General Recovery

Love the Person You Are and Hate the Person You’ve Been

Did you know that love is a choice? We choose to love or not to love. It’s that simple. But I believe the non-loving choice is not our “true selves.” The non-loving self is absorbed in anger, judgment, resentment, and all kinds of things that we allow to control how we love.

We haven’t let go of past hurts. These hurts control who we are and how we react to people around us. The bottle controls an alcoholic and a hurting person is controlled by resentment.

My husband used to tell me, “I love you, but I don’t love the disease.” What he meant was that he loved me for who I really was, not the alcoholic.

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Peer Pressure & Sin

In Haggai 2:12-19, God drives home a very telling point to the prophet. If we place an unclean thing together with a clean one, the cleanness of the latter will not rub off onto the former. If I rub my dirty and ink-stained hands on a clean towel, the cleanness of the towel will not rub off onto my hands: rather it is dirt that is transferred, and the towel becomes dirty.

By this means the Lord made clear to Haggai and Judah that sin is contagious, but righteousness is not. We are not Christians simply because we belong to a good church, a good family, or a fine community. Moreover, a good profession of faith does not make us holy or godly.

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Are You a Bird on a String?

For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin. Acts 8:23

If the Son sets you free–you will be free indeed! John 8:36

A bird that is tied by a string–seems to have more liberty than a bird in a cage; it flutters up and down–and yet it is held just as fast.

When a man thinks that he has escaped from the bondage of sin in general, and yet evidently remains under the power of some one favored lust–he is woefully mistaken in his judgment as to his spiritual freedom. He may boast that he is out of the cage–but assuredly, the string is on his leg!

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How is Your Spiritual Heart Health?

God has been teaching me His way concerning heart health. The condition of my physical heart mirrored the state of my spiritual heart. Through a physical and spiritual heart catheterization He exposed blockages, which left untreated, would be my certain physical and spiritual demise. He exposed areas of my heart that were still wounded and thus divided. I suspect I am not alone in this process.

According to the parable of the sower, Jesus teaches that It is from our hearts that we gain all spiritual guidance and understanding.

“But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop” Luke 8:15 NIV.

“All valid spiritual direction comes to us through our heart-the seat of true knowing and our “eyes and ears” in the spirit. If we discern the “will of God” it is through our heart. Knowing our true identity and destiny is achieved through our hearts as well.” “Living from the Heart Jesus Gave You”, pg.67, published by Shepherd’s House, Inc. revised version 2000.

As a direct result of these remaining heart blockages, I was no longer able to fully hear, retain, or re-produce a good crop from the word that had been so wonderfully planted in my heart for decades. The ability to correctly discern, know and understand Papa’s will or my true identity and destiny as Papa’s beloved son were being robbed from me. In this state, my capacity for joy was weakened. Of course my loved ones were profoundly affected by my heart disease as well (which of course there has been profound mercy and the amazing grace of forgiveness).

When your heart has blockages, your core identity becomes at best skewed and can even lose touch with reality. You are less able to live from the new heart Jesus gave you as your birthright. You even can end up not behaving or acting like who you truly are-an adopted child of God. Probably the most devastating part of this condition is being blocked from enjoying Christ in your heart. He-of course, will never leave us or forsake us-but our intimacy with Him can be diminished.

I am being so transparent about this in hopes to impart the courage for you to ask Papa to search your heart and know truth in your inner most parts, as King David did. This is why he was “called a man after God’s own heart.”

The single goal of heart healing is to

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Are you in a prison of hopeless despair?

Too many of us have lived our lives suffering in a silent, shameful prison of hopeless despair. When we tried to hope — our hopes were always deferred. We were heart sick from all our seeming endless deferred hopes (Proverbs). Hope for us was more of a mirage; one which was continually being pushed into an elusive, uncertain and clouded future.

Thus, our lives became defined by disappointment, disillusionment and shame. And like Rowan and Martin, on the 1970’s show Laugh In, we regularly awarded ourselves with “the twisted finger of fate,” instead of embracing our true divine destiny in Christ.

These three cousins of hopelessness (disappointment, disillusionment and shame) ‘mar’ the true image of God. I don’t recall whose quote this belongs to; but, it goes something like this: “God created man in his image and likeness. Unfortunately, man has returned the favor. We have shaped God into the ‘twisted’ and ‘wicked’ view we have of ourselves.” Disappointment, disillusionment and shame diminished us!

Not so in Christ! With him in our hearts, “hope springs eternal.”

Such hope never disappoints, disillusions or shames us; for God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us. Romans 5:5, Amplified (my editorial change – deludes changed to disillusions)

Hope enables us to wait patiently for our redemption.

That is why (hopeful) waiting does not diminish us;

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The Irony of Resisting Change

The adventure of life is to learn.
The purpose of life is to grow.
The nature of life is to change.
The challenge of life is to overcome.
The essence of life is to care.
The opportunity of life is to serve.
The secret of life is to dare.
The spice of life is to befriend.
The beauty of life is to give.
~ William Arthur Ward

It’s raining steadily and that always makes me glad to be inside and comfortable in my own surroundings with simple comforts close at hand.

