our testimony is the story of what Christ has done to transform our lives.  I need to stop trying to control the extent of what Christ wants done and be fully on assignment for Him.

Today is an anniversary day–Kathy and I met 34 years ago today.  It was a blind date set by a teacher who worked for me.  She and her husband knew the two of us even though we were 200+ miles apart.  Kathy was in Wallowa, OR and I was here outside of Caldwell, ID.  It is through this relationship and marriage that God has brought me through the reality of my abuse, the healing of it and the ministry of now using it to help others overcome.  I simply am amazed at the wondrous works of our Father God, Jesus Christ and The Precious Holy Spirit.

I had one of my grandsons helping me yesterday disassemble the swimming pool that we’ve had for the past 18 years.  It was a 24′ above ground one which we had a deck built around, etc.  It had weakened over the years and finally gave way this winter.  While working with my grandson I asked him to tell me about the strengths he has.  It was so fun to hear him expound on the gifts of character he sees in himself.  It was not a time of arrogance for him to do this.  He was rather humble in telling this.  I was able to confirm them as true.  A little later I asked him if he had any character traits that needed to be worked on because they hindered him.  He was quiet for a minute and then he told me one.  Just as before, he was honest and accurate.  We went on to talk about how he is using his strengths and how to could work on the hindrance.

As I grow older and reflect on my life and the lives of many from my generation, I see how the spirit of man was humiliated into thinking what could be gifts needed to be humbled into submission or beat out of you.  This mindset of many men and even women was a genuine flaw in our upbringing.  We really need to honor the gifts our children and grandchildren are given and nurture them as well as help them use these for honoring purposes.  Satan has an evil way of perverting man’s thinking so that what God intended to be a gift becomes something to do away with.  I am glad to be working on this in my own life and it’s fun to work with others to help them see their own gifts as just that–a gift.

Today is the start of something miraculous.  As I was having my devotions the light of the day was beginning.  More and more of the beauty of spring was becoming visible.  The air is chilly but the warmth is coming as the sun begins to rise.  As I was journaling He was telling me that He is going to be intentionally teaching me about living in the “new creation” He has made in me.  I’ve been striving to live in this new creation, but often fail as I so quickly slip back into the thinking of my old self–the abused boy.  I know God wants me to recognize His purpose of living in His new creation in me.  I also know He wants that for all of us as we accept Him into our lives.

Yesterday was the day the TV station aired the taping they did last Tuesday of the interview with me on the topic of Child Abuse Protection.  I was at the funeral yesterday while it was being aired so I went on line last night and watched it.  It was rather odd, yet refreshing, to see and hear myself talking about a time in my life that took place literally 50-60 years ago.  It has always been current in my mind rather than so long ago.  I actually saw me–the man of today–talking about this period in my life.  It has begun to sink in what God has been trying to show me for so long.  This past owned the old me.  I shaped most of what I did with people by it.  I have always wanted to be free of its bondage of me, but I seemed helpless in doing anything about it.  Even with all the help–therapy and counseling–I would fall prey to that need to flee.  Somehow, this am, that is gone.  I sense this joy inside more than I ever have before.  Thank you Jesus.

There is a younger couple who have been coming to our Celebrate Recovery at church.  They are engaged to be married blending of each family.  They had reached out asking if Kathy and I could meet with them to talk through the issues coming up for them.  As they arrived early afternoon yesterday and we began to talk through what these issues are, the fear that God was giving the roadblocks as His indication of Him not blessing them began to surface.  It was amazing to walk them through some pondering thoughts–

• How did you originally know God had brought you two together?
• Are these problems bigger than your love for one another and your assurance of God’s blessing?
• Do these problems cause you to question each others love?

There were other questions, but what took place was an awakening for them that God is actually helping them work through several issues that are naturally a part of blending families in day to day living.  Instead of questioning God, we can actually thank Him for helping us work through them ahead of actually moving in full-time with one another after the wedding.  Kathy and I are going to continue to meet with them for a period of time.  It will be fun to watch God work.  God’s amazing help is always there when we get to the place where we reach out for it.  Often times it comes through someone He is placing on our hearts to talk to.

God is good all the time–all the time, God is good!

Today is the day when many of us will celebrate the life of a dear lady who passed away a few days ago.  My quartet is singing for the memorial service.  I know it will be a rich time of sharing and reflecting for all of us whether we are friends or relatives.  I am thankful for days like this.  It helps me stay grounded in what is important in life.

I had a younger man call me last evening.  He is part of our Celebrate Recovery ministry.  He’s a very capable, intelligent young man who participated in some circles where he got caught and lost many of life’s privileges for a period of time.  In the past 3-4 months he has been rebounding having gotten a new job that is paying well, a boss that admires his capabilities and has promoted him already.  Some family issues he was up against are resolving, so life should be good.  However, the call last night was one of anxiety.  He was caught in the cycle of “what if’s’.  In listening to him for almost 30 minutes he would ask, “do you know what I’m saying?”  I finally said, I do know what you are saying but let me repeat for you what I “hear you saying’.  We shifted the conversation from all the anxious, worrisome statements consuming his mind to what God has been doing with him these last few months.  He finally said, “I should be praising him and thanking him shouldn’t I?”  I concurred wholeheartedly.

