Mental Health/Emotions

Be a Friend to an Abused Woman

1. Please listen to the abused woman.

2. Please don’t blame her for the abuse.

3. Please avoid interrupting her.

4. Please don’t act shocked or doubtful of the truth of her situation.

5. Please pray for her.

6. Please offer her Scripture that comforts and strengthens her.

7. Please let her know that she can call or visit you again.

8. Please share tea or coffee with her to put her at ease.

9. Please find out if she is danger.

10. Please give her the name of the nearest shelter.

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Dealing with Body Image

Have you struggled to deal with body image issues in your eating disorder recovery? Do you have a difficult time looking at yourself in the mirror? Even though it may be difficult to do, it’s important to address the issue of body image in eating disorder recovery.

Have you struggled to deal with body image issues in your eating disorder recovery? Do you have a difficult time looking at yourself in the mirror? Even though it may be difficult to do, it’s important to address the issue of body image in eating disorder recovery.

Remember that this is a distressing time for you and that your perspective of things might be different, so the image you see in the mirror might be distorted in your mind. Therefore, when others assure you that you are not fat, they may be right. Consider believing what they have to say.

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Forgiveness Workshop Transcript

Obie-HostIt is my great pleasure to introduce to you today Yvonne Ortega.She serves on the Board of Directors of Christians in Recovery and leads her own ministry which she will tell you about. Today she will be speaking on Forgiveness.

Every time Yvonne leads a workshop we are all greatly blessed by her insights. Let us open in prayer…..

Heavenly Father,
We pray for our workshop leader Yvonne today.Anoint her with the Holy Spirit. Give her Your words of wisdom to share with us —
words of healing. Open our ears, hearts and minds that we are teachable and also open to the Holy Spirit. In the name of Jesus we all pray. Amen.

Yvonne will speak for several minutes and then we will have a question and answer period where you will be able to ask questions. Yvonne, you now have the floor!

Yvonne Thank you.
What does it mean “to forgive”?
It means to give up feeling angry or wanting to punish, to show mercy, to pardon.

Countless adults have told me they can’t forgive themselves. One woman had an abortion and said, “I’m a murderer. I can’t go back to church.”

An alcoholic lost his wife, his children, his job, his car, and his home. His children refused to have anything to do with him. He said, “It’s all my fault for drinking like I did.”

A married woman got drunk and had sex with a male acquaintance. She was beside herself with shame and guilt.

A man fell asleep at the wheel and hit a guardrail. His daughter was thrown from the van and died. He was overwhelmed with grief and beat himself up repeatedly for the loss of his daughter.

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Fear and What to Do About It

Everybody in this world who has any understanding of the world, experiences fear, likely everyday. There are the common fears such as: living in a safe city – you don’t want to be murdered, raped, robbed or beat brutally. These are understandable fears. But who controls the fears you have? Do your fears control you or are you in control of your fears? This is a huge question and one that needs to be discussed and clarified. Because there are actually 2 different types of fear for those who walk in the way of God, we need to differentiate between the two. The fear or reverence of God is a good fear, but not the one we will discuss here. Daily fear and fear that burdens us is the fear we will be discussing.

The Bible contains dozens of people who were afraid. Some of them experienced more fear than others, but just because someone does not fear as much as another, does not mean their fear is any less legitimate.

A small list of people who feared in the Bible include, but are not limited to:

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But What Am I Guilty Of?

I would almost make a presumption that almost everybody in the world knows what guilt is and that they are guilty of something in their life. Who has not told a “white lie” in order to make things look a little cleaner than they actually are? I admit to telling more white lies than I can count and I am only 36 at the moment. And even if you were to argue that you are not guilty of anything, have I got some shocking news for you. According to the Bible, everybody is guilty of sin. In fact, when we are born, we are born into a sinful world and we automatically become part of that sinful world. (Isaiah 53:6 New Living Translation (NLT)

All of us have strayed away like sheep. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the LORD laid on him the guilt and sins of us
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His Word is not in us. (1 John 1:8-10 RSV)

Romans 3:23
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.