It also disposes my mind to become more reflective and focused on what is important and relevant.

A cloudy day is no match for a sunny disposition.”
~ William Arthur Ward

How strange that though change is the dynamic of life, the nature of human beings is to resist change. The irony being that the very circumstances that we fear could ruin us may be the ones that open us to the blooming potential of who we were meant to be.

Change, like sunshine, can be a friend or a foe, a blessing
or a curse, a dawn or a dusk.
~William Arthur Ward

Sometimes there are no answers to life’s questions. Accepting the things we cannot change, without question, shows a strength of character that few possess.

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Are you hearing Him?

When I was a child, I had repeated ear infections. My earliest memories are of me, screaming in the car, on the way to the doctor, with a hot water bottle pressed against my painful bleeding ear. Fun.

Years later, the ear ache issue pops up again. I’ve been told I’m a great listener. People feel they can tell me anything, and often do. I love helping people. But there is a line, all too often, they want to cross. And so, if I’m not careful, I can often find myself with a spiritual ear ache.

Most of us know God is love.

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God…1 John 4:7

But is love always telling someone what he/she wants to hear? No.

But this desire to only hear pleasant things still exists, nevertheless. We like “feel good” affirmations.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears. 2 Timothy 4:3

Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things… Isaiah 30:10

Ever since the book on my eating disorder journey came out years ago, I’ve been repeatedly approached by people who are also affected by addictions, disorders and dysfunctions. I am not a therapist; I make that clear from the start. Yet, I often encounter people, who feel that, because he/she is communicating with me, suddenly, it’s okay to stop his/her recovery program. Wrong answer!

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Anorexia: Our Hummingbird Ways?

I love hummingbirds. And here’s an interesting little factoid about them:

“Hummingbirds are continuously hours away from starving to death, and are able to store just enough energy to survive overnight.”

I immediately thought of my anorexic experiences.

I recount my mindset, offered in my book, “Thin Enough: My Spiritual Journey Through the Living Death Of An Eating Disorder.”

” …I knew that what I was doing was wrong, but I still kept going. I had to. Progress—just a few more pounds, then I’ll be done. So I’d continue every morning: six hours of boot camp torture on little or no food or water. I had gotten to the point now where I feared drinking water would make me fat.

Every morning, my heart and pulse would pound and race. I could feel throbbing from veins that were sticking out on the backs of my knees and the crooks of my elbows. Every morning, I would stand up, shaky, dizzy already, only to then have everything go black. And then, I’d wake up, lying on the floor. Passing out was now a regular part of my day.

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Life Doesn’t Have a “Re-do” Button

All our steps are ordered by the Lord;
how then can we understand our own ways? Proverbs 20:24 NRSV

Over Christmas break, the son of one of my fellow teachers was killed in an auto accident. Both of his parents work for our school district and are loving, wonderful people. Their younger daughter was in one of the plays I helped with. It was a devastating loss for our small community.

When it happened, I tried to get my head around it. Oh, not the fact that such a young person had died and the reason for it, but rather simply that it had happened at all. I began to think about games, in particular computer games, and the ability to “redo” a game when the outcome wasn’t what I wanted (in effect, when I lost). I began to wonder if his parents wished that they could “redo” those few hours before he died, keeping him at their home rather than allowing him to drive several hours to his house and subsequently dying.

I think that all of us, at one time or another and for one reason or another, wished that life had a “redo” button, wished that we could relive a certain situation in order to change the outcome. When Proverbs speaks of the Lord ordering our ways, some in the Christian community would see this as confirmation that God has predetermined everything that happens to us and that we don’t have free will. I personally don’t agree with that view. But what I see this as is the Old Testament version of Romans 8:28:

And we know that God causes everything to work together” for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. (NLT)

Matthew Henry writes:

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Problems with AA and Church

These questions were part of a survey conducted by Dick B. and are worthy of consideration

Problems You Have Experienced from Those within A.A.

Q1: Have you been told in a meeting not to mention the Bible (either because that is an “outside issue,” because such mention violates A.A. Traditions, or because A.A. is not a “religious program”)?

Q2: Have you ever brought the Bible to a meeting and been told that the Bible is not “A.A. General Service Conference-approved literature” and therefore cannot be the subject of a meeting?

Q3: Have you ever tried to place the Bible or other Christian literature on a literature table and been told that such action violates A.A. Traditions?

Q4: Have you ever organized a Bible study-oriented A.A. group and been denied a listing in A.A. meeting schedules?

Q5: Have you ever mentioned the Bible in a meeting and been told that you could not do so?

Q6: Have you ever received a letter on an A.A. letterhead stating your group cannot be listed because it studies the Bible and that such meetings cannot be held in A.A.?

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