This habit I’m trying to begin, journaling to God the Father, is right in the middle of its challenge.  Sounds so silly to write this but this morning I began journaling to Jesus and had to scratch it out and replace it with Father God.  I feel like I’m crushing my best friend.  I know that Christ is also behind this.  He doesn’t want to replace the intimacy I’m to have with our Heavenly Father.

There is a person very dear to me that is struggling a great deal right now.  I talked on the phone with him last Saturday morning.  This morning when I was praying for him I was nudged by The Holy Spirit to send a text message to him.  The message was challenging him to thank God for his struggle.  God uses all things to draw us closer to Him and so begin with thanks for this present time.  It was a hard message to send because I too know the difficulty of thanking God for my personal past/current struggles.  It was amazing however, in that within a couple minutes I got a reply thanking me for it.  He said his own devotions this morning were encouraging him to do just what I had text him.  God, he said, was using me to confirm what his own devotions had told him.  That was really nice.

Tomorrow Kathy and I leave with 5 others for the Celebrate Recovery Summit at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA.  It is the 25th anniversary summit/celebration of the ministry.  I am looking forward to it and all the learning we will glean as we move forward with this in our own church/community.  I was asked to pray about starting a Celebrate Recovery in the detention/correctional center where I spoke a week ago.  I do not know what is developed in the way of curriculum for this.  There is a prison ministry already created, but I don’t know if it is utilized with teens.  It will be good to find out.  Please pray that I will know God’s leadership in this as we move forward.  It is easy for me to over commit when it comes to something like this and I don’t want to go beyond what God is wanting me to do.  This is another time when I need to be reminded to “take one day at a time, one moment at a time.”  To God be all Glory!