You are cordially invited to a Beauty for Ashes weekend retreat - October 7-9 - in Sarasota, FL. If you have been looking for a safe place to experience God's love and healing in some area of your life, we'd love to have you join us. This intimate gathering (maximum 14) will be a remarkable time for each of us to encounter God in a new way.
Retreat cost is $99, which includes all food, lodging and retreat materials. Please plan to arrive by Friday, 7pm. Retreat ends Sunday, October 9, noon. Bring a swimsuit and a Bible (if you have it).
RSVP to beautyforashes@adventures.org by September 27 as we have only 5 spaces left now ... some pre-retreat preparation is required and must be returned no later than October 1.
If you have questions about the retreat, please feel free to call any of us or visit the ABOUT US section on this site for more info about what to expect. We are looking forward to sharing an exciting, life-changing weekend together!
Life is complex and often we need help navigating it.
Maybe it's the healing ministry of Beauty for Ashes that can help. Maybe the deeper and longer-term help of a professional counselor is needed. But regardless - these decisions are vital to our freedom and restoration. I picked this up from Seth Barnes' blog who got it from counselors Kit and Tricia McDermott.
1. THE DECISION TO BE WELL: While Christian counseling and healing ultimately depends the movement of the Holy Spirit, it is also true that you have a crucial part to play in the process. You must commit to doing what it takes to heal and get well. Even if if you have little idea what they might look like or entail in the process, you must choose this perspective. It opens you to trusting God. If your will is not decidedly in the effort, no matter how skilled or diligent the counselor, you will only go as far as you decide.
2. THE DECISION TO FACE PAIN: In the course of getting well you have to decide that you will face the pain necessary to heal. If you want to avoid the pain, you will only waste your time and that of the counselor. There will be struggles to face in the forms of grief, anger, guilt and shame, but you will not face them alone . Jesus will walk with you as will we. Exposing the pain begins the healing process. Walking through suffering with Christ leads to the treasures of faith, hope and maturity. (Romans 5:1-5; James 1:2-4; 1 Peter 1:6-7)
3. THE DECISION TO FACE A FEAR: Along with facing pain, you will also have to face what you are afraid of. It could be hidden sin that makes you ashamed. It could be the fear of going through trauma again. Maybe you are afraid of being abandoned and rejected. It could be the fear of facing the responsibility of being well. Whatever the source of the fear, it has to be faced so that it is not the LORD of your life, but Jesus is. Fear cripples; facing it in Christ's presence leads to freedom. (Psalm 27:1, 56:3; Isaiah 41:10; Mark 5:36; John 14:27; Hebrews 13:6; 1 John 4:18)
4. THE DECISION TO GIVE TIME: Emotional or spiritual healing for most does not happen overnight. There are no quick fixes or magic bullets. You must have patience and perseverance to allow the Holy Spirit time to heal you as He chooses. He will not force progress faster than you are willing to embrace. Settle in your heart the commitment to take whatever time is necessary to let the LORD free you from what binds and afflicts . (Psalm 40:1-4)
5. THE DECISION TO WORK: Counseling and healing are hard work. You must decide to work at the process of getting well, otherwise you will depend on others to do it for you. That means doing homework assigned to you or any other task the counselor gives to help you heal or change. Passivity hamstrings the process. Lip service nullifies authentic effort. No one is going to fix your life for you. You must choose to make the effort to do what the LORD asks of you to heal. (Philippians 2:12-13)
6. THE DECISION NOT TO BLAME OTHERS: It is a chronic sin of men and women to blame others for their problems, and failures. But to do so is often to hide behind a smokescreen and not take responsibility for one's growth and maturity. Exposing sin, your own and that of others against you, is a decision to live in the truth. Refusing to make other people responsible for the choices we make honors God's call on us to " live as children of light." (Ephesians 5:8)
7. THE DECISION TO TRUST: Underlying the decision to get well is the decision to trust God as you work through your problems. This Psalmist tells us that the "LORD's unfailing love surrounds the man or woman who trusts in him," (Psalm 32:10) and Isaiah tells us that "the one who trusts in Him will never be put to shame." (Isaiah 28:16) dealing with deep-seated addictions, traumas and pain requires that your trust in God be grounded in the belief that He passionately loves you, and will see you through the struggles to be healed. In turn, you also have to trust that we your counselors have your best interests in Christ.