God has been awakening in me of late so many things for which I need to be giving Him thanks.  Even the trials of life become elements of thanksgiving when I see the surrendered trial being used to help someone caught in a similar one.  God is so amazing when we simply take our eyes off of today’s worries and look up.  I praise Him today!

Have you ever been someplace that makes you feel really uncomfortable and so all that is on your mind is getting out of there?  Well, that is the way I’ve always felt once I’ve finished doing anything where I was on center stage–singing, speaking, presenting at work, whatever–it just didn’t matter; I was just filled with the desire to flee the moment I was done.  I’m telling you this because in Celebrate Recovery God is teaching me about this character defect I’ve developed.  When I did begin to sing as a high schooler and found success in it my dad would belittle me.  His words were something like, “Oh yeah, now that you’ve done this you think you are too good for us so just get out of here and go do your own thing.  Forget about us because we don’t matter.”  I would wonder why he would do this.  No one mattered more to me than my family and all I truly wanted was to hear from him that he thought I’d done well.

The last couple days I’ve focused on what God is teaching me from doing the assignment with the TV station.  I’ve already told you how I spent the rest of the day alone and how much I beat myself up during that alone time.  Also, yesterday, I told how God was correcting my thinking about His assignments and how he wants to me to learn from them.  This morning during my devotions I was journaling about an upcoming singing engagement our quartet is doing in McCall, ID.  We are singing for the Nazarene Church there on April 24th.  I am also telling my story at the time.  God was showing me how He doesn’t want me to finish it and do the same as I did earlier this week.  He wants me to learn from this.  I asked Him what He wanted me to know.  His message was astounding to me.  He said, “My son, I’m so very proud of you.  You are my beloved….”  The scripture this is taken from is Song of Solomon 6:13 “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.”  In looking this scripture up I found there is a song called “My Beloved” and so I listened to it.  It is then that God said He wanted me to pass this message along to others as part of my assignment from this point forward.  He said too many of His children suffer from the sense they are not good enough to be His beloved.  He has already made that possible for them through Jesus Christ, they just don’t know this yet.

In February Kathy and I went to Israel on a 9 day tour.  Our pastor does this annually and this year we went.  While there I purchased a ring with Hebrew writing on it that says the Song of Solomon verse–“I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.”  Now I know why He wanted me to have this firm reminder on my finger throughout each day.  No matter what our past has been, He already loves us and waits for us to come to Him.  How grateful I am for this.  I want to spend the rest of my life proclaiming this message as part of my assignment.

Today is my middle daughter, Amber’s birthday.  She was even born on a Wednesday.  I’ll never forget my principal walking into my classroom that morning telling me I needed to let her take over my room and head home.  I needed to take my wife to the hospital.  So, just like that–I was on my way!   That was April 13, 1977.  Happy birthday Amber!

I actually need to go back to yesterday and tell you about “the rest of the day”.  God is teaching me something this morning I want to pass along to you.  When I prepare for an assignment and complete it for “man” I usually know how well I’ve done–this is in my adult world.  In my younger years, I always had to wait until I got the assignment back to know if I’d done well by seeing what the teacher comments were or the grade on it.  Now that I know I’m completing assignments for God rather than completing events, I need to know what to do once the assignment is completed.  Yesterday was a great lesson day for this and I was not prepared for it.  Read on and I’ll explain.

Kathy went with me yesterday and a friend also went with me who is the dad of the program’s host.  It was nice to have their presence.  What I wasn’t prepared for was the return home and the rest of the day.  Kathy was staying in town completing errands and going to a doctor’s appointment.  She and I walked out together and went on our separate ways. I drove back to the school district I’ve been working with and helped with an issue there and left within 30 minutes.  I got home and realized I was emotionally spent but it was only 10:00 am.  I needed to get a couple gardening things so I decided to go into town and keep my mind occupied with gardening.  As I drove into town I went by Southwest District Health’s building where a man was on his knees placing no less than 50 blue pinwheels in the lawn (these represent April’s theme–childhood abuse protection.  At that moment I was listening to a song called, “I’m His” meaning Jesus Christ’s.  I just started crying as I’m doing again now typing this.  I forget to prepare for the aftermath of “rawness”.  All the emotions I’d buried for so long emerge and Satan has a temporary hay day reminding me of my once-thought worthlessness.  A couple friends called and asked how I did and one asked how I was feeling.  I stepped into this a little but for the most part, I spent the day alone.

This morning I was asking God about what He wanted me to know about yesterday.  He reminded me that there are three things He wants me to do and each of us to do when we complete an assignment for Him.  They are simple:  Thank Him for the opportunity to serve, Praise Him for being with me and continue to obey Him in the aftermath.  For me, this would be to remember to focus on the reality that I’m a new creation and these “feelings of old” were just that–feelings that are of my past and not my present.  They were no longer the truth of who I am.  So, next time–I’ll prepare for this!

