The journey of following Christ’s leadership in my life is confusing and troubling at times.  Last weekend’s event was very successful from the standpoint that people found help and already plans are moving forward to repeat this for a larger crowd.  The helpers brought in assisting with the sexual brokenness area seem to be paying a price for coming.  The director of Mid-Valley was sick in arriving and my brother in law went home to find a blood clot in his lung.  As I brought this to God this morning He seemed to remind me that man is human.  Anytime man is brought face to face with sin itself there is a fleshly consequence.  Sin destroys flesh but it cannot destroy what God has redeemed through Jesus Christ–that is our spirit and our soul.  This truth is troubling when I witness God’s disciples who are doing His Kingdom Work paying a human price,  but I wouldn’t change an iota of it knowing souls are finding God’s freedom from man’s obedience to God.  I want to keep my priorities straight.

How I love my Father God and how I want to serve Him well.  To God be all Glory!

The projects of yesterday are now finished.  Greenhouse shelves are done, yard mowed for the last (maybe) time, and garden is now fully cleaned and rototilled for the last time this season.  My whole body is talking to me this morning due to the physical side of yesterday from cement bags to digging post holes and the rest.  My brother in law who was here over the weekend said he’d never heard me complain about aches and pains as I’ve gotten older.  Well, he could if he were here today!

Last night’s class had some revelations all right about emotions.  I am not alone in this arena.  It seems most if not all men struggle with their and others emotions.  What are we to do with them?  Somehow it seems we are just to let them go unless the emotion is asking for something.  Strong emotions have been a struggle for me as I’ve said before.  However, I do believe God is helping me see them as an expression of passion.  Sometimes a person needs to simply get them out by speaking them or physically doing something.  I don’t need to step into this but just let them happen.  I can ask if there is anything one can do to help?  If the answer is no then I can let it go.

Last night’s class also bought out a quote from the author of the materials that created quite a bit of dialog.  It said:  ‘This is not an ‘us and them’ issue. (Speaking about those in church who struggle with an addiction)  This is an issue about people who have been redeemed by a gracious God.  The people caught in the gay lifestyle, the abortionist, the pornographer and the couple caught in adultery aren’t the enemy.  The enemy is the enemy.  And our call is to help as many people as we can to get his noose off their souls.”  This message is one our church and every church needs to wrestle with.  It is not OK for us to continue to keep the façade in place that “we are ok and simply coming to church to feed our spiritual hunger.”  There are so many people coming in hopes to find true accountability and genuine help.  The relationships we build in a church should give people the sense of safety that I can share my hurt, hang-up or habit and not be judged, but supported.  We have miles to go in this arena.  God is not giving up on His people and I know He is asking us to join Him here.

I got up early this morning unable to sleep again.  It seemed I needed to spend time with the lesson of 7-Pillars for tonight’s class.  Secondly, I’m reading the book:  Jesus The King by Timothy Keller.  The 7-Pillars lesson was the follow-up of last weeks on trauma.  The confusing part of it for me was the focus on anger.  I don’t know if I have a narrow view of anger thinking it is only like dad’s anger–abusive and explosive, or if I need to broaden my perspective.  The lesson went into how we deal with trauma:  anger, freezing, and fleeing.  However, the second part of this lesson seems only on anger.  Is there a connection between anger, freezing and fleeing?  I am looking forward to class tonight so I can get a clearer picture of this.  I don’t harbor anger that looks like my dad.  However, I have harbored much in my life that has caused me to freeze and go into isolation.  So, I know God will bring out what He wants me to grow through in this.

My greenhouse benches are hopefully being finished today–by me.  I now know why benches have a full top.  At least for me it is so one cannot see the support underneath!  The idea that the posts supporting the top need to be sturdy is solid.  I put each one in cement.  However, no one reminded me to make sure they are in a straight line.  I know this but ensuring the line is straight wasn’t riveted in my mind.  So, when I went to screw the 2×4 supports to the posts–well, it was hard to bend the boards enough to attach to the posts.  However, God’s gift is that people can’t see these once I get the top on.  I think sturdy is the primary outcome.

