I’m scared.

You did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. (Romans 8:14-16). Even if you suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Don’t be full of fear like the rest of the world (1 Peter 3:13-14). There is no fear in love, but My perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18).

But it’s too hard. I can’t handle this…

I have made the heaven and the earth with the power of my outstretched arm-Nothing is too hard for me (Jeremiah 32:17). You can do all things (that is EVERYTHING you are called to do) through Christ who gives you strength (Philippians 4:13).

But it hurts!

All things (yes even the painful things) will work for your good since you have been called according to my purpose (Romans 8:28). I am the Father of comfort and compassion, rely on Me, and not yourselves. I have delivered you before, I will deliver you again…in order that I may use you to spread the same compassion you received to others in need of it. (2 Corinthians 1:3-11).

This is so confusing, I am so uncertain.

I am the power and wisdom. My foolishness is wiser than your wisdom, my weakness is stronger than your strength (1 Corinthians 1:24-25). When I speak to you about earthly things and you do not believe me, how will you be able to believe me when I speak to you about heavenly things (John 3:12)? Your work is to believe me (John 6:29). Look to the evidence, stop doubting and believe (John 20:27).

For me, the whole process of completing an inventory was eye-opening. Eye-opening in one of the hardest ways, though. Seeing my hurtful actions and their affect on myself and others was painful. Reliving the pain that others inflicted on me, that was unpleasant to say the least. It was hard, even though I was encouraged to do so, to keep things in balance by including the positives. When I put the whole thing together, I was saddened by how few positives I could find.

The natural me wanted to mope about. I wanted to crawl into my pit with my favorite blanket and stop reaching toward God at all. “Just cover me up and throw down some food every now and then, OK? Ok. Thanks.” But in my spirit, I knew that I had to break out of self-pity and shame. In my heart of hearts there was a small flicker of hope, despite the fact that I was hurting, overwhelmed by the magnitude of what I’d inventoried.

The first time I completed an inventory was when I really started praying and speaking God’s word over my life on a regular basis. I needed that. In hindsight, there was no way I could’ve nurtured that flicker of hope without this habit.

The Celebrate Recovery material includes a handy (albeit short) list of probable negative emotions churned up by doing the inventory and a scripture to combat each.

• Helplessness – Philippians 2:13
• Dwelling on the Past – 2 Corinthians 5:17
• Left Wanting – Philippians 4:19
• Loneliness – Matthew 28:20
• Oppression/Trouble – Psalm 9:9
• Fear/Doubt – Joshua 1:9
• Melancholy/Apathy – Psalm 118:24
• Worry – 1 Peter 5:7

I mean no disrespect toward the Celebrate Recovery program, but that just wasn’t enough for me. So I began searching out other resources to help me pray/speak scripture over my life. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been said that imitation is the highest form of flattery. I certainly hope the MPJ over at A Room of Mama’s Own agrees! A couple of weeks ago she began Haiku Fridays. And ever since then, I’ve been toying with the 5-7-5-syllable pattern. By toying I mean: I’ve commented on MPJ’s posts in haiku, written emails back and forth to a friend (whole conversations, even), and even played around during our discussion time last night as I encouraged our group to express themselves that way. I’ve been “playing” (rare for me) and I think that sometimes our play delights our Lord, don’t you?

With that, I would like to initiate Haiku Friday on 12 Steps Closer to God with the following offering:

Living for Jesus~
I find it so difficult
flesh versus spirit

flesh says to harbor
fear, pain and the everyday
offense from brothers

flesh is noisier
than the still small voice of God
yet I will hear Him

my Lord will speak (from
His Spirit to my weak heart)
overwhelming grace

His Spirit to mine~
all the armor I will need
to silence the noise

to move on with Him
to walk fearlessly from this
glory to the next

then I will shout praise!
greater praise cannot be made
with mere mortal words!

(And yes, I realize that I do not hold to all of the rules of traditional haiku. Yay for creative license!)

We are still looking at our spiritual inventory. If you haven’t read the 8 areas we evaluated, you might want to go back and read the following entries:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 (Take your time with these! You will want to use them to get you started thinking. They are not the end all/be all of recovery introspection.)

So we’ve asked ourselves the tough questions and have a long list of answers. Maybe you journaled about it, maybe you made bulleted lists, maybe you scribbled it all out in “code” on random bits of paper. However you did it, I hope you spent some time recording your thoughts as you examined your past and present life.

The next step is to sort it all out. The CR curriculum suggests a columnar approach with headings such as: The Person, The Cause, The Effect, The Damage, and My Part.

The Person
This is the person or object you resent or fear. Go as far back as you can. Take a look at your examination questions.

The Cause
This is the list of specific actions that person perpetrated against you. What did they do to cause resentment and fear?

The Effect
How did the action affect your life? List past and present effects.

The Damage
This is where you examine which of your basic instincts were injured by this circumstance. Social (broken relationships, slander), Security (physical safety, financial loss), Sexual (abusive relationships, damaged intimacy). Remember as you do this that no matter what you have been through, no matter how broken you feel, God wants to restore you and comfort you.(See Ezekiel 34:16)

My Part
“What part of my resentment toward this individual is my responsibility?” If you ask yourself that and cannot think of your part, ask God to show you if you are still harboring denial. Ask Him to show you what your part was, as well as to bring to mind the people that you hurt and how you hurt them, in turn. As it is said: hurting people, hurt people.

That is not to say that you always have a part, however. If you have been in an abusive relationship, especially as a small child, you can find great freedom in this part of the inventory by simply writing that you had NO part, NO responsibility for the cause of the resentment. Let go of the false guilt and shame that you are carrying around by writing NOT GUILTY in that column.

My way, the Messy Version
My close friends recently labeled me as “intense” and “a deep thinker.” I always have thought a little strangely, why shouldn’t my inventory be any different? Instead of nicely packaged in columns and listed out by person or critical event I decided to do it completely backwards. For example, I chose one of the myriad of “issues” that interfere with my peace and joy. Then I would pray about it. I would ask God to reveal to me everything I needed to know about why I had that issue and how it affects me. And then I would write like a madwoman. Sometimes the A-ha! moments would come at the oddest times…in the middle of the night, driving between day care drop-off and work, sitting in a restaurant, and even sitting right there, smack in the middle of the sanctuary. But you know what? I got my answers. It’s messy but I see the big picture now in a way I never could’ve before.

Why do I tell you that? To give you some freedom in how you record your inventory. This is YOUR recovery. The important part is not whether or not you have your columns filled out (unless that works for you! then it is highly important!) The important part is that you have taken the time to reflect and have some way of recording those reflections so that you can move to the next step.

So, take some time to see how it all fits together. I bet it’s quite a story! I know with me, once I was able to see it all together like that, I truly began to see how remarkably God was already at work in my life. He is no respecter of persons, you know. What He’s done for all of us who have completed inventories, He’s waiting to do for you, too.

Today, Lord, you know I woke up with yesterday still clinging to me. It was just downright difficult. Fighting an uphill battle all day at work. Juggling phone calls dealing with that latest emotional crisis at home. Bad news here, gloomy outlooks there. Hubby sent home from work in pain again. Yesterday seriously took it’s toll on me. It was bad enough that I had to actually experience that day, but now to have it still in my spirit affecting me? I’m desperate to get out of that and get out of that fast!

I seek You Lord, in the Psalms where David wrote so much of my pain centuries before I experienced it. I see the mouth of my pit widening, teasing me, daring me not to fall. But I will not fall in without a serious fight. Read the rest of this entry »