8. THE DECISION TO EMBRACE THE TRUTH: Implied in all of this is the decision to live in the truth at all costs. Through the healing process, Jesus tells us that knowing the truth will set us free. (John 8:32) The LORD " delights in men who are truthful," (Proverbs 12:22) and He " desires truth in the inner parts." (Psalm 51:6) The decision to get well is the choice to know the truth about God, about yourself, and about others. You must decide to let the Holy Spirit lead you into the truth so that lies, illusions, fantasies, and deceits can be brought to light, and their influence neutralized.
9. THE DECISION TO FORGIVE: In order to be healed and live the kind of life God has for you, He wants you to decide to forgive those who have hurt, abused, betrayed, abandoned, offended and violated you. Obviously, this can only be done by His grace, but you must choose to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in forgiving. It is essential to your getting better. Even if you can only pray for the willingness to forgive, you have to decide to move in that direction (Matthew 6:14, 18:21; Colossians 3:13; Ephesians 4:32) To forgive is to free yourself from the effects of the sin against you, and to not condemn the persons who harmed you.
10. THE DECISION TO LIVE A NEW LIFE: It takes courage to live without old hurts and fears to hide behind. You need to decide to discover what it means to live as one of God's treasured Beloved despite your brokenness.
We live in the tension between, heaven and earth. We feel this tension daily.
Our reality is supposed to be a Kingdom reality where God reigns in every area of our lives, where we live in the reality of His presence, where there is fruit, love, joy peace, patience…Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. My reality does not seem to be as it is in heaven?
I have been thinking a lot about the Kingdom of God. Jesus preached the Kingdom.
When Kingdom principles are implemented, then the poor, hungry, orphan, widow and stranger are taken care of. There is no extreme poverty or wealth, but all things are shared.
I have a long way to go with Kingdom living…sharing everything I have and am for the Kingdom, the bride.
As Christ followers our reality is not of this world, but we do have to live here. We are to live in this world but not be of this world.
How can we be in the world and not of it?
Is my reality a Kingdom reality when:
1) I have a closet and dresser filled with clothes and over 30 pairs of shoes… and my neighbor has nothing. Who is my neighbor? Read the Good Samaritan. (Luke 10).
2) My fridge and freezer are full along with my pantry, and if that were not enough I have an extra fridge and freezer, really. Almost 16,000 children die every day from hunger related causes. (Bread.org).
3) My mortgage payment could feed 1800 starving children every month.
4) I have an extra bedroom that stays empty over 300 days a year. There are over 2000 homeless people in my county, and around 163,000,000 orphans in the world. (Numberof.net).
5) I have clean water coming from my tap, but I pay for bottled water to be delivered every other week and 884 million people do not have access to clean water. 3.575 million people die from water related issues. (Water.org)
6) I spend $3.65 on a latte when 1.4 billion people live on $1.25 or less per day. (Globalissues.org).
7) What am I doing about modern day slavery? The UN estimates between 800,000-4,000,000 men women and children are being sold into slavery. 80% are women, girls and young boys who are being trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation. (Globalpost.com).
Something has to change, the tension is too great, the numbers too staggering. These are people like you and I. The heart of God is breaking for the church to rise up and do something.
You and I are called to be the Church; we are the Bride of Christ. When one part of the body suffers the rest suffers also.
Does the church need to rise up and change the way we view and spend money? Do we need to implement a Kingdom mindset and Kingdom principles in our lives?
