The week is coming to an end and this morning I will have the last counseling session re-engaging each one since returning from our trip. I’m always amazed at the way my mind/emotions want to make all of this much greater than it is. As I sat down this morning I put each session on paper just to see how many are in a week. My emotions were acting like I was on the verge of too many. Yet, when I simply outlined each one I am right in the comfort zone. All of this just showed me again what my mind and emotions do if I don’t keep Christ Jesus right in the forefront of my day and keep Him there throughout the day. I am starting 5 new sessions which was a trigger to “panic”. Yet, these 5 were simply replacing ones who were finished. I keep thinking this behavior of mine will disappear with my “old age”. Yet, it is just as alive today in me as it was when I became a new principal at the age of 29. I’m sure glad God doesn’t see this as a roadblock to moving forward. He just shows it to me and helps me work through it, surrendering it, and move forward with Him.
Every since I was asked to start the counseling program at our church I’ve relied on an individual who is a retired christian counselor I deeply respect. She joined the team and has been my “go to” every since. As I went to her last night at our Celebrate Recovery dinner time and asked for some guidance in a new case I’m counseling this morning, I was told she would be leaving us in the near future due to some personal reasons. She is willing to continue assisting as I come up against deep issues and need her advice.
Until last night I had no idea how much my confidence depended on her proximity. As I brought all of this to Jesus this morning I was reminded just what He has been speaking to me about all this week–TRUST. In the past couple of years I’ve learned to trust Jesus in ways I never had before. Just taking on the assignment of starting a counseling ministry and getting myself prepared to participate as a counselor was a huge step. However, that wasn’t all Jesus had in mind. He wants me to learn what the depth of trust looks like. What I’m finding is that no matter how ugly the issue, He is always the answer. Finding the confidence in Christ as Healer is great. But, keeping myself in the role of facilitator trusting Jesus’ Holy Spirit to bring out the right words at the right time (using me), well, it is one client at a time. I keep fearing I will be incompetent (looking only at me) rather than looking to Jesus and trusting Jesus in each situation.
I couldn’t sleep past 3:50 am this morning. I’ve needed to spend this time talking to God and listening to Him only to find His assurance that He never leaves and is always present and leading. I can fully trust Him and be assured of this. In the 2+ years of now working with the counseling I’ve known this to be true. Today, and this day forward, He wants me to rest in this assurance, not anguish in it. So, OK, I’m stepping into this day with a greater/deeper assurance! I will PRAISE Him instead of anguish in fear.
I’m a little slow getting this entry done today. My morning started at my daughter’s home getting the kids up and ready for school. Both my daughter and husband needed to leave by 6:00 am for their jobs, so grandpa was called in. It was nothing but fun!
What I wrote about yesterday and the lesson God is teaching me came into play as the counseling sessions began. It seemed as though every session needed for me to have that lesson right in front of my nose. For whatever reason, each session was going deeply into needs that hadn’t surfaced and in most cases, they had been withheld for the sake of the client not wanting known what was needing to be shared. Trusting God to help me listen and respond in His timing and with His wisdom was extremely necessary. The key for me was trusting at the moment of the session and then to trust today that God will continue working with them through the coming week.
All of this throws me back into the memories of my own help. I would be glad for a session and then block myself from dwelling on it until the next week’s session. After a year or so of counseling I finally awoke to my need to stay focused on the session’s content so God could work on me each and every day. This wasn’t just true for me, it is true for each one of us as we seek God’s help/healing. I just never realized until stepping into counseling how much learning I’d need. God never ceases to be AMAZING!
Maybe it is just my tendency towards anxiety, but yesterday as I was stepping back into counseling, I was overly concerned that I wouldn’t be equipped for the sessions ahead. The book I mentioned yesterday had a big impact on me and even though I knew in my head that God would use this information I’d learned, somehow what I had in my head had not entered into my spirit. This morning when I asked Jesus what He wanted me to know from Him, He said, “Your assignment is to learn what I inspire within you. Then it is to trust My Gift of The Holy Spirit to deliver this information as a client needs to hear it. This isn’t about you and you “knowing”, it is about you trusting Me to use you at the right times.”
As I moved from my journaling to read my devotional, the message was about God opening our spiritual eyes to something new about Him. As I read this I just stopped and thanked Jesus for His message just a few minutes earlier. My spiritual eyes were opened to a greater awareness of trusting. Deep within me is an old belief that I am not able to know what I need to know or do what I need to do–I’ll screw it up. Well, God is showing me that He never screws up and if I do, it is because I forget about trusting Him and instead, try to rely on me.
It is so good to be sitting at my home computer to write today’s entry. Our trip was SO good, but there still is nothing like coming home and sleeping in one’s own bed. We did have a hiccup with our return yesterday. Our flight from Springfield, MO was delayed 3 times causing us to miss our first flight from Denver to Boise. We barely caught the last flight of the day and upon arrival in Boise, we found our luggage didn’t. They are to deliver it today at some point. So, going to bed last night didn’t take place until midnight instead of our usual time. Oh, well, this isn’t a complaint, just what it is.
