I didn’t get yesterday’s post written. I had to be at the airport to pick up my daughter and granddaughter @ 12:45 am the night before and so I didn’t get back home and in bed until 2:00 am. Yesterday morning I was meeting with a superintendent candidate for a district close by. This person is one I’ve worked closely with for several years and she’s in the top 3 for the position. The decision will be made next Tuesday. Thus, by the time I’d finished my devotions I needed to head to our meeting place.

Last night we had a great time with the family present for our dinner and the start of the reunion weekend. Lots of laughter, conversation and teasing. There is something in the Lewis’ blood that keeps this alive. People who are married into the family say they know when they are accepted because the teasing includes them. I’m not sure that is a complimentary trait of our genes. Today will be the big day. There are over 100 who have indicated they are coming to this. I’ve prayed over this event several times now. I pray God will not only be present, but glorified in this day.

I found myself worrying as I awoke several times during the night. The details of the weekend and the coming week are very present in my mind. As I was journaling this morning and asking God what He wanted me to know and believe He reminded me I can choose to worry or I can choose to trust and obey. These details will transpire whether I worry about them or not. If I choose to trust rather than worry I can better see Him at work in the details. I’m going to trust today as we come together. God is God and I simply want to thank Him that I get to be one of His kids along with all the other of the Lewis’ clan which will gather.

Yesterday I wrote in part about the family of Harold and Opal. These are the kids, grandkids and great and great grandkids who will be gathering starting tomorrow night. What I didn’t write is that the generation before mom and dad was Grandma and Grandpa Wretling (mom’s parents). Because I’m reading I Chronicles presently I read about the lineage of the Jewish nation starting back with Abraham and Sarah. God made promises to them which we can see the results of as we read the scriptures.

I write this because my lineage and that of all my relatives tie back to the grandparents we have. It was Grandma Wretling who had the sign on her nursing home door which read: Prayer Warrior. I asked grandma on one visit who she prayed for? She told me she prayed for everyone of her grandchildren through all the generations. I knew there were close to a hundred by that time so I asked how she remembered all of their names? She told me, “I don’t remember all of their names but Jesus does and I’m holding Him accountable for each of their salvation!”

Yesterday I was talking with one of my brothers and sis in law about who is coming. I was amazed at the measures some are taking to be here. Yet, I also heard some roadblocks for others. Some of these roadblocks are simply man and his human pride. This morning I tapped into God’s Army (see I Chronicles 12:22) for these issues. There is a wonderful opportunity for Grandma’s prayers to be glorified this weekend. Satan wouldn’t want issues to be addressed lovingly. He wants them to be the roadblocks. Well, God’s Army is going to be tackling these so Satan will have to flee! To God be all Glory for great things He hath done!

Today is my oldest living sister’s birthday and I forgot it until last night. July has a lot going on this year and this is one detail I’ve overlooked. I’m running to the store as soon as I finish typing this, get her the “right” card and mail it. Our reunion will be in just a couple days and she is no longer able to travel and come even though her heart will be present I’m sure. Alice has been instrumental in my recovery and I’ll always thank God for her sensitivity in seeing my need well before I was willing to step out of my denial.

If you haven’t read the first 9 chapters of I Chronicles, do it soon. It is an amazing list of the Jewish lineage. Starting with I Chronicles 1:27 you see Abraham’s name. It is there that God had made the promise of the Jewish nation starting with him. When I paused to think about this I realized for Abraham, it was only a promise. He and Sarah only had one son at that time yet God was telling him his offspring would be like the “sands of the seashore”. By the time you have read the 9 chapters I reference you see clearly the sands God was talking about. God’s promises are true but our limited mind-frame wants it true right now. God, instead of instantly gratifying this trait of flesh, tells us to have faith and then believe. Abraham did this and look at the results today!

This Saturday there will be about 105 Lewis’ gathering for our reunion. There will be at least 1/3 more unable to attend. These are the offspring of Harold and Opal. This morning I was reflecting for a moment about the correlation of I Chronicles and our own “sands of the seashore”. It is not so much that there are many of us, what truly amazes me is that all of them want to come and be here. Family is that important. On the surface, I’ve never believed I was important to our family. I was just an anomaly to be accommodated. Yet, I’ve learned I’m important just as my family is important to me. God is teaching me to believe and have faith just like He kept telling Abraham. God loves family and He wants us loving one another. I’m so glad we have each other to love. God is so GOOD!

Today is Kathy’s birthday. She is holding fast to middle age, I am getting older. Either way, it is a day to celebrate. I’m so grateful God gave her to me and I to her more than 37 years ago now.