My children recently watched Schindler’s list. At the very end of the movie Mr. Schindler starts to cry when he thinks how many more people he could have saved. If he would have sold his car 10 people or his gold pin 2 more people. He was equating each item to how many more people he could have saved. He was crying because he thought he could have done more. He saved 1100 people. How many more were affected by his generosity? Generations.
I think we can have that kind of impact today. Affecting generations. If everyone just did something. If we all were seeking first the Kingdom of God… This stuff, money, home etc. is not ours, it all belongs to the Lord. It is all for His glory, and for His purpose.
I know that I personally have a long way to go in living my convictions, but I hope I am moving in the right direction.
NOTE: Joy is headed to Romania in a couple of days. Please keep her and her contacts there in your prayers as they minister the healing love of God's Kingdom to women and children in need! Thank you!
I'm not sure when it happened exactly, but I suddenly realized a couple of weeks ago that I had a new understanding ... a deeper experience ... an incredible, new and profound sense of God's love.
FOR ME. Over me. And all around me.
And it wasn't just that nebulous - "oh yes, God loves the world ... and well obviously, God loves some people, look how He blesses them" kind of feeling. No, this sense of His love was completely personal. FOR ME.
How did I finally get here?
This is where I'd wanted to be for so long. Content, peaceful, not worried about a thing, no longer twisting myself in knots about whether Choice A, B or C was the right one and if I'd heard the Lord's voice "correctly" or not.
Suddenly I knew that God was going to bless, teach and walk with me through absolutely anything and everything. In one sense, it actually didn't matter which choice I made. He was crazy about me. Committed to me. Outrageously and completely. And in return, I loved Him and everything He was about. So I could rest from anxiety about "getting it right" and be at peace.
I looked around my soul in awe. Wow - it was like a new place. I was in the land of Total Trust ... or at least a sum of trust I'd never been to before! I was experiencing the reality of Ephesians 3:16-20.
Wish I could describe it better - but I guess some people's epiphanies are blinding, Damascus-road type experiences ... while others are slow-coming, but very sure realizations.
I wish too that I could tell you the directions to this place in three easy steps. But God works in each of us a little differently. All I can say is - open your heart to the possibility and ask God to show you.
Sounds crazy, huh?
Hopefully this little video below will help you get started. A gal who reads our blog sent this video to us the other day. It is WELL WORTH the 8-minute viewing time. And of course, God knew it would fit perfectly with what we were going to say today.
May you feel totally and outrageously LOVED by God this week!
My story is important not because it is mine...but because if I tell it anything like right, you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours. Maybe nothing is more important than that we keep track, you and I, of who we are and where we have come from and the people we have met along the way because it is precisely through these stories in all their particularity...that God makes Himself known to each of us most powerfully and personally.
-- Frederick Buechner
Reading this quote is what finally pushed me over the edge to post my story on this blog.
At least, my story thus far.
As a fundraising writer for many great Christian organizations, I tell stories all the time. I have long believed in the power, the magic and the beauty of stories. After all, history itself is HIS STORY. Jesus told parables for the bulk of His ministry. The Bible is filled with stories. And let's face it, it is stories that move, touch, motivate and inspire us most of all.
I knew ALL that. But it seemed different when it came to writing my own broken theme song.
Last year, I was the one who initially urged us all to write our stories and post them for everyone to see. Intuitively, I knew it would encourage others ... but guess who was the last one to finish and finally post it?
It was so much harder than I thought. Not only did my words seem inadequate to describe all that had happened, but it was raw and painful putting it onto paper the first time. One morning shortly before our "due date," Joy came over and we started talking about it.
Do we really have to tell ALL of our story?
I mean, there are some parts that are pretty ugly, painful. Who will have access to read these private sins and hurts?
How will it affect other people who know us ... or maybe those who don't know us?
What about our kids?
Would it even be helpful after we spent so much time and angst over it?
We decided if even one person sought healing or found encouragement because of us sharing our story, it would be worth it. We were in tears that day, but surrendered our doubts and fears about it (again) to Jesus and asked Him to use it in whatever way He could.