I had to write something about the greenhouse because I’m wanting to circumvent writing about emotions.  God is speaking to me a good deal about them and it makes me quite uncomfortable.  I know I actually have them and feel them deeply when I am passionately working on a project.  God is wanting me to see them as part of our relationship (His and mine) and my relationship with everyone around me.  In so doing, it is not about explosive anger or abusive anger.  I have much to learn and grow into as I ponder this and work through it.  God’s word tells us in Ephesians 4:26:  “In your anger do not sin….”  So, I’ll probably have to come back to this topic in future blogs.

Today, I’ll finish the fall readiness I blogged about yesterday.  I’ll then be ready to step into whatever is in store for tomorrow.  Today I will Give God the glory for the things He has done!

This morning as I got up and started into my devotional time I could not dispel the sense that I must get things done!  Winter is coming and I have lots of work to get things put away, cleaned, stored, and ready for the winter rest.  On the other hand, I had the sense that I need to get everyone involved in the recent conference, focused on their next steps so we profit all we can from what we learned.  Then, of course, I was quickly brought back to focus myself by that nudging reminder that I AM NOT IN CHARGE.  I am to respond to what God has given me to respond to.  The sense of urgency I always have about my own priorities is OK as long as the energy behind it is completing God’s timetable and not my own.  It starts with me sorting out with God what He is behind and what He isn’t yet ready to have done.  I’m always amazed how much God is intricately connected to all of my life if I only take the opportunity to stop, listen, communicate and listen more, and then obey.  Even this morning I felt God saying obedience looks like restraint on some projects while others need action now.  He is AMAZING.

In the middle of yesterday’s rest and regrouping from the weekend I had a couple calls regarding a man in crisis and a boy who needs help.  Two men are wanting to help the one in crisis and mom was wanting to know if I could meet with her son.  In all of this I couldn’t help but think how personal God becomes when we allow ourselves to be used by Him.  The two men helping the one are fairly new in their own recovery journey and now that they have a chance to reach into the life of one hurting, they were scared and nervous.  It was rewarding to simply remind them of the steps they’ve taken and help the one see his need to take his own.  God is so good at building His children to model Him and help them focus others on Him.  I love this about our Father!  He is worthy of all praise!

God is always right–does that surprise anyone?  What He’d told me yesterday about going into the morning with an open mind listening for His message rather than trying to get my hope for the message met, was exactly right.  The morning speakers were magnificent and completed the message we all needed to hear.  This was followed by workshops that were endlessly praised and thanked for the excellent materials and wisdom shared around their topics.  It was really good to hear folks that had put much time into this conference saying that they were wanting to begin work on having this again next year.  Not so many days ago the message was quite different.  God is so good at showing us what He does out of our obedience.

I came home from the conference wanting to get new recovery groups started today!  Of course I can’t because we have no structure for them or materials to support them.  As I was having my devotional time and talking to God about all of these next steps, He nicely reminded me to keep His timetable in place.  I only need to take the steps He has outlined at the moment.  That step was ordering a set of materials so I can see exactly what they are and how the teaching of them would need to look.  I’ll meet with the overseeing pastor sometime this next week about developing a plan for implementing these new groups.

We didn’t have very many folks showing up yesterday regarding their struggle with homosexuality or any sexual brokenness.  God reminded me this morning of His Work getting people to come out of their darkness into His Light.  If we get a door open with Light shining, people will start to come.  So, onward we go.  Praise God!

To God be All Glory!  As I was having my devotions this morning I read the small book of Joel.  It is doom with hope.  The doom is from the sins past and present and the hope is stated when we only turn from this sin back to the Father who wants so much to restore dignity to His Creation.  Last night started the Hope for Hurting People weekend event.  The speaker did a nice job stating his new message to people once God had brought him through the restoration needing to take place following his stepping into sin.

