This morning was one of important lessons as I encountered in my devotions.  They were both found in Psalms 7:9.  It reads:  ” Oh, let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end, but establish the righteous. For you, who try the hearts and emotions and thinking powers, are a righteous God.”  Yesterday I got a disturbing message from a person I love.  It felt condemning.  I wanted to go set it straight today and will.  However, the manner in which I would do it was my first lesson.  I had not noticed this verse stating clearly that God tries my heart, emotions and thinking powers.  He does this so I can be more like Him as I learn to surrender what is man’s response so I give a Godly response.  Yes, I do need to make clear what felt condemning but I don’t need to do it with venom which that “snake in the grass” wanted.  As I read this scripture this morning and thought about yesterday, the last thing I wanted was to come across condemning and judgmental as I had stated in yesterday’s blog.  God is so good at steering us into His Ways when we listen and obey.

The second lesson for me has been one being addressed over the past few weeks.  I had accepted the work of consulting with a school district this coming school year.  I had said I’d only do one district because it means a day a week devoted to them.  Even though I knew God was wanting me to do this I was still wrestling with the fact I was taking on new secular work when I thought God was wanting me to do His Work.  I had stated a few weeks back I knew God was in both “secular and spiritual” work as man would define it.  Yet, I wasn’t settled in my soul.  As I was talking this out yesterday I suddenly realized I was the problem.  I had spent my entire working life until I retired hiding my past from the community I served educationally.  After retirement and I began consulting I had also begun Celebrate Recovery and eventually the 3 years of counseling.  There, I didn’t hide my past.  I began to state it and address it.  I had come to the conclusion God wanted me in His spiritual work as defined by “church” in my mind.  Well, it is now clear to me that only I was thinking this way.  God’s Work is all around me.  I asked to join it and He asked me to join it in a secular setting for part of my time.  That is pretty simple to understand once I get all my troubled thinking out of the way.  I’m not hiding anything anymore.  In fact, I use my past to define how we get stuck with faulty thinking in our secular work.  Once we see it we can move past it.

Now, back to Psalms 7:9–It states that God tries our heart, emotions and mind.  He really hit upon these for me this morning and now I’m clear to move forward with a relationship and with some work.  What an amazing God He is.  Somehow I see Him looking at Jesus and shaking His head saying, “Finally, he got it!”

Ivy Amber Kinzer is now with us!  She was born last evening around 8:00 pm.  She is a beautiful example of God’s exceptional detail and intimacy.  How in the world man thinks he can clone or replace what God has already done is simply lunacy.

I have just completed reading Job in my Bible reading.  What a tormenting book.  I’ve always loved having friends.  However, having read again how narrowly the friends of Job saw his torment as God’s punishment for unconfessed sin is haunting.  How often I too will cast my judgment regarding a present situation.  Man is told so many times to not judge, yet we do it to one another all too often.  There is a critical difference between judging a situation and supporting it.  The one needing support will certainly tell you the difference.  Support enables one to take another step, live through another day and more.  Judgment saps all energy.  It gives the strong sense of hopelessness.  This is what Satan wants man doing.  I want no part of this.  Just this morning I asked God again to help me see the needs He wants me supporting and keep my focus only on support.  His TEAM–God, Jesus Christ and The Holy Spirit are the ones to alert oneself to any judgment.  When they do it they also provide the Light to step out of one’s darkness.  This is where I want to support.  To God be all Glory!

I am unable to us my desktop or laptop to do this blog today. I can’t figure out why. I can only get to my editor site with my smartphone.   Our grand baby is still waiting to enter this world. My daughter spent much of the night in the hospital. They are taking steps today to deliver it. This grand entrance is no easy step. 

I’m reminded this morning how little man controls in spite of what we think we do. God is so sovereign and patiently waits for us to turn to Him for the perfect timing. I keep wanting to get past this point in my walk with God but I’m quickly reminded I’m still man regardless of my walk. 

The Journey today is all about a baby!  I’ll be posting more tomorrow I think!