It's only been posted a few months, but we KNOW it's been worth it. We have been incredibly blessed by the number of people who have written to tell us how helpful and encouraging it was to find they were not alone in some struggle or another, how relieved they were that someone else understood what they were going through ... and that freedom and healing really IS available.
So I guess my question to you is: What is YOUR story?
Have you taken the time to write it out or share it with someone else? We are told in Revelation 12 that Satan, our accuser, is defeated by the blood of the Lamb and by the WORD OF OUR TESTIMONY! Not by how much we know - but how much we share ... Amazing, isn't it?
If you'd like to share your story here, we'd love to rejoice and overcome our enemy with you. Feel free to post below or send us an email and we may turn it into a blog.
And if you feel your story is not yet ripe for sharing, that's ok. Rarely do any of us feel like sharing when we're in the thick of the battle - but if you'll let us know how we can be praying for you, we'd love to do that.
I went to Haiti in May. I went because I wanted serve, I wanted to be the hands and feet of Jesus to my brothers and sisters who were suffering from the affects of the earthquake in January.
This was not my first trip to Haiti. I went in 2002. I remember the poverty and the spiritual warfare I had experienced then.
The earthquake has made things so much worse for the Haitians. Despite the enormous amount of UN presence throughout Port a Prince, relief is not getting to everyone.
I went with a team of 20 people from the states. We focused on one particular tent city. We went every day to this dirt plot of land with make shift homes made from sticks, sheets, table cloths, and curtains. The rainy season had started and the homes and any belongings would get wet daily.
Our group played with the children, soccer, bubbles and a puppet show. We went house to house listening to heart wrenching stories of what happened during the earthquake. The pain and the loss were overwhelming.
Day after day we went and loved, and we received love in return.
The end of our week, after a long drive to our ministry destination I needed to use the bathroom. Across the street from the tent city was a church with a bathroom. A squatty potty. An outhouse with a cement block with a hole in the middle.
One of the staff, Christiana and I went across the street to use the facilities. I went in first. While inside Christiana said the Pastor wanted to come and clean the bathroom before I went in, so I came out. He came running from the church building with a bottle of cleaning solution. He went in and poured the solution over the cement block. We thanked Him and off he went. As I went in I could smell the difference, the outhouse had a fresh smell.
I was a bit overwhelmed. The Pastor washed the toilet for us. We came from the US to serve him and his community and this Haitian pastor just washed the toilet for us.
I felt like Jesus had just washed our feet.
Jesus served the disciples by washing their feet.
This was something only a slave or servant would have done in His day, certainly not a Jew and especially not a Rabbi. But Jesus humbled Himself as a servant, out of love and washed their feet.
What an example of love. I cannot tell you how this ministered to me and still does.
This pastor humbled himself and out of love washed the toilet for us.
Love is patient
Love is kind
Love does not boast
It does not envy
It is not rude
It is not self-seeking
It is not easily angered
It keeps no record of wrong
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth
Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.
I have a lot to learn from our Haitian pastor, how to love by serving, even if it means cleaning somebody’s toilet.
Oops - I forgot to post yesterday the end of the series on healing from Jenny Rain Schmitz! Sorry about that - but hope you have time to read it this weekend - it's a good one!
I grew up in a household where there were three unspoken rules:
Don’t talk Don’t feel Don’t ask for help
Now I say this not to blame my parents.
One, because they read my blog daily – hi mom and dad! But even if they were not regular readers, I do not say this to “blame” or “accuse” – as that does not help anyone’s healing process.
Two, my parents had been raised with similar unspoken rules. Often, no matter how hard we try to create a different environment than the one we were raised in… we end up replicating it anyway.
In many ways, my parents were maturing even as I was.
They were searching, growing, and discovering their own identities. Some of the unintended fallout from their search was my developing heart and spirit.
There were days when I felt like the invisible kid.
I’d be in a room, but not of it. Disconnected. Floating. Watching everything around me, but not able to join in.
