Choices

Trusting In God For Your Marriage

Who are you trusting in when things go wrong in your marriage? Are you trusting in self, or perhaps you go running to family and friends, explaining your side of the story? Some of us go running to therapists, counselors, divorce lawyers, and strangers on the street. But we seldom run to God.

Many of the people we go running to in times of marital troubles aren’t equipped in giving us proper advice and guidance. Most of them have had divorces themselves! How can someone fix our marital wounds when they can’t fix their own?

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Practicing Patience and Addiction

What a mysterious thing is this enemy of ours – as mysterious as life itself.

Addiction is sometimes without explanation. However, we are aware of its presence and how miserable it makes us feel. How little we like to speak of it, discuss it, or consider its importance! When cornered, we discuss the thought as quickly as possible. That being said, doesn’t it seem strange that we spend so much time feeding our addictions? Furthermore, when we have finally had enough, why do we not spend an equal amount of time and energy trying to recover from those same addictions.

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Are You Cultivating Life Saving Fruit?

Let’s imagine that recovery grew on a vine, and like grapes in a valley, it would need proper soil cultivation, sunlight, water, fertilization, and pruning to bear fruit.

Wouldn’t it be nice if your recovery would bear enough fruit to eliminate fruit-bearing guides, books, classes and counselors? That being asked and answered, what would your mandatory concerns be to make that a reality in your struggles to grow recovery-bearing fruit?

Your concerns should be the following:

  • Make sure your potential fruit-bearing recovery plan is connected to the vines clearly with unobstructed prayer.
  • That you cultivate and prune your life by working a Twelve-Step Program.

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The Heart: A Wild Creature

This statement, from its anonymous author, recently caught my attention:

“Hearts are wild creatures. That’s why our ribs are cages.”

Its focus, the heart and the rib cage, hit home. For I have had a disordered history with both.
My obsession with the thin physique created my descent into anorexia and its painful heart issues.

“…I could count all of my ribs. I still wasn’t thin enough; it wasn’t good enough…”*

As I’ve been in recovery from eating disorders, food, weight and body image issues, yes, I’ve had to deal with my heart. That, therefore, includes the related topics of passions, desires and idolatry.

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Prosperity in God’s Eyes

Society today classes people according to their material wealth. Whether that wealth is in the form of money/income, things such as the latest technology gadgets or the hottest fashions in clothes, people are automatically classed into several categories.

Where I live, in Canada, I am considered as living BELOW the poverty line. That means, that according to Canadian standards, I don’t make enough money to meet my natural needs.

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Power In Discovering Your Audience

Coming from a theater background, I’m no stranger to an audience.

“All the world’s a stage… And one man in his time plays many parts…”

In William Shakespeare’s play, “As You Like It,” Act II Scene VII, purpose-filled life is compared to that of a theatre stage.

How much more does that apply for those of us recovering from addiction, disorder or abuse?

Besides my theater background, I also have an eating disorder history as well. In college, I battled both anorexia and bulimia.

Indeed, during my sophomore year, desperate in my bulimic behavior, I began to dumpster dive…

“… I’d try to play it off, pretending everything was normal as people passed by me scrounging in the dumpster… in broad daylight… I couldn’t hide any longer from others what I was doing… people were noticing…”*
*Excerpt from Sheryle Cruse’s book, “Thin Enough: My Spiritual Journey Through the Living Death of an Eating Disorder”

This was an unwelcomed audience for me.

Nevertheless, people saw. And, no matter how I tried, I could not escape the Presence of the Most High.

For a long time, I fought God.

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The Value of Trials

REJOYCING
There are those who would consider that going through the recovery process is far from joyful. For most of us there is a great deal of pain along the recovery path.

    James 1:2-4 (Amplified)
    Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into manifold temptations;
    Knowing that the proving of your faith worketh patience.
    And let patience have its’ perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing.

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What’s More Important: Today or Eternity?

It’s really easy to get trapped by the frenetic mindset of the world, to believe that the ultimate goal of life is to win or to acquire or to succeed.

It isn’t.

We lose so much when we think that what we gain now, that what we rule now, that what we control now somehow has meaning. We lose because we fail to see the horizon. We are so caught up with the temporary demands of the now we don?t remember that life continues (and continues long) after this day of life is over.

Proverbs 11:18-19 NRSV
The wicked earn no real gain,
but those who sow righteousness get a true reward.
Whoever is steadfast in righteousness will live,
but whoever pursues evil will die.

The Lord Jesus told a parable about such a man, a man who was so consumed with what he was doing in this life that he failed to plan for the next.

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Stopping Destructive Self-talk

For those of us that are in recovery, whatever the substance, activity or behavior might be you can here the “mantra”, which is a phrase or often repeated expression or idea that dominates the individual’s every thought.” It often justifies the behavior as being acceptable to those who are within hearing range.

  • “I’m not hooked, I just like the feeling that ______________ gives me.”

  • “I can quite anytime, I just don’t see any reason to do so.”

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Breaking Habits, Are You Ready?

Part 1 Breaking Habits | Part 2 Tapping into the Unknown | Part 3 Breaking Habits and Sin | Part 4 God’s Love | Part 5 Scary Secrets | Part 6 Are You Ready?

Procrastination Inspires Paralysis
One of the character defects that I struggle with is that of procrastination. Boy, howdy, does this give me fits. It comes from willfully pausing my life’s pursuits just before success is achieved. It is fear that success will bring more responsibility and I will have show that I’m ready to accept this change.

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