And the Bible tells us that if we think we have not sinned that what we are indeed doing is calling God a liar –
1 John 1:10 King James Version
(KJV) If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

What we are guilty of depends on how we were raised, what we were taught to believe in school, at home, and our other places of meeting. But the Bible makes it clear that all sin is equal. There is no one sin greater than another like we as humans class them as, save one special sin. According to the New Testament, Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is the ONLY sin that is not forgivable.

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When is it Right to Trust Other People? (Part 2)

See Part One

One of the hardest issues for many people, especially in today’s society, is to know when to trust other people. What I am about to write comes from the books, Boundaries by Henry Cloud and John Townsend, and Safe People by the same authors. It is what I have learned along my healing journey, and I can assure you that I am by no means anywhere near the end of it. I believe healing is a lifelong journey. I highly recommend reading ALL of their books. Believe me when I say they have an endless supply of good Christian books that will help you grow and mature both spiritually and emotionally.

Many people teach that we are to trust nobody. After all, look what it gets us a lot of the time. Girls, boys and women raped because they trusted somebody enough to simply speak to them. Now, not every encounter is a bad one, but we cannot guarantee that any meeting will be a safe one. Who is willing to risk their life on a chance meeting?

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A Believer Who Struggles with Depression, Anxiety, Alcoholism, Sexual Addiction and Codependency

Hi, I’m Sharon, a believer who struggles with depression, anxiety, alcoholism, sexual addiction, and codependency. It’s taken half a century, and five marriages and divorces, and a near-fatal car accident but here I am. I’m glad to be here to share my story with you . As Romans 8:38 & 39 proclaims:

…I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I believe this whole-heartedly because I’ve been in some situations I should NOT have survived. I spent years of my life trying to separate myself from God. But God, through Jesus, has walked with me every step.

I grew up in a small country town in New Mexico. We weren’t well off, but we weren’t dirt poor. My father worked hard as a welder to support the family and my mom stayed home with the kids. There were four of us. My older brother and sister were from my mom’s first husband and they were 9 and 11 years older than me. Because they were so much older, I really had no relationship with them. My sister married when I was in 2nd grade. My older brother was out of the house shortly after that and I don’t really have many memories of him growing up. My younger brother and I were from Mom’s second marriage to my dad.

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You May Not Hate But…. Do You Love?

John 8:12 NRSV
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”

I am by nature probably more like a chicken than any other animal on the planet. I like to wake up with the sun and go to sleep with the sun. In the winter, I like to sleep for long periods of time in the darkness and in the summer, I am up with the light and energetic until the darkness comes. For me, all this is is a quirk of physiology or training or something. It makes it difficult for me to entertain others long into the night because I begin to drop off after nine, but other than that, it is simply a personal eccentricity. We all have them.

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Is “Special Needs” Biblically Sound?

The more I think about it the more I’m convinced that the notion of “special needs” isn’t biblically sound.

My friend Tim pastors a church in Denver, and he talks a lot about the “Y’all Come In” mentality. In that view, if the church opens the door and puts down a welcome mat, that’s enough.

Except that it’s not enough.

At Tim’s church they send people to homeless shelters and by-the-week motels. They sit with people one-on-one, talk with them, assure them they’re valued and needed.

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In Trouble? You have a Privilege and a Future

“Call upon Me in the day of trouble! I will deliver you–and you shall glorify Me!” Psalm 50:15

In this portion of the divine Word, you will discover:
1. your present portion–trouble;
2. your constant privilege–prayer;
3. your future prospect–deliverance.

1. Your present portion is TROUBLE.
You must expect trouble, and will certainly be deceived if you expect to escape it. Sin is the parent of trouble–and our sin-cursed earth its fruitful soil. Trouble springs up all around us, and appears in an almost infinite variety of forms.

Every connection we form,
every character we bear,
every office we fill, and
every relation we sustain–
is a fruitful source of trouble!

We shall have…
trouble in mind,
trouble in circumstances,
trouble in body;
trouble from almost every quarter!

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