There were days I had to remind myself:
I am here. I exist. I am alive. I am a part of things, even if it does not feel like it.
I grew up clothed in layers of shame, so I hid.
Guilt about what I did turned into shame about who I was. At my core, I felt that I was filled with rottenness.
Shame-based parenting and schooling was the norm for the seventies and eighties when I was growing up, thanks to Dr. Spock and other parenting geniuses. A’hem.
My parents were disciplined like this…
What is wrong with YOU?
Instead of like this…
What you DID was wrong.
If your parents confer upon you a shame-based identity (which my grandparents did with my parents) it carries through the generations because you parent from who you ARE, not just what you SAY to your kids.
So I inherited some of this left-over yuk from their upbringing.
As a result, I carried some of this shame with me as I began to develop into a relationship with God.
Many of the messages about myself from my pre-regenerated nature became mixed in with who I was becoming in relationship with Christ, so my mind was an amalgamation of half-truths like this:
I have no value
Instead of: I have so much value that God has sent His son to die for me and collect me to His heart.
I am defective
Instead of: I am living disconnected from God. The good news is, however, God has sent a way for me to be reconnected to Him in Christ.
No one sees me because I am not worthy
Instead of: God sees me because I am priceless to Him.
The most difficult mind-warp that I had to overcome was the following message:
What is wrong with me?
It was difficult to conquer that belief system because part of it was actually true! See without Christ, there truly WAS something wrong with me. I was living disconnected from God. Dead in my unredeemed nature.
THAT is what was wrong with me, but the good news is… it is FIXABLE!
Once I made the choice to enter into a life-sustaining relationship with God through Christ, the beautiful new truth about my identity is this:
There is now NOTHING wrong with my soul. There is therefore no condemnation for those who live in Christ! I am redeemed, Christ’s own, bought with His blood, purchased by His sacrifice. I am holy because I live in Christ and in Christ all things are made perfect, set apart, holy!
Wow… freeing!
Except, that second part of the message somehow got lost in translation.
I had a broken God-concept, so I had a broken me-concept.
Until I repaired my concept of God, I could not heal.
Everything flows from our God concept. Who we believe God to be is how we will reflect Him. What we believe about His character, His nature, His ways is how we will respond to Him.
If we believe He will hit us with a two-by-four when we mess up – we will spend our lives hiding or ducking, or both.
If we believe that He can’t be trusted with our hearts-hurts – we will not share our deepest pain.
If we believe that He does not give us good, or that His nature is not good – we will not reveal our deepest desires and dreams to Him.
The debilitating result of all of that is that we often hide these things from ourselves too. Or deny them. Or ignore them, so we never fully become who God has intended us to be.
That is what I did for over three decades.
I pulled out and dusted off my Princess Behind the Mask study last night.
It is a bible study I wrote in 2003 that chronicles the journey of God revealing to me who He is and who I was becoming in Him. It was the first step of my healing journey. As I read, I laughed, cried, and rejoiced. I saw how far God has brought me, and how there are areas I still struggle with. I remembered the growth in my family – how God has transformed my relationships with my parents.
It was hard to read about the journey… but important… because by the grace of God, it was my journey.
You have a journey too. It is an important journey. Our journeys are all unique and individual because they reflect the relationship we have with God.
I want to encourage you as you plod along your healing journey to look for God in the dark places. He is there. Reach out for Him in the midnight hour when you feel all is lost, He will connect with you.
He might connect with you through a community like Beauty for Ashes - through people who have been on the healing journey and found God in some of the darkest places of our lives. There is a great deal of healing that begins in the simple act of sharing with someone else.
In any case, please know that we are here and would love to pray for you and with you, wherever you happen to be on the path. (By the way, you can find more of Jenny's encouraging blogposts here.)
This week, we are continuing a series on healing from Jenny Rain Schmitz. You can find her very insightful blog here.
Developing trust in God has been a huge part of my healing journey.
