Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. ~John 8:32

Monthly Archives: April 2016


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Was Jesus Too Busy to Talk to His Dad?

If you were walking and talking with Jesus in the flesh, can you imagine his telling you that he’d really like to spend more time with the Father, but He’s just too busy today? Oh, the people who need me today…it’s just overwhelming! I just don’t have time to be still and know that He is my God. What He might instead say to you is, Oh, the people who need me today…it would be overwhelming were I not first to be still and know that He is my God!

Can you imagine Jesus telling you he has a secret sin, and no matter how hard he tries, he just can’t get rid of it? That could have been him since he was truly human. However, that is not who He was. It seems to me the reason he didn’t become that person is that he spent so much time with the Father.

Staying busy has been one of my “greatest” accomplishments in life. Could it be the evil one wants to entice me to accomplish “good things” under my own power? Perhaps in that way he can keep me too busy and distracted to become who God created me to be. Instead, I want my life to reflect the power of God’s love in my every thought, word, and action.

The only way for my life to be a reflection of His love is to continually listen to Him. If I stay too busy doing first one project and then another in a seemingly endless assembly line of projects, then I’ll have great difficulty listening to Him.

footprints-JesusJesus wants me to talk with Him and walk with Him and learn from that everyday walk how to be like Him. If I want to figure out who I am and why I’m here, I must first figure out who He really is and let Him transform me to be more and more like Him.

Jesus not only spent time with the Father, but he also spent a lot of time with messy people. We’re all messy people, but as we say in Celebrate Recovery, God can take our mess and turn it into His message! We’re not allowing Him to do that when we don’t spend time in His presence. Only when you and I are as serious as Jesus about spending time with our “daddy” and attuning our lives to His will—only then will we receive the power from His precious Holy Spirit to accomplish the seemingly impossible task of loving messy people.

Jesus is genuine, humble, loving, and kind. He shows true love to all of us even as he tells us things that are sometimes hard to hear. We can do the same for others but only when we take the time to talk with Him, to walk with Him, to let Him transform us into looking and acting just as He does.

This week post a card on your bathroom mirror with three simple items that will help you on this journey:

  1. Ask Jesus to give you a greater desire to become like Him.
    And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:18
  2. Spend as much morning, noon and/or evening time as you can reading/studying God’s Word, even if that’s only a few minutes each day.
    Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long.     Psalm 119:97
  3. Spend time praising God and praying for the needs of at least three people every day this week.
    For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. 1 Peter 3:12


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I Need Recovery!

But everything exposed by the light becomes visible and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. Ephesians 5:13

It occurred to me the other day how low my self-confidence really is.  It caught me off guard and reminded me just how much I need continual recovery, not only from my childhood abuse but from my own thinking.

I was getting into the shower when I discovered there was no hot water. I checked the hot water tank and sure enough it was off. So I began to reignite it by following the very specific instructions on the tank. It may seem silly but this was a huge accomplishment! I am very insecure and have many “obsessive thinking” types of fear. I was terrified the entire time that the hot water tank was going to blow up in my face. I had gone to lengths in my mind how I would try to escape the flames and save my children. Ever do that? I hope I’m not the only one!

I shared this story with my mom and a few days later she reminded me of our family history, our family’s disease. She planted the seed that my lack of confidence in myself to perform a simple task is deeply rooted in my behavior and thinking that has been passed down from generations through alcoholism.

12417535_10154031575859933_1855565112789213995_nI have been in recovery from my childhood sexual abuse for the past 6 years. Although I have overcome a lot, I still have much more work ahead of me, work that requires a lifetime of attention and yet, I will likely die before fully healing from it all. Some things require Jesus’ return to have full resolution and justice.

For my family, alcoholism was a generational disease on both my mother’s and my father’s side, along with physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. Generational disease, or as the Bible refers to it, generational sin (Deuteronomy 5:9), is a very real cycle passed down by our parents and grandparents through learned behavior.

In order for the cycle to be broken, someone has to be willing to stop the previous behavior patterns and choose something different. This requires one thing: to speak the truth. It’s simply said but a very lonely, not-so-traveled road. Most of the time, it is hard for other members of the family who are not quite ready for the truth.

