CIR KBs

Christians in Recovery Knowledge Base article

Seven Ways to Overcome Negative Body Image

Airbrushing is an all too common technique used in the fashion and beauty industries. In our current cultural landscape, you and I would be hard pressed to find a magazine cover which is not “retouched” in some way.

In 2003, actress Kate Winslet was quite vocal about her airbrushed body. She speaks of her experience with “GQ Magazine,” along with their choice to feature her manipulated image on its cover…

“The retouching is excessive. I do not look like that and more importantly I don’t desire to look like that. I can tell you they’ve reduced the size of my legs by about a third.”

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Are You Drifing Away?

2 Peter 3:11-12
Hebrews 2:1, 3 NKJV
Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. . . . how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him.

There was a time in the American Church when we didn’t believe that salvation was simply a one-time experience that we could do, forget about, and still retain. There was a time (and in my lifetime) when those who attended church understood that their behavior was an important part of the salvation process, not that we earn our salvation, but that we appropriate it through our choices day by day.

  • “We must give the more earnest heed.” The NRSV translates it: “We must pay greater attention.” How do we measure how much attention we give something? For me, it means what I think about, what I focus on. Do we spend time focusing on the things we have heard (meaning the Bible and the things of God)? Or do we spend time on other pursuits? How much do we know about the Bible compared to other things we know about? What consumes our conversations?

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Do You Confuse Compliance with Surrender?

The 3rd Step of the 12 Steps reads as follows:

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as revealed in the Bible.


We often confuse surrender with compliance. In compliance we grudgingly give in, hold back a part of ourselves. Our actions may appear to be going with the flow but our heart and thoughts are surely elsewhere.


Compliance leaves out the passion part. In surrender we have to be passionate about the surrender — excited about it;
having hopeful anticipation of what God can and will do when we actually surrender.


Surrender is not admitting defeat. It is not a bad thing in God’s Kingdom. It is a great thing! God’s economy and ways of doing things are quite often contrary to the World’s ways.


In reality, we often are hypocrites — saying or promising surrender — but in reality not wholeheartedly “all in.” And in essence we rob ourselves of the fruits of surrender. Surrender means surrendering one’s entire being: heart, words, actions, emotions, thoughts, body, soul and spirit.

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Binge Eating Disorder: A Male Football Face

“At least one out of every ten people with an eating disorder is a man or a boy, yet most people still think of eating disorders as women-only.” ~ Eating Disorder Referral and Information Center


American football had some startling news this autumn season. In early October, player, Joey Julius discussed his departure from Penn State football last spring and summer on Facebook; his reason given was his struggle with binge eating disorder.

The Nittany Lions’ kicker wrote on his page…

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What Should We Get Out of Prayer?

There came into my experience a deeper conception of God. He was” more ready to hear than we to pray.” “We love him because he first loved us.” God was taking the initiative in communion. He had sent Jesus into the world to make that known to us. What was wanted on our part really was receptivity, rather than effort.

When I surrendered my life to His will, prayer began to be a new thing: not a way to change His will, but a way to find it. It did away with much of the difficulty of the human persuasion of God, and became largely God’s persuasion of us. It was His will which was paramount and mattered, not ours.

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What’s Your Label?

“Once you label me you negate me.” ~ Soren Kierkegaard

What do you want to be called?

As a wheelchair user, I encounter this question more than most folks. Sometimes it’s directed toward me personally, but more often it comes up in an article or interview. The question-behind-the-question is really “How can we label you in the least offensive manner?”

Of course I have my own sarcastic answer …

#2

But the question-behind-the-answer is “Why do I need a label?”

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When Death Pries

What lives when love dies?
What gives when Death pries
Unbidden
Swinging a searing scythe
Cauterizing hearts
Halting stampeding feelings – mid-stride?

The energy released is explosive
A nova-like display, untamed,
A date is recorded
Eventually…cold remnants remain.

And yet the sky contains beautiful clouds
Ionized vapors
Testimonials, subtle, serene,
Rarefied trails of Refiner’s labor
Indirect shining reflecting beams.

Those bereft
Who miss the heat
May find consolation in beauty shown
The burned out, used up, exhausted star
Shimmers, a jewel in a heavenly home.

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Celebrating Our Peculiar Selves

Scripture tells us we are to be a peculiar people:

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 1 Peter 2:9


And, most of the time, that doesn’t seem to stack up well against our limited definitions of beauty.

Yes, we have opened up more variance with image, reflecting multicultural, unique features. Still, we often seem to like to fall back on what is widely known, accepted and comfortable. Ergo, for example, tall, thin, blue eyes, blonde hair, on Caucasian skin tones.

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Learning How to Wait

The Lord is not slow about His promise.

First of all you must understand this, that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and indulging their own lusts and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!”… But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:3-5, 8-9

We live in a fast food society. There are many places now that have put time clocks at the order windows. If your food is there in less time than promised, you get a reward…a free meal, a coupon, something. We are not used to waiting.

The Lord wants us to learn how to wait, to wait on Him. There are some things about waiting that I need to learn. As I look at the many definitions of “wait ” in the dictionary, I see these:

  • to stay in place in expectation of
  • to remain stationary in readiness or expectation
  • to look forward expectantly

These are all things I need to learn.

First, when I wait, I learn to expect God to act. If He is going to act, then I am not going to act. I am going to wait on Him to act. That seems so simple, but the fact is, if God doesn’t do what I think He should do, then often I move ahead, doing it instead. And, of course, I only make a mess of things. In waiting for Him to act, I learn to live content in the situation itself (Phil. 4:11), trusting Him to make the changes He deems necessary at the time He deems right.

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