HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY! Yesterday’s marriage focus our church sponsored was a real treat. We loved it and it spoke in many important ways to us as well as to everyone who attended. The beauty of it was seeing that it was all put together by our younger, middle age couples.

Today I’ve needed to face a demon as my journey continues. A few weeks ago our pastor who oversees our Celebrate Recovery ministry told me the church was going to honor CR in the worship services today. He wanted me to know so I could make sure the leadership attended both services. I thought this was a nice idea and thanked him for doing this. As the day has been approaching I’ve needed to squelch my desire to take control of the way we will be “praised”/”thanked”. Finally, this morning when I couldn’t sleep I got up and asked God what I was missing here and why I couldn’t seem to just be appreciative of this? (The voices scream in my mind). As only God’s Holy Spirit can do, while I’ve had my devotional time, He has gently guided me through some tough, intense critical memories of my childhood years. In those years the absence of criticism was praise. I also learned to deflect any type of praise because I’d learned well that I wasn’t worthy of it.

As I have spent the last 1.5 hours working through this I’ve needed to go through the 3-R’s: Recognize, Reject and Replace. It was easy to recognize the lies and to reject them. As I asked God what I should replace it with He reminded me to replace it with TRUST. He asked me to take my eyes off of my past and to look up to my heavenly DAD. It is there I can easily trust and find gratitude. The desire to take control of this morning’s praise is now gone. I’m ready to go and receive whatever is being done. How much I love our Heavenly DAD! He loves praise and He wants us to know we can love it too.