I was up early this am, 2:50 to be exact, to get my oldest daughter and my oldest granddaughter to the airport. My granddaughter is looking at colleges for her to attend when she graduates next spring. I love this kind of help especially when it is attached to such worthwhile purpose. Next week we drive to another one. She hopes to choose one of the two. I’m praying God will make the choice abundantly clear to her. She wants to be a special education teacher so this of course thrills my heart!

God is in control of all we do. When I simply take one small step away from the control center I can see this. I tend to get right into the control center before I realize I need to step back so I can let God do what is rightfully His to do–Lead me. I don’t want to be the one seen as in control. I want to be seen as one who obeys the leadership of God. This is truly a day by day surrender too for me. I give myself to Him today.

Today ends the reunion time in Wallowa. One more family member is coming this morning for a visit over coffee and then we head home. At that point we start gearing up for the Lewis reunion this coming weekend.

This morning I finished the book of II Kings. Several hundred years have passed since God set the Israelites up as a nation and now they are no longer that. When I read this I wonder why they had become so blind to living for God? Then, I look at us today and it’s not so difficult to see, because we seem to be on a similar track. All over the world, when a country is grounded in God at its beginning, it seems to slip slowly into serving the ways of man rather than the ways of God. We continue to want to make us the god of our lives. There are numerous examples I could name, but I know each one of us can name our own as well as name ones which our own country is wanting to serve.

I know God is wanting me to keep my eyes on Him and my ears open to hearing His Spirit within. In addition to this He is wanting me to believe Him and His Spirit along with believing “I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.” Philippians 4:13. I can get discouraged when I look beyond what God is wanting me to do. I know He wants my eyes on what He shows me is my part in His Kingdom work. Today I want to stay focused only on this. GOD IS SO GOOD!

It is quite remarkable today sitting down to write this blog entry. I had an unexpected gift given to me last night which greatly impacts what I write today. After all the company had left from the reunion, Dwight (Kathy’s younger brother) and I were sitting on the deck at their sister’s. He is the one who got me connected originally with Celebrate Recovery and our present restoration ministry. We talked about the work of the ministries and the impact of them for others’ recovery. I opened up to him regarding the recent discovery I’ve had regarding my need to face the neglect of mom during my childhood with the abuse. I just needed her to check in with me but that never occurred.

As we talked I was able to tell him how I’ve always seen my sin. Even though I know my sins were nailed to the Cross of Christ, personally, I’ve never known what to do with the sins of dad and my brother. They seemed to be nailed to the cross for their sake, but they were still housed in me. It wasn’t until last Spring when I went through the lesson in Mending the Soul facing neglect as an area of abuse that I finally faced fully the impact of mom’s neglect and the damage it did. In so doing this and seeking a few weeks of professional counseling with it, I found myself free of dad and my brother’s sin bondage. I began to see myself as the new creation God said I was (am). I also saw my sins as mine and no longer owned the other sins done to me.

Talking to Dwight last night was the first time I’ve actually articulated this fully to someone. It feels really good today to have done that. God is so amazing! I love how He patiently waits for our readiness to take us to the next step in our own recovery. All the while, He may be using us for someone else’s recovery. This is exactly what He did last night using Dwight for me. How thankful I am.

Today is reunion day for Kathy’s family. There are so many of them I only know by face and can’t remember their names. It is always good to see them for they are a very friendly bunch of people. God is an important part in most of their lives too which makes being with them even more rewarding. Kathy’s brother that lives in Hermiston, OR will be arriving this morning so we will get to see them also.

There were many little chores needing to be done yesterday which Dwight and I had done by about 2 yesterday afternoon. He suggested we tackle my computer getting files from the old one to the new one. I had no idea how long this might take but in 20 minutes it was all done. In watching him masterfully take care of this he looked at me upon completion and said, “Now you can know what to do next time.” I laughed. I told him that watching this type of work doesn’t teach me how to repeat it. I’ve got to have someone helping me to actually do it and do it many times in a row for me to get this into my head. I said this new computer was going to be my last laptop purchase for it will last longer than my consulting work will continue. Thus the need to do this again won’t need me trying to learn the skill.

There is a calm in this morning. I love early mornings when no one seems to be up but you and the birds singing away outside, I thank God or these moments of calm. God is so GOOD!