Today we have the workshops with the guest presenters.  I am eager to experience God at work today with them.  Last night I started to have feelings of disappointment about the message I was hearing.  It didn’t contain the depth of restoration I was wanting to be brought into the open.  This morning God quickly reminded me that the messages of last night and today are His messages given to these presenters.  I need to listen for God’s message through them, not the message I as man is expecting to hear.  That really set me straight!  I don’t want to set the expectations for today, I want the expectations for today to be God given and God presented.  So, today I go into the conference with open eyes, open ears and an open mind to receive all that God has in store.  To God be All Glory!

How amazing our God is when we only open our eyes to see Him, open our ears to hear Him and open ourselves to obey Him.  Last night our quartet with a larger group sang for a church in Boise.  It was a good event and it seemed God blessed them and He was blessed.  At the end of the evening a lady came up to me and shared with me about her increased intimacy with God.  Last June our quartet sang for this same group.  I was asked to share my story with them along with my book.  As I was talking about my journey with God I said I had been impressed to begin journaling to God.  In so doing God has been showing me what a loving, caring, devoted Father He truly is.  So, this lady last night began to share how she’d begun to journal to God and listen to Him respond to her.  She was finding this same truth about God as her Father just as I have been finding. She had done this because of my sharing with them.  I was so touched to know God is using our story for His Glory.  He is so intimate when we open ourselves up to complete the work He gives us.

Tonight begins our weekend focused on Help for Hurting People.  Satan is doing his best to destroy.  I know this just from my own tormenting times this week connecting to it.  I just finished talking about this with my brother-in-law.  It was good to take the anxiety of these attacks and talk them out.  I can easily see the Light of Heaven shining down.  I don’t want to put myself in the front of this.  I truly want to be an obedient servant of God completing what He wants done from me.  The team that God has brought to the weekend is complete.  I know God is nudging folks to step out of their “protective bubble” and risk coming tonight and tomorrow.  There is love, support and help available as I’ve found to be so true once I began to step out of what I thought was my protective bubble.

God is waiting to be known for each of us as our God the Father, Jesus as Savior and Lord, and Holy Spirit indwelling us.  In all of this He gives us new live as He has made us a new creation.  This new creation is not new to Him.  For the new creation is taking us on the journey to wholeness so we can be more like Him.  To God be all Glory!

Some amazing Light began to shine on darkness yesterday which came into full view this morning.  Yesterday morning I was meeting with one of our pastors starting a book study: Jesus The King.  The first chapter is entitled:  The Dance.  In it the author is talking about the relationship God, Jesus and The Holy Spirit have with one another.  He invites the reader to begin to understand that God is wanting us to know our own self in this same way.  To love ourselves as the creation God made us prior to sin and find in Him this love so we can dance too.  Well, taking this chapter and intermingling it with the trauma of the previous lesson from 7-Pillars seemed to conflictive.  I couldn’t make the leap.  It simply brought me to my knees–not in prayer, but in weakness.

As the pastor (Ryan) and I were meeting I began to see the deep connection I was missing was value–my value in my eyes.  I have always longed for value replacing the lack of value I felt from my childhood.  God was hitting me with the truth of my past with the truth of my present and my future.  My value had already been given to me in His creation of me.  The simple fact my dad never supported my value and my brother’s use of me seemed my only value growing up was what Satan wanted me believing so I’d stay crippled throughout life.

This morning I journaled all of this to God and to The Holy Spirit.  It seemed somewhat awkward at first but it soon became very easy.  I could quickly see that The Holy Spirit has been alive in me but I couldn’t see or sense Him because He is felt through value.  My word–The Holy Spirit is Christ’s gift to each of us as we accept Him into our lives.  This is Christ’s most valuable gift.  He enters into us giving us the same value if we only believe.  I couldn’t see this because I could never find the value of me.  I was looking for value in places my dad would define as so.  I was believing the lie Satan had planted in me very early in my life.  Today for the first time I am able to refocus my lens onto God’s Light seeing my value through Him and being a beacon of His Light.  Wow, what an awakening!  You are no different in value if you have struggled as I have.  Don’t quit until the miracle happens.  God is faithful to complete His Kingdom Work and today I can see this much more clearly.  Praise God from Whom All Blessings flow!