July has a lot of joy and celebration in it for me.  It starts with my birthday on the 1st and then has my youngest daughter on the 7th.  Kathy was yesterday on the 23rd and today is my older sis Alice’s birthday.  It could also be the birth date for my new grandchild–but I’m not making any predictions!  Today is also the birthday for my brother Rich–the one who used me for so long.  I can tell that forgiveness is thorough between him and me because I only have fond thoughts of this day.  All the agony and bitterness within me is gone towards him.  He has been gone now for 41 years.  I can hardly believe it has been so long.  This is a good example of a past that needs to simply now be buried and left alone.  There has been much I’ve needed to learn from it and that part is still in progress.  However, I don’t any longer need to relive those days in order to learn new lessons in moving forward.

Yesterday’s step study lesson was HOPE.  The focus is whether I find my hope in God my Father or in material things–that which man does.  I have always been one to turn to God for decisions before me.  There also have been times when financially I’ve needed to rely solely on God.  I think the biggest piece of this lesson that struck me yesterday was TRUST.  I can trust God with my life because He loves me and desires to care for me.  This is what I’ve never known well until these past few years.  God deeply cares for you and me so much more than I ever knew.  If we parents and grandparents want to give an important gift to our kids and grandkids it needs to be their understanding of just how much God cares for each of them.  They are a treasure in God’s eyes just as we are.  That makes me smile!  I can trust God to care for my needs because He loves me so.  That, my friend, is a reality.  Thank you dear Father.

Today is Kathy’s (my wife) birthday.  If this grandchild is born they will be twins 66 years apart.  One of my little grandsons asked if they would actually be twins!  Cute.

Yesterday I met a gentleman pastor who was present last Christmas when the quartet I sing in did a program for the juvenile correctional center in Nampa, ID.  I think at the time I blogged that the chaplain lost her job over this because of my mentioning my homosexual brother abusing me.  It was contorted by an employee who heard it saying that I was bigoted and hateful towards the homosexual lifestyle.  This gentleman told me I needed to know the rest of this story.  He said that this employee’s email was sent to the director of Idaho’s correctional centers.  This person in turn received a rebuttal from the chaplain who had resigned.  In it she has told the actual truth of what I had said.  The state director took the email and the rebuttal to the governor of our state.  He told her to visit the center and find the truth so appropriate action could be taken.  This was done and she interviewed employees present that night as well as some of the 75 kids present.  She found nothing to support the first employee’s email.  So, the employee was given a different schedule so she did not work when spiritual matters were being given to the kids there.  Along with this, one of the boys in the center who had been the worst offender turned his life around resulting from our visit and testimonies.  My heart felt so much better hearing all of this.  God is so thorough in completing the work He wants done.  Hallelujah and Praise the Lord.

P.S.  The chaplain has told me her resignation has been a good thing.  She has moved and restored some relationships in her own life that needed to be done.  Just reinforcing how intimate and thorough God truly is.

Never try and predict the birth date for your grandchild.  They don’t cooperate.  In spite of contractions continuing, this child is not wanting to be set free of the womb as of yet.  Amy was reminding me last night that one of her kids took three days of contractions to finally go into delivery mode.  Kathy’s birthday is tomorrow so maybe they will be twins 66 years apart! (Oops, maybe she doesn’t want this known??)

In doing my 7-Pillars lesson for this coming week I am continuing to be challenged with more awakenings.  It is as though I’m finally awake to mom’s humanness and the lack of physical/emotional nurture.  With this, I can now see the same for God and His Holy Spirit which live in me.  I’ve known this spiritual promise most of my life.  I’ve longed for the reality to be known too just like I longed for the reality of my mom’s conversations–they just didn’t ever materialize.  The current lesson talks about how God uses many things such as dreams, memory flashbacks, etc. as The Holy Spirit’s nudges to address an area in my life.  I immediately thought back to my late 30’s when I’d have numerous nightmares each night with the haunting pursuit of someone trying to catch me.  I would always be stuck in some type of mire like quicksand and my legs would be paralyzed.  I’d yell and scream as well as lash out.  I’d eventually awaken or Kathy would awaken me.  Little did I know that God’s Holy Spirit was wanting me to seek help.  I finally did and the dreams have never returned.  I simply thought God was being nice.