We are in Wallowa, Oregon with Kathy’s family. It is always fun to be with them and to also be away from the routines of home for a few days. As we arrived to Kathy’s sister’s place, we unloaded and headed to her store in Joseph to see her. While visiting with her a person I know well from my consulting work walked by. I didn’t say anything but told Kathy and Mary about her walking by. Instantly they both said, “Why didn’t you say something?” This took me by surprise because I knew I hadn’t said anything knowing this person wouldn’t want to say anything to me. We have a great relationship, but my response comes from the depth of “old me” rather than the new creation I am. About 30 minutes later Kathy’s niece by marriage walked by and saw me. We talked for several minutes. She brought up an incident I didn’t know she even knew about. It was a time when her husband and I were throwing horseshoes 20 years ago. I was winning and her husband got very mad. I told him if he was going to behave this way I would simply leave which I did. The next day he apologized for his actions and that was the end of it. Now 20 years later she was bringing it up to me. She said her husband thought I was taunting him with my winning and that made him mad. She had told him this–“You think this ‘nice’ man would do that to you?”

These two scenarios left me a little more awake about how I see myself. I would always say that I want to be nice but I actually track what I do that isn’t nice. I want to talk to people I see but if they don’t engage the conversation, rarely will I. I always think I’m bothering them. All of this just tells me God isn’t done with me yet.

Lastly, in this morning’s Bible reading I once again see the kings of Judah doing what is right with God but not tearing down the “high places”. I use to read this and think the kings should have been more awake. This time when I read this I realize I’m just like them. I do what I think God wants me to do but I want those high places close by just in case I need to fall back on them. As I write this I realize how dependent I’ve been. I’ve kept them so I would have something I could feel good about just for a moment robbing myself of the opportunity for God to “make me feel good”. All of us have behaviors/habits which we use like this. However, I sense God’s nudge to let these go completely now. I don’t need them close by any longer. Wow, our God is so amazing and good!

Today Kathy and I leave for Wallowa, OR for her family reunion on Saturday. I talked yesterday morning with her younger brother who will be staying with their sister as we will. He is the one who introduced me not only to Celebrate Recovery but also to the Restoration Ministry topics we started a year ago. He and the director of the ministry where he lives both came almost two years ago to our church introducing us to the work they do for God. I look forward to talking through where we are and where they are in our journeys of this ministry work of God.

This morning’s Bible reading has me into II Kings where God leads Jehu into ridding the last of King Ahab’s descendants. He also has Jezebel destroyed. It would seem that Jehu is doing just what God has led him to do. However, as you get into II Kings 10:29, you read that Jehu did not give up the sins of Jeroboam. Jeroboam was the king who broke away from Judah after Solomon died. In reading this I first thought it was some type of contradiction. How could we do God’s work and not give up sin? Instantly, God began to show me that all of my adult years I’ve done work for God which He has wanted me to do. However, while doing it I had not given up the sins of my past. The more recent one had been porn. It is very possible for one to do God’s work and still have other gods before him.

As I began to journal God was helping me see that my fears, when I give in to them, make me vulnerable to temptations of the flesh. It is when I surrender the fears to God admitting my human weakness that I turn away from these gods of my past. It is very easy to step back into old habits, but God is helping me to see this ahead of time. This is the day to day living that The Serenity Prayer focuses on when it says: “Living one day at a time, one moment at a time, taking hardship as a pathway to peace.” He has given me accountability which I daily use. Most of all, He has given me the assurance that I am a new creation to Him because of Christ Jesus’ sacrifice. I know that as along as I live in the flesh I will battle the temptations of flesh. However, now that I am growing stronger in “believing”, I believe the God I serve is our overcomer of the flesh through His Son–Jesus Christ!

The meeting with our Life Group pastor really went well. Not only was he interested in the book mentioned in yesterday’s blog, but I get to promote it with all the life group leaders when he gathers them in early August.

When I mentioned yesterday about meeting with our friend on Monday, I didn’t tell something that had stood out to me. The past they had has a lot of similarity to mine. They mentioned they were only two years old in addressing it and they could see I am further down the road of recovery. We talked some about my writing my recovery story in my autobiography–The Journey from Error to Heir. They hadn’t read it and I gave a copy to them. I also talked about this daily blog which I started because I realized my journey didn’t end with the writing of the book. I write this now because all of this conversation helped me see once again just how miraculous God’s healing is in trauma. My friend was saying how they had to step out of denial as their own past was being revealed to them through the therapy of EMDR used for PTSD. I find this so true still for me today. I often don’t want to remember that my past was one of abuse. My pride doesn’t want me admitting “I was weak”. As I listened to my friend I could easily see how they weren’t weak–they were abused. The same is true for me–I wasn’t weak, I was abused. I can admit that much more easily today, but there are times when Satan wants me to believe I was just weak.

I will never get over the loving, miraculous ways God uses in healing if we remain faithful to Him in addressing it with Him. Sharing our past becomes part of the healing agent. It helps me see that my past doesn’t own me as it so used to. The new creation He has made me to be is growing roots–Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!