The scriptures say,
Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not unto your own understanding. In all of your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3.5-6
Um, hmm. Alrighty then… well, that is a wonderful sentiment IF you have any concept of what it means to live from your heart. Unfortunately, I had so mastered the art of existing comfortably numb, I had checked out of my heart’s rhythms in about 1986.
I did not know how to trust “with all of my heart.” I did not even know how to trust with “all of my mind!”
So God began to teach me through every-day experiences where He gently revealed to me how little I really trusted Him.
In early 2003 I was struggling to find direction and my heart was aching for a touch from God.
As life often requires, though we ache, we must plod along through our days nonplussed.
I was training that day at a new location that I had never been to and when I called for directions, the project assistant reiterated the importance of “waiting to turn until I had reached the second Ronald Reagan Airport exit off of 395, not the first.”
I questioned whether or not such an exit actually existed because I traveled 395 daily.
Driving over the 395 overpass I came upon a Ronald Reagan Airport exit and very fiber of my being stretched towards the off-ramp.
“Is this the first or the second exit? What if there is no second exit? I’ve never seen a second exit, and this one seems to point in the direction I need to go. Why not just take this one!” I fought.
“Maybe the first exit was behind me and this really is the second one. If I don’t take it I’ll be stuck in traffic and late to my training session!” It is a miracle I did not take the exit.
I continued my drive, knuckles clenched around the steering wheel, shoulders stiffening into brick soldiers from the tension of the wait. I internally berated myself because I was sure I had missed my exit and my car tires turned into sticky molasses as time dripped on like a leaky pipe.
“Where was my exit!?”
The directionally challenged youngster on the phone call who had shared her advice to “wait for the second exit” was obviously mistaken so then she became the target of my anger. My stomach tied into monkey-bread knots and the stress constricted my failing eyesight.
395 unrolled itself like a Christmas ribbon across a living-room floor. I inched along slower than a centipede on a ninety-degree day.
There was NO second exit.
Just as my vice-grip was about to morph the steering-wheel into a second apendage, I glimpsed an exit sign.
The promised second exit was in view!
The sign had been hidden around the corner I had just tipped around on the left two of my car wheels (My car was straining with me, you see, as it was also convinced there was no second exit).
Like a chorus of angels the heavens opened up in song.
The second exit was there.
Though I could not yet fully see it, the exit had been there all along… around the corner.
All I had needed to do was keep driving and be patient until I reached it and learn to trust in the God who can see around every corner and has a plan for every exit.
Thanks for reading our blog this week and the posts we have been re-running from Jenny Rain Schmitz. Are you in a season of trusting that He can see around every corner, that He has a plan for every exit? We certainly are ... fee free to enter a comment or send us an email, and we can be praying for each other!
This week we are sharing some posts from Jenny Rain Schmitz - I loved these and I think you will too...
No no no… I did not say I AM sad.
I said, I HAVE sad.
Sad is also known as Social Anxiety Disorder and I have it.
Social anxiety disorder (SAD, SAnD) (DSM-IV 300.23), also sometimes called social phobia (SP), can be specific or generalized. Generalized social anxiety disorder typically involves a persistent, chronic fear of being judged by others and of being embarrassed or humiliated by one’s own actions. These fears can be triggered by perceived or actual scrutiny from others. While the fear of social interaction may be recognized by the person as excessive or unreasonable, overcoming it can be quite difficult. About 13.3% of the general population may meet criteria for social anxiety disorder at some point in their lives.
Four years ago in the plethora of diagnoses my shrink labeled me with, SAD was in the mix.
Rather than debilitating me with an unneccesary label, understanding that SAD was a frequent visitor in my spectrum of anxiety struggles has helped me stop judging myself so harshly when I fail to meet my own criteria for a “successful social interaction.”
I have the “generalized” brand of SAD – which is good. And it takes more than a diagnosis or challenge to send me running for the hills, which is even better! Throughout the years I have intentionally placed myself into “learning situations” that have forced me to develop coping mechanisms to survive and succeed in social interactions.