As I’ve begun to more fully realize the thoroughness of God’s healing, I now see that He is wanting me to know The Holy Spirit is truly intimate and consistently with me.  Also, He is God and not human.  Something else this morning has hit a home run.  It is the reality of my need for reliance on God and not on myself.  A deep seated character defect I’ve always had is that if I couldn’t envision myself doing something I’d decline the offer to step into it.  God has pointed out this morning that when He opens a door where I cannot see me doing it, that is my cue to turn to Him.  He is the One who is capable.  He simply wants me to trust Him and obey if He is nudging.  This reality made my connection with Aslan clearer.  I knew He wanted me to stay with this project but I couldn’t still cannot see myself completing much with it.  I can see God completing it easily, but my part is very unclear.  So, I’m now challenged to put FAITH into action.  Thank you God for your faithfulness and patience with me as I learn these vital lessons.

I think my grandchild #12 is going to have a birth date of:  July 21, 2017.  Yes, my daughter Amy is in labor.  Kathy is with her and I’m on alert to go to their home when they head to the hospital.  The addition they are doing to their home is about to finish and flooring is being done today.  They want someone there while the workers do their job so that will be my contribution.  We don’t know if its a girl or boy–Amy never wants to know until delivery.  I’ll keep readers posted.

Before writing this entry I reread yesterday’s.  I got all choked up again knowing just how much God cares about our HURTS, hand-ups and habits–as Celebrate Recovery names them.  There is definitely a reason HURTS is first on the list.  A young child doesn’t have hang-ups or habits.  They are developing who they are at young ages.  However, they are very susceptible to hurts.  When these hurts go unattended they eventually develop into hang-ups and habits.  I know this first hand.  What I have also learned is that when we seek recovery we often start in reverse order.  We address habits and eventually get to the hurts which have driven them.  How much I have longed to be free of offensive habits and hang-ups.  Yet, if someone would have told me a few years ago that I needed to address hurts I would have told them politely that they didn’t know what they were talking about.  I definitely know now that at the root of almost all sinful habits is a bucket full of hurt gone unattended.

Dealing with the absence of my mom’s care during my childhood years is finally done.  How thankful I am that God kept my nose to the grindstone until I was willing to go there.  Now that I have I can see that even mom wanted me to know the truth behind her absence.  It was not to do harm, yet, the absence had its own consequence.  It is so nice to be free from the bondage.   Yes, my mom was a saint of God.  However, she was human and now I can say so.  To God be all Glory!

Today is a new day.  As I continued into yesterday from writing the blog’s message, I had some errands I needed to run.  I thought I was going to get a couple of my grandsons but they were spending the day with their dad so I was able to be alone.  I drove into town to do some errands and felt this nudge to call my counselor/therapist I’d spent three years with.  I told her about The Grievance Story lesson and being stuck trying to address the lack of love/intimacy I had with mom.  She already knew from so many therapy sessions how I felt about mom.  In fact in some ways, I practically worshiped my mom–I think all of us kids did.  My counselor/friend told me I should think about the fact that truth not brought to the Light cannot be dealt with and in my case, forgiven.  The truth was that mom did neglect to give me support during those years of abuse.  Dad’s abuse had everyone frozen in place due to fear of him.  However, the abuse of Rich had nothing to do with dad, yet I’d told dad and mom about it when I was about 11 and for the next 5-6 years it continued and she never check in.  How much I needed to have her do so–in fact I ached for her to just ask me.

So, yesterday while driving in town, I had a long conversation with mom in my pickup. Yes, I was talking to someone who has been gone for 18 years but I no longer feel strange doing such necessary things.  I told her the struggle I’ve had, my yearning heart and disappointment.  I then told her I forgive her for not doing anything that I knew about.  I know that someday she and I will have our chance to talk this through.  Now, however, I was ready to forgive and move on–let go of the bondage that the absence of intimate love and care can give a young child.