I said yesterday that I had arisen early and done the 7-Pillars lesson.  It was all about dealing with the trauma of life.  As we were processing it last night in class, it was as though I was in the midst of my childhood trauma all over again.  My whole self simply went numb sensing this.  I know this “numb” well.  The paradoxical part of this was a statement in the book saying the Holy Spirit has a gracious aggression as He intercedes for us in this.  I was to respond to this.  I could only say that I never knew any gracious aggression during these times in my life.  I had only thought the “numb” I would feel was the Holy Spirit’s gift.  With the numb I could not feel the pain of dad’s words, abuse or Rich’s sexual abuse.

This morning I had to get to the core of this with God and with The Holy Spirit.  I knew there was a huge missing piece and I needed to know what it is/was.  As I began to process this I was feeling numb again.  In the narrative portion of the class it said to stay in tune with your body’s responses to the pain of the past.  Last night I felt it in my gut.  I was almost sick.  This morning I began to relive this again.  This time I was able to identity this sickness as my helplessness to stand up to dad.  To tell him that fighting my younger brother as entertainment was sickening to me.  I hated this with a passion.  I realized my hurt and anger needed to be told to dad.  I also needed to tell him that his bullying of me throughout my childhood was so disrespectful.  I wasn’t like him but that didn’t make me a girl.  Then I sensed The Holy Spirit telling me He would put this helplessness into the safe place we created when I was in therapy not so many years ago.

It was amazing to experience this healing moment this morning.  For the first time I can actually “think” about this instead of freeze up about it.  The Holy Spirit is now able to work with me in this realm of my past.  I’m so grateful!  As I face what use to be helplessness in my life, I think I will be better equipped to let the Holy Spirit’s gracious aggression take hold.  I’m most grateful for this.  I know this is the wake up.  There will be much more to grow through, but now I can get started.  The seed is planted.  To God be all Glory!

Today started as one of those when sleep wouldn’t come once the clock struck 3:30 am.  I hadn’t done my lesson for tonight’s 7-Pillars class so I got up and finished it.  This was enough to ensure I wouldn’t go back to sleep.  The entire lesson was on the trauma of childhood and its deep entanglements in your body and mind.  Here we are in the 6th of 7 pillars and only now are we addressing the root of trauma.  There was a check list one was to complete.  I did it not giving too much thought to the end results.  I already knew trauma had riddled my childhood.  However, when I finished I was asked to count how many “yes” boxes I’d checked.  If it was more than 4 one had trauma in their childhood.  If there were 8 or more the trauma was clinically significant.  Well, I had 15 boxes marked yes and 2 that I needed to talk with someone about before checking them.  I have never wanted to be bluntly honest about the impact of my childhood on me.  I’d like to think, “I’m normal.”  Well, I’m coming out of denial more and more so this did surprise me, but not nearly as much so as it would only a few years back.  What I won’t do is hide these results, but see them as my next steps to overcoming anything that is revealed from the lesson.

A significant issue in the lesson of tonight is addressing where God, Christ and The Holy Spirit were in the course of childhood.  I don’t have any cut and dried answers as of now, but I do know they were with me and they hurt with me.  I don’t have any strong emotional connections with this as of yet, but I look forward to this part of healing as I move forward in this arena.

This weekend of Hope for Hurting People is needing continuous prayer.  Last night one person talked to me overly discouraged.  I know this is another attack of Satan on her specifically.  As I awoke in the middle of the night I was lamenting some of the concerns she said to me but I eventually began to thank God for what He is going to do in spite of any spiritual attacks.  God is ultimately in charge of this.  This is being done to glorify God and show man that even in our crisis, God is right there with us and has tools to help us unravel the ugliest parts of our past and present.  These do not need to foretell our future.  Please pray with me during this week. God is going to be glorified!