When I was younger SAD was debilitating.
I was painfully awkward with girlfriends and excruciatingly clumsy with boys. In my attempts to fit in, my gangly actions caused me to stick out and get noticed more than accepted.
Childhood was painful for me.
If a friend “decided” they were mad at me I would literally get sick. On the spot. Sometimes on them.
It was awful.
Countless shrinks, wise family members, and friends attempted to counsel me on the fact that “people just get mad sometimes,” and not to get so upset about it, but my body continued to have a visceral reaction to anything resembling judgement from someone else.
Needless to say, as a kid and into my early adult years, I was also highly sensitive and would shut down at even the slightest hint of criticism.
I had SAD but did not know it so I had no coping skills.
For me, SAD manifests itself as shyness in social situations which often confuses people.
“I would have never guessed you were shy, you seem so outgoing when you train!”
“Through your writing it seems like you are more extraverted!”
Like I said, I have trained myself to overcome SAD so that it does not continue to debilitate me.
In late 1996 after four years in corporate training, I realized that unless I stepped beyond my fear or being around a large room of people, speaking, and interacting with them, I would not make it very far in business.
So I took a decisive action.
Because of my fear of training people – I stepped into training.
That is how I was as a younger lass with my fears – completely unforgiving and intolerant of anything that held me back. I tended to steamroll my fears and weaknesses until they ceased to exist.
With this particular fear and anxiety around people, it worked!
But there are still times when social situations are tough for me.
I detest get togethers at houses – especially when it is a bunch of people I don’t know.
Being out in a new location with new people can be overwhelming for me at times. New place. New people. It is like massive over-stimulation to my brain. The little gerbils in my brain do not do overstimulation well.
I am a chronic-blusher. When I am one-on-one with others chatting, my face will randomly blush for no reason at all. It’s so embarrassing!
If you ask me to be in an arena full of people where I have to find my way to my seat – I hate it. This is why I work the tech booth at church… so I can sneak in the back door, avoid the crowds, and sit in my same seat every week cocooned by the walls of the booth. It’s safe, manageable, puts me in the middle of the action without the crush of a bunch of people around me.
So my SAD still pops up, but I have learned to manage it.
So why do I share this?
Because there are things that we all deal with about ourselves and our lives here on earth that can debilitate us, control us, and hinder the stretch we have in our arms if we choose to allow them to. Things such as…
Shame
Fear
Anxieties and phobias
Our past
Our present
Our future
People
Money
Time
Religion
{insert your problem-of-choice here}
These “issues” may be as real as the summer sunshine and valid enough to be considered a DSM-IV diagnosable disease.
I get that.
I am not saying, “deny that you have any areas of challenge in your life.”
Nope. Cuz there is a diagnosis for denial too – it’s called the Polyanna Principle and it even has its own page in the highly-scholarly resource “Wikipedia” (ahem… cough cough).
I am also not saying over-spiritualize your challenge areas…
“Well… the good Lord knew what He was doing when He made me… this is just my cross to bear I guess!”
Please don’t do that.
Over-spiritualization makes me batty.
What I am saying is this…
Be honest with yourself about your areas of challenge.
Take responsibility for those areas.
Be unashamedly honest with friends about these challenge areas so they can pray for you.
Do what you can to eliminate these areas, and if you cannot eliminate, learn coping mechanisms (even Jacob walked with a limp and Paul had a thorn in his side… there are some parts of our personality that may never change)
Always… always… always stay in conversation with your Creator about these limitations and ask Him to intercede and be consistently present when one of these challenge areas threatens to take you down. He is faithful, He is good, and He can be trusted… with all of who you are… even the parts you don’t like.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
Your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
Psalm 139.15-16
Thanks for coming by this week’s series on healing from Jenny Rain Schmitz. You can find more of her encouraging posts here. And if you are in the middle of a healing journey, please let me know how we can pray for you!
