WHEN GOD'S PROMISES AND REAL LIFE COLLIDE

I started this particular blog in July and life got in the way of posting. Today it seems even more relevant than then. Real life has been hard recently. FOR THIS WE HAVE JESUS!

When God’s Promises and Real Life Collide

Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth,

Say to the daughter of Zion, “Lo, your salvation comes;

Behold His reward is with Him, and His recompense before Him.”

And they will call them, “The holy people,

The redeemed of the Lord”;

And you will be called, “Sought out, a city not forsaken.” Isaiah 62:11-12

My best advice to people has always been, “Find a Bible verse, make it your own and hang on to it.” My next advice would be to pray. Pray when you’re happy, pray when you’re sad, pray when you think you can’t put one foot in front of the other to go on. Yet many times, if you’re like me, you may feel bad when the advice you give to people doesn’t seem like it’s working. Perhaps God has disappointed you; your prayers don’t seem to be answered. Is it wrong to feel disappointed with God? Philip Yancey wrote a whole book on the subject. It concerns many stories of real people going through literal “hell on earth” and realistically examines their plights and questions.

“Then you will know that I am the LORD; those who hope in me will not be disappointed." Isaiah 49:23  

For the Christian there are no guarantees on the outcome of a situation. As noted in Hebrews 11 the great faith chapter we don’t all see the conclusion of the things God has planted in our hearts. But we can still look with hope for the promise.

If it costs you nothing, it's worth nothing! Endurance is the

price tag of achievement. Listen, "We pray that you'll have

the strength...not the grim strength of gritting your teeth

but the...strength God gives...that endures the unendurable

and spills over into joy" (Col 1:11 TM)

          Yet even as I write this word of encouragement, I know that many of you have lost hope in perhaps your child who’s gone astray, in your life or even in your future. It is hard to hope in what you cannot see. But just take it a step at a time, a day at a time, even a moment at a time. Pray for the strength to just do the next thing that needs to be done. It may have nothing to do with the child that has gone astray or the life issue that is bothering you. The next thing you may need to do is learn to take care of yourself.

          You may have beat yourself up with guilt over the things you think you should’ve done or could’ve done that you are walking weary and wounded. Learn to be good to yourself. Treat yourself well. The commandment about loving your neighbor as you love yourself applies here. You would be kind to a neighbor, so kindly take care of yourself and those that are right before you. Try to do something each day for someone else that you don’t take credit for. That sort of living sows seeds of love and kindness that will return to you.

          There are some of you in whom the Lord would say, “the world was not worthy of them.” He would say to you that He has seen your walk of faith through the pain of living in this world. He knows you are not perfect in your endeavors but He also knows you have tried. He knows you love your child, and you, His child, are loved with an everlasting love by Him. He sees the big picture that we cannot see. He loves your child more than you can ever imagine although as a parent yourself, you feel that no one could match the love you feel. He will draw a hurting parent close. He does not forget your labor of love towards your child and to Him, your heavenly Father. Continue to hold on to His promises to you until they collide into your life.

Are You Waiting on Amends or Making Them? Dysfunctional R Us

Dysfunctional R Us/Don't want to be but it is what it is:) Maybe you are too.

Making amends  can be so many things and in so many ways. I'd always pictured it very complex which led to me putting them off. I went to seminars at a conference, took people aside, asked questions but still felt at a loss about how to proceed. Then one day recently, quite to my surprise, my oldest daughter said, "Come in with me," and in her bedroom sitting on a bed together, she said, “I'm making my amends. I'm sorry for all the things I've done to hurt you, I don't even know what all they are but I know I've hurt you. My sponsor said I don't have to be specific or make it complicated. I'm sorry. And I want you to have my seven year chip from NA.”

I looked into her beautiful eyes and saw sincerity. I saw happiness, acceptance, gratefulness and joy with her new life. I saw love. I hope she saw all those things reflected back from me.  I felt a bit overwhelmed and nearly felt  like this was unreal as it was something I had waited for, but it seemed to be some vague dream or hope. When she gave me the Narcotics Anonymous chip my tears streamed out of my eyes. She had done the hard work of staying sober for over seven years and that was priceless to me. That's something that a lot of people don't attain to.