As I plan for reengaging the counseling, I am just putting my trust in Jesus. He knows the concerns which will be coming and He also knows what the outcomes are to be. A book I finished on the return flights titled Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown talked a great deal about our need to come clean (my words). Helping someone do this, building trust with them, is a God item. While being gone I’ve had 4 new intakes which are worked into this week. I know God is working in their lives and He certainly is also working in mine to let Him alone be the great Healer and I be a conduit as His Holy Spirit guides each step.
God is good all the time–All the time God is good!
The day has come to return home and reengage in the life of home. I believe each one of us on this trip has profited from being gone these 12 days and God has strengthened an appreciation for family in us. Only in these last few years have I believed that I could be an important member to our family. Realizing that differences in talents and personality are on purpose and not weaknesses is a real awakening for me. God does on purpose what He does in creating you and me.
As I began to read the book of Acts this morning I am reminded how unifying God is with His people. When we allow the Holy Spirit to become our leader we will automatically unify. God has different assignments for each of us, but in doing these assignments, we are not to think someone else’s assignment is of lesser importance. That is our flesh speaking, not The Holy Spirit. We shouldn’t bicker over differences, but work to understand why the differences are important. Unifying our efforts is always critically important.
Keeping our eyes of Jesus and listening to His Gift–The Holy Spirit within us is an everyday, every moment of each day assignment. I never want to forget this.
Well, the journey of late is coming to an end. Today is our last day of vacation and tomorrow we fly back home. Yesterday afternoon we went to see The Miracle of Christmas at the Sight and Sound Theater. What a magnificent work it is! One sure can’t sit through it without sensing the supernatural presence of Jesus and The Holy Spirit for they are truly glorified in this production. If I were my grandma Wreting I would have been running the aisles waving my hankie praising Jesus just as she use to do in the power of the Holy Spirit!
During the night last night I received a troubling text from one of the guys I see. His marriage is hugely at risk with the roots of it in his ballpark. At this point in time he has seen his part and desperately wants to correct it but the damage he’s done isn’t easily forgiven by man. As I had my devotions this morning and asking Jesus what He wanted me to know from Him for today, He told me to send this man the words of the hymn–It Is Well. These words are the ones He asked me to share: “My sin oh the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin not in part but the whole are nailed to the Cross and I bear them no more! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, oh my soul!”
God knows our heart and when we confess He forgives. Man on the other hand doesn’t always follow this same path for the hurts our sins left are not so easily forgotten and trust has been demolished by these sins. Knowing to praise the Lord for what He has done for me is critical and important. Then, trusting the Lord to bring others to see and believe our change is not just a temporary show, is in God’s Hands alone. This is extremely hard to do for we want to quicken God’s pace so “we can feel better”. God is still and always be AMAZING! I put my trust in Him for this man and his family.
When I was planning this trip we’re taking I had one big event in mind and it was to see The Miracle of Christmas at the Sight and Sound theatre in Branson. Today is that day. We will be there at 3:30 pm for the show. Now that we are near the end of the trip and we get to see it today, I am overwhelmed with how many times during the trip I’ve been grateful for it. Seeing our sis in Indiana was something I thought would be “thoughtful” and hopefully fun. However, it was a touching and rewarding time for all of us to be together. Our time in Nashville was a growing time for the 6 of us who are traveling together along with just experiencing new things together. Today, being our show day, I am just grateful for the entire trip and that this will likely be the capstone for this time.
God is never done growing you and me. I am so grateful to be a child of this King of ours. What a Magnificent King He Is!
About 4-5 years ago I was working with a man who was struggling with his marriage. I had met his wife and had drawn my own conclusion about her. I had taken this couple’s concern to my prayer warrior. She asked me to talk to her about the two of them. In so doing I said that the wife was evil. When I said this I was immediately corrected firmly. She told me that my words were powerful and I needed to confess this sin and ask for forgiveness. My words would influence this wife and I needed to change my way of thinking about her. I did all of this and now these few years later I can understand much more clearly what she was saying.
My devotional message this morning was all about my prayer warrior’s message a few years ago. The author’s writing told how faithful David’s men were to him. Even though his warriors would do anything for him, David knew that he needed to transfer their faithfulness to God through his own words to them and not try to keep it for himself. David used his words to show his followers that their faithfulness to him was a step towards faithfulness to God. David was a conduit for them to God.
My words about this wife didn’t lead anyone anywhere except to cast stones joining me. Today as I write this I feel guilty all over again. I sure need to always remember how powerful our words are when we speak them. Even when someone does something wrong our words need to first be taken to Jesus asking Him to help us understand the story behind a person’s actions rather than to cast stones.
“Take my heart oh God, make it ever true. Take my heart oh God, may I be like You.” These words from the chorus, “Take my heart oh God” are the words which come to me as I begin this entry. My devotional message and my scripture reading all focus me away from the actions of man to the Actions of God. God will use all things to His Honor, but it just has to be so much better when our actions don’t have to be turned around from “hurt to benefit” because of our selfishness.
Yesterday a man I meet with in sessions sent me a lengthy text describing the sadness and shame he carries due to his past actions. He is working to turn these behaviors around, but his wife is struggling to believe his efforts and for good reason. However, this is a perfect case for one of the times when God can and will use all of the past to His Glory if we will stay tender and obedient to His continuous voice within us from His Holy Spirit. I have known this sadness and regret, but today I also know the joy of God using the past as a tool in His Hands. How Good our God is!
Earnie Lewis 