This morning I have journaled extensively about this with God–my Heavenly Dad.  Even He and I seem closer now that I’ve found these roots that needed to be removed.  I feel humbled and restored in someways.  To God be all Glory!  How much our Father loves us and waits to heal our hurts and wounds when we finally take the steps He offers for us to take.

On July 10 I blogged about the 7-Pillars lesson “The Grievance Story”.  I told of the depth of hurt still buried within my belief system.  It was all about my longing heart to be loved and nurtured by an overwhelmed mom who probably longed for the exact same thing.  Mom and dad’s first born was an “oops”.  This was never a topic discussed with them.  It was just a known fact that we kids talked about in their absence.  I’m told that my grandma would have blessed mom for not marrying dad but grandpa was like mom–“address your wrongs in a right way”.  Do the right thing.  So, mom married dad.  I’m not sure if she would have changed any of this once she knew a lot more about dad.  But, she didn’t change anything.  She continued to endure this life.

I, along with my other siblings, endured the abuse of dad.  Many of them rebelled in their own way.  I tried to endure the abuse of dad by reversing the need to rebel to the energy of determination.  I was determined I would not allow dad to manipulate my adult life like I saw happening to my older siblings.  I was also determined I would not let the sexual abuse of my brother get the better of me either.  This was his need and problem.  I’d leave it with him.  On the tender side of life where nurture and love exist was only mom.  She was present and the love existed through the work she did to give us daily meals and grooming, consistent church attendance, etc.  The verbal and physical support was nonexistent.

Mom has been gone for 18 years and now I am at a place of reality needing to know my place with her.  Last night I had to talk through all of the assignment with our group of men.  It was truly painful.  I definitely see how my present belief was impacted by mom’s absence in spite of her constant giving.  This part of my journey is not pleasant.  In fact I feel as though I’m backpacking the steepest part of the trail and there is no shade or relief from the heat.  Yet, I have the hope that the lake of hungry trout is just beyond that last peak and I will get there.  My determination from childhood is still present but now I’m shifting it to being determined to not quit this journey until God’s intimate love and nurture has replaced the emptiness left from an unintended childhood.

God has me in a place where I must linger for a while.  I already know much about his love, nurture and grace.  Now I need to take it to a place of belief that is in a part of my brain needing reprogrammed.  This is the heart surgery I mentioned on the 10th.  I talked about this last night.  I’ve journaled and blogged about it this morning.  Lets see what happens in the days ahead.  Maybe God doesn’t want me catching “fish” in that lake.  We’ll see.

Yes, indeed, the journey does continue.  As yesterday progressed and I reconnected to life at home I was awakened to the truth of daily struggles.  Three men I’m connected to with our ministries are struggling and in crisis.  Only one of them reached out directly to me.  The other two are silent and their wives are reaching out.  There is something about the pride of man that is truly disgusting.  Our pride, thinking if we divulge the ugliness of our temptations, keeps us in bondage to them.  Telling the Truth of our struggle is a barrier breaker.  God’s power/strength is bottled in truth.  Once we take the step of telling, there is a release within us that provides stamina and perseverance.  However, if we keep the struggle within for whatever reason, we will step back into the very thing that brought us to recovery.  How much God, Christ and The Holy Spirit want to help, but they patiently wait for us and our readiness to take steps.

Isaiah 40:10 was on my heart this morning as I was thinking about my own daily struggle and how it is so much like everyone else–bottled in pride.  It reads, “Don’t be afraid, for I am with you.  Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you.  I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.”  (New Living Translation)  The thing I hate most about my own struggle is the connection to homosexuality.  My pride always wants this hidden.  However, if I don’t continue to talk about it, it begins to grip me within just like others I know.  The struggles are different, but what it does to us is exactly the same.  That strength God will give us promised in scripture comes in part when we tell the truth that is bottled within us.  The help comes from this too.  Others know how to help and hold us accountable when we are honest.  We do need each other but we most need God at the start of this and then we can complete what He has given each of us to do.