OK, the interview is done and I’m back at home.  It was very insightful walking through the preparation for this assignment (note I didn’t say event).  God recently told me that these are assignments He is giving me to give a message He wants given to others.  It makes it a lot easier when I know I’m doing this for His glory and not for my attention.  I was asked yesterday to give the address for viewing the interview.  So here are a non-tech’s directions.  Go to http://www.kboi2/idaho-living.  The interview is to be aired this Friday, April 15 at 11:00 am.  It will also air on channel 3 CW the same day at 12:00 noon.  The interview is about 5 minutes.  The whole reason for doing it is that April is child abuse protection month.  My role for the interview is to give a brief amount of insights into what to look for and why it is so important to have a home that’s safe for sharing.

I was relistening to the CD’s this am on the way to the interview and heard the speaker say again that in order for God’s Spirit to be heard, we must listen from the new creation He has made in us.  If I am living in my old self (the one believing I am abused and unworthy of being the Spirit’s home) I will miss some important messages from God.  This was so helpful as I went into the interview.  It was also very helpful for yesterday’s anxiety.  Yesterday afternoon I had a document sent to me via a text message that had the script we would work from for this am.  I can’t begin to tell you what a relief that was.  The anxiousness was gone and I could then focus on hearing what God wanted said in response to the questions.

Please join me in prayer that the listeners of this will hear a message from the Lord and that it will provide just what they need to hear.

I hate that this blog today is totally focused on this one item, but it was my assignment–a first one of its kind for me.  Thanks for your support in this.

I’d be lying to you if I didn’t confess just how anxious, uptight I am about the TV interview taking place tomorrow morning.  Just typing these words make me realize my need to surrender it.  The interview is tomorrow and scripture says to not worry about tomorrow.  God is in today and He will be in tomorrow when tomorrow arrives.  How well I know all this in my head and how much I need to have this anchored each morning and throughout the day.  Today is one of the ones where I need it anchored several times throughout the day.

I heard something from the speaker at church yesterday that was powerfully important for me.  He said that Jesus is wanting our faith in Him to be just like the faith a child has in their daddy.  Examples were, when a daddy tells his son they are going to town, the son never questions whether daddy knows how to get there or if daddy knows how to use what they are buying, or if they can get back home from wherever they are headed, or anything else.  The son just goes and typically goes with some level of excitement for he gets to go with daddy.  When the speaker said this I was nudged by The Holy Spirit telling me that this is the kind of faith Christ is wanting me to have in Him.  My anxiousness about tomorrow is certainly a lack of trust in what Christ is doing with tomorrow.  Instead of living in the victory of being a tool for Christ, I’m dwelling in the anxiety of whether or not I’m the right tool.

There is one more thing that Christ is making clear for me about the assignments he is giving me to complete for Him.  This morning in my devotions He was speaking to me regarding assignments.  Being the educator I am I know that assignments are typically a series of problems or a complex problem with some definition of the complexity.  When we get an assignment given to us we are to solve the problems or to step into resolving the complexity of a problem that may have more than one solution.  Jesus made it clear that He has helped me resolve a huge problem that has haunted me most of my life.  Now He is wanting me to help others resolve their own through Him.  A major step in this process is bringing the problem into the Light so a person can see clearly what is needing to be done.  Christ’s light does this for us when we will expose the problem we are facing.

Tomorrow will be dealt with tomorrow.  I am going to work with today and see what God wants me doing in this day’s assignment.  I’ll tell you right now, typing out this blog has already helped me.  I see more clearly how I want to celebrate getting to complete an assignment for Christ.  Thanks for hearing me out on this.

In my journey through life I’ve read the Bible many times.  In doing so I’ve used several different translations, study types and one which is suppose to be more accurate chronologically.  In the last year I’ve read through The Message–New Testament only.  This morning I began The Message–entire Bible.  It took me a while to get use to the common language used in this paraphrase, but I’m getting there.  I loved reading this morning how God created the earth and then filled the earth.  Immediately I was stricken with the truth that He did exactly the same thing with each of us–He created us and then filled us.  For us the only difference is that He gave us “the choice” to be filled with Him.  He wants to make sure man has full choice.  I do appreciate having the choice to have God within me, but I do not like having full choice when it comes to living out day to day life.

It took me most of my life to understand the power of choice and God’s restraining strength in letting man have this power.  All the years of my brother’s sexual abuse did its number on me and that was my brother’s choice.  I know now that he never used me to hurt me, he was simply gratifying himself in one of man’s many selfish ways.  God, in His infinite wisdom, provided a way of escape for me, however, just like He does for everyone of His creations as we choose Him and choose to walk with Him.  All of us are recipients and victims of “choice”.  No matter how hard it is to sometimes live each day, my choice is to do it in the freedom of Christ.  I may slip as any man does, but I will find God  in each day as He not only created me, but He filled me.  Praise the Lord!