In my family the brave person who chose to step into the light of truth was my mother. After she began recovery it was like a permission slip for me to do the same. I could not wait to finally start talking about what we never talked about. As difficult as the truth was and as painful as it was for my other family members to hear, it felt much better than keeping the truth inside where it ate away at me daily.  I began to slowly realize why I was in so much pain and why I made such poor choices.

Jesus meant it when he said, “the truth will set you free.” It did for me. Not everyone was in the same place as me when I began recovery, and many of my relationships were strained. However, through the strength Christ gives when you choose this journey, I was able to hold firm boundaries while maintaining a loving perspective and acceptance of where they were in their lives.

The truth is funny, though; it has a way of making itself known without demanding attention or bullying its way in.  It reveals itself with such incredible timing in grand, undeniable ways. That’s because God is the truth and His Son, the light. When we choose to walk in God’s truth hand in hand with His son lighting the way, it ends up spreading and affecting everything it touches, including the relationships surrounding us.

The truth hurts, but only temporarily. Through it I have reached a place of acceptance and forgiveness and will continue to move through past hurts from my childhood and adulthood. I know I have a long road ahead of me, but I have put many miles behind me already because I’m not doing it alone but with a Savior who understands my pain. Remember, Christ became like us so we could become like Him.

On days when recovery is hard and my character defects are overpowering me, I remind myself of God’s promises for my future. John shares with us in Revelation 22:2, the new city of Jerusalem, the streets of gold and the tree of life that bears new fruit each month. Then he says, “the leaves will be for the healing of the nations.” Our God knows that our pain is great, so great that we will continue to need healing even in our eternity. I pray we keep hope in that we will be completely healed one day.


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Encourage One Another

Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.
1 Thessalonians 5:11

On April 1st, I listened as my coworker giggled about others pranking their friends. She doesn’t have a mean bone in her body, but she is a playful adult who loves to laugh. I waited until she left her desk for a few minutes and took the opportunity to turn around most of her desktop supplies.

Then I watched while she found her wrist pad, mouse, tape dispenser, even her Snoopy figurine facing backwards. As she discovered each item, she laughed, saying things like, “You’re such a prankster!” and “That’s a good one!” It was as though, by picking up on her clues, I was letting her know that I appreciate her sense of humor and that I listen to her, even when it’s about something as silly as a prank.

friendliness-kind word like a spring dayThere have also been times when her mood wasn’t playful at all. In fact, during solemn times of trouble and sorrow, she has shared with me about friends who are struggling with sick children or marital brokenness or unsuccessful surgery. At those times, I’ve unplugged myself from my phone and walked over to pat her on the shoulder or give her a heart-felt hug.

During other times, she has been the encourager, standing behind a decision I’ve made or keeping a confidence I’ve shared or crying with me over financial struggles, parenting missteps or faith challenges. Her compassion has carried me through some difficult personal woes that otherwise might have threatened my job.

In times like ours, we might look at what Christians are facing worldwide and think, Who am I to seek encouragement? I’m not in fear of physical torment, imprisonment or corporal punishment because of my faith.

Before we belittle our own woes in the light of others’ problems, let’s look again at the Scripture above. Notice that it doesn’t say, “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing, as long as the trouble is serious enough.” Neither does it say, “After you’ve judged the other’s experience and deemed it worthy of encouragement…” It simply says, “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.”

Let’s ask ourselves a few questions.

  • When did I last encourage another? If I can’t remember, the answer is “too long ago.”
  • Why is it easier for me to find fault than it is to build another up? If I am afraid to be an encourager, I’m listening to the wrong voice. I will seek God in others.
  • Am I known as an encourager (“just as in fact you are doing”)? If others avoid me, I will take a hard look at the reason this is so.
  • Does jealousy ever cause me to shame someone? I will tend to my own knitting, as my grandmother, Mimi, used to say. The Holy Spirit may prick someone’s heart. I will leave that job to Him.
  • Am I honest in my encouragement? Being an encourager doesn’t mean to lie. Others will pick up on shallow praise. At the same time, calling another to be her best self may not be easy, but it should result in the person leaning into Jesus, not away from Him.

smile-girl smilingYou know, Christianity wouldn’t be nearly as challenging if we didn’t have to deal with human beings! But we are called to come together, loving one another as He has loved us. Does that sound impossible? Start small if you have to. Find someone this week who needs a smile and give her yours. You just might find it downright rewarding.