Suffering

Fly to Him


Learn the Divine skill of making God all things to you. He can supply you with all; or, better still, He can be to you instead of all.

Let me urge you, then, to make use of your God. Make use of Him in prayer; go to Him often, because He is your God. Will you fail to use so great a privilege?

Fly to Him; tell Him all your wants. Use Him constantly by faith at all times. If some dark providence has beclouded you, use your God as a “sun”; if some strong enemy has beset you, find in Jehovah a “shield”; for He is a sun and a shield to His people. If you have lost your way in the mazes of life, use Him as a “guide”; for He will direct you.

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When Bad Things Happen to Good People

Job 42:7 MRSV
After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.”

Job was a righteous man, a man who loved and served God with all his heart and might. He was a man who had prospered in an earthly sense, owning many flocks and having twelve children. He also was a man blessed with good health. All of this God allowed Satan to take from Job. Job’s life went, in a matter of days, from being comfortable and happy to being alone and miserable.

There is a saying: Bad things happen to good people.

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Traumas and Addiction (Workshop Transcript)

Obie-Host: “Welcome to our Workshop on Trauma and Addiction. We will be discussing trauma, abuse and as well as addiction. Would someone like to open us in prayer?”

“Yahweh, thank you so much for the freedom we have to gather together in fellowship with you and each other – Thank you that Yvonne is giving us her time to teach us -Holy Spirit open our eyes and ears – that we may see and hear what you would impart to us today – Have your way – may your will be done. Amen”

Obie-Host:“Welcome everyone to the Workshop on Trauma and Addiction – our leader today is Yvonne Ortega. She has credentials as long as my arm, as well as personal experiences in everything she talks about. Yvonne, please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about yourself.”

“Hi you all! Thank you for having me. It is a blessing to share with you all. Yes, I have credentials, but, I’ve also learned through the school of hard knocks.

Trauma refers to situations in which a person is rendered powerless and great danger is involved. The situations involve death and injury or the possibility of death and injury.
Those events evoke a state of extreme horror, helplessness, and fear. They are events of such intensity and magnitude they would overtax any human being’s ability to cope.

Such events can be childhood physical abuse or sexual abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault and rape, natural catastrophes such as hurricanes and tornadoes, car accidents, war and combat, and a life-threatening disease. Just as the body can be traumatized, so can the psyche.

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Life is Messy, Sloppy, Sometimes Miserable

Isaiah 43:10-13
“But you are my witnesses, O Israel!” says the Lord. “And you are my servant. You have been chosen to know me, believe in me, and understand that I alone am God. There is no other God; there never has been and never will be. I am the Lord, and there is no other Savior. First I predicted your deliverance; I declared what I would do, and then I did it — I saved you. No foreign god has ever done this before. You are witnesses that I am the only God,” says the Lord. “From eternity to eternity I am God. No one can oppose what I do. No one can reverse my actions” (NLT).

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When We Have to Wait

James 1:17
Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

I’d like to say that I hate to waste time. I mean, I can sit in meetings and fume at how slow everything goes and what inane questions others ask. I can be just as impatient with Father God Who is — according to my way of thinking — working much too slowly and holding me back from my life’s ambitions.

The fact is, I hate to wait. But, if I am truly honest, it’s more that I want to control my time and my efforts. I want to lallygag and waste time when I want to

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Long-suffering In Marriage

I saved my marriage when I finally gave up trying to be in control of my spouse. We all think that once we get married that we can change our spouse to be what we want them to be, or we may even think they will change on their own, but what faults bother us about the person we’re thinking of marrying will only become bigger faults after the wedding. It’s wrong to think we can change people or control them to be the people we want, and if we think like this before the “I do’s” were going to be in for a big surprise.

After marriage if we dwell on the faults of our spouse it will only make us feel more superior to them, and then we start to justify reasons why we should leave them, or worse why we should have an affair. People think like this – they really do! I have my share of wives and husbands that tell me they think they married the wrong person. Can an attitude get any worse than that? I don’t think so. We must always come back to the long-suffering that God talks about.

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Prayer for the Heavy Hearted

Abba…I sense many heavy hearts today. Hearts that are burdened and weighed down by what they are seeing and experiencing.

For some, it seems as if the world is closing in on them and coming against them at every turn. Nothing they are trying to do turns out well and some are even wondering in their hearts where You are in all of this. They are battling discouragement as they walk in the way they believe You have sent them. They are trying to minister to others with seemingly no to little success. They are being faithful, yet wondering if You might actually have abandoned them. They so need Your reassurance and a sense of Your Presence.

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Tension

When you pull on opposite ends of a rope, you create tension. Same thing with life.

Tension’s mostly a good thing. In my experience, a lot of bad events occur when life gets out of balance and I operate at one extreme or another. Tension maintains some sort of healthy equilibrium.

We push to accomplish great things while we pray for patience to seek God’s timing.

We seek to understand as much as possible while knowing we’ll never really understand on this side of eternity.

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Can You Love in the Midst of Hate?

1 John 2:9-11 NRSV
Whoever says, “I am in the light,” while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness. Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates another believer is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has brought on blindness.

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Bible Verses for Bulimia

Even if you have bulimia, know that the Bible contains relevant verses for your recovery. Let God speak to you through His Word. He can help you address underlying issues, and a He can also provide a safe place for you to express your emotions instead of engaging in bulimic behaviors.

While bulimic behaviors may seem to provide a satisfactory distraction from feeling emotions, such relief is only temporary. But feeling the feelings is easier said than done. Sometimes it’s challenging to find ways to express those emotions. Not only that, but it can also be difficult to even be comfortable with having emotions.

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