When I first came into a recovery program I had no idea about the true work and time it takes to work the steps. I was pretty sure within the time it took for my daughter and her husband to finish at the treatment center this would happen.

I remember a day when I was visiting them that I got so frustrated that I, a person who rarely ever raises her voice, started hollering "Step eight, step eight, step  eight!" I was so clueless I even had the step wrong! Step 8 is making a list and being willing to make amends and step nine is making amends.

Then I started working the steps myself. I really wanted to just go fast and get to making amends and have it over with. But I went through some equally hard years as the reality of our life set in and life wasn’t always easy.

I’ve found out something about myself; I want to take the easy way out of so many things. As a sexual abuse overcomer sometimes I feel that life has been too hard already. Let me have some peace until it’s over and I can go be with my Lord. Just let me have a no-conflict zone, let me have serenity on earth and in my home. Let my boundaries be such that I don’t have to deal with those who might hurt me with their words. Let me love, let me laugh again, let me have happy family times and one day, please Lord, let me have that cherished family photo where we are all together and happy.

 I’m learning to take things one day at a time. Give us this day, our daily bread, our daily provision of grace. Give us peace, give us sanity, give us a caring heart, and help me not to live my life bleeding from the pain of life. Help me to not hurry the process as it is what it is until it isn't. Help me to have a grateful heart, thinking of all my blessings instead of all my fears.

Recovery from family dysfunction is a process; I'm learning that there is no one set way that these things have to be worked. I'm hoping that things can be flexible enough to take into account real life scenarios that need to happen sometimes before we thought they should happen. Does that make any sense?

Pray. Listen. Ask the Holy Spirit. Do the hard work of recovery. Be flexible and kind. Don't let anger stay with you. Forgive quickly and easily. Try not to dwell in or on the past. Pray some more and then when you feel the spirit's touch make your amends. It will make you happy and someone else happy too.

PS My daughter made amends after reading this text I think from NA book. I think it is very good:

 Basic Text, p. 41 ––––=–––– As long as we still owe amends, our spirits are cluttered with things we don’t need. We’re carrying the extra load of an apology owed, a resentment held, or unexpressed remorse. It’s like having a messy house. We could leave so we don’t have to see the mess, or maybe just step over the piles of debris and pretend they aren’t there. But ignoring the disorder won’t make it disappear. In the end, the dirty dishes, the crumb-filled carpet, and the overflowing wastebaskets are still there, waiting to be cleaned up. A cluttered spirit is just as hard to live with as a messy home. We always seem to be tripping over yesterday’s leavings. Every time we turn around and try to go somewhere, there is something blocking our path. The more we neglect our responsibility to make amends, the more cluttered our spirits become. And we can’t even hire someone to clean up. We have to do the work ourselves. We gain a deep sense of satisfaction from making our own amends. Just as we would feel after we’ve cleaned our homes and have time to enjoy a bit of sunshine through sparkling windows, so will our spirits rejoice at our freedom to truly enjoy our recovery. And once the big mess is cleaned up, all we have to do is pick up after ourselves as we go along. ––––=––––

Just for today: I will clear away what’s cluttering my spirit by making the amends I owe

Does Suicide have a Face in your Family?

• As the Lord reminded me of many scriptures today concerning hope and help for family members and online friends that I have come to adore, I wept amazed at His goodness and care.

  
  This first scripture the Lord gave me concerning a mother among us who lost a daughter through suicide; she is celebrating her first birthday in heaven. Liana will be forever 21:
  Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort. (2 Corinthians 1:3-7)

  
  

  This mother is using her pain to try to get the word out concerning bullying and that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. It is very permanent to grieving families left behind. There are many grieving among us because of losing children from substance abuse also. For those, too, we pray and commend these verses to you:)
  
  These next verses I had marked from long ago, concerning family. The first is a verse that is quoted often but there is more to glean as you read on: For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive.Jeremiah 29:11-13
  
  Our loved ones can sometimes be carried captive by many things of this world but the Lord knows how and when to bring them back to their senses. Seeking and calling with all of their hearts, is the first step, but extra prayers from others may help them to do that. Sometimes it has gotten so bad, they just can't seek on their own, and for that the Lord seeks intercessors.
  I ask that you each join me today in an unspoken prayer burden (I will join with you in yours, also, we all have those things too emotional to put in writing) for someone that I love and am very concerned about.

  
  

  http://www.facesofsuicide.com/

In The Answer to Arguments the word acceptance is the word for the day, today and every day

It amazes me when a word or phrase comes to me, and then I see just the same thing in morning devotions. Amazing again, as this very phrase had come to me, "You have seen that the hurt was not intentional but came within the principle of hurt people hurt people." as I pondered the pain in my life. I have never met or spoken to the Robinsons but sometimes it seems they have a window into my life. Another key thing is there are two destinies intertwined (“Your destinies in God are known in Hell. Satan has enjoyed sifting and is standing ready to do it again. But the Lord says, "Jesus has prayed that the hurting stop and that you use these occasions of hurt to point the way to help heal others.”) that the Lord wants to use in power and satan is so trying to destroy. All of my children and grandchildren have powerful destinies and that is why we continually seem to be under attack. Family is the heart of God and if destroyed the victory for the dark one will be major, but I stand on the fact that the battle is the Lord’s. His banner is truly love even when that love seems damaged. I may not be able to help or heal my own family but if our pain and trauma will help you on your journey, then my life in the Lord has not been in vain.

"What The Lord Is Saying Today," July 26, 2012. Someone very close has disrespected and dishonored you on two occasions recently. The hurt was raw and unredemptive. But you have survived the hurt as a stronger person in grace and forgiveness. You have seen that the hurt was not intentional but came within the principle of hurt people hurt people. Somehow that cycle of hurting out of hurt must cease. A battle has been raging in the pits of Hell over these incidents. Your destinies in God are known in Hell. Satan has enjoyed sifting and is standing ready to do it again. But the Lord says, "Jesus has prayed that the hurting stop and that you use these occasions of hurt to point the way to help heal others."

Luke 22:31-32 (AMP) "Simon, Simon (Peter), listen! Satan has asked excessively that [all of] you be given up to him [out of the power and keeping of God], that he might sift [all of] you like grain, but I have prayed especially for you [Peter], that your [own] faith may not fail; and when you yourself have turned again, strengthen and establish your brethren." Ras Robinson  

July 26, 2012. Part of the reason for your success in many things you do is that you expect so much of yourself. Most times this is a good thing. But along with high expectation, extend grace to yourself. You are a person among people and people act like people. You are not God. You are a human being. Many times you are harder on yourself than I am. I know you are to be perfect as I am perfect. I have set a high goal. But it's a goal. You and I know sometimes you miss the mark. When you do miss it, don't spend time picking yourself apart. Confess and start again.

Philippians 3:12-14 (NKJV) "Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Bev Robinson

July 26, 2012. Embrace yourself as being someone like Barnabas. His name means "son of consolation". He was the one who befriended Paul when Paul was young and vouched for the sincere change which took place within Paul. He was the one who sold all he had and put all of it at the feet of the apostles. He was sent with confidence by the church in Jerusalem to Antioch because he was highly esteemed and respected. You are a person admired by others because of your inner character traits of excellence. Don't discount yourself. You have My charisma within you just like Barnabas did. Continue to stand up and be one who comes alongside.

Acts 11:22-24 (NKJV) "Then news of these things came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch. When he came and had seen the grace of God, he was glad, and encouraged them all that with purpose of heart they should continue with the Lord. For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord." Kevin Robinson

"What The Lord Is Saying Today," © Fullness In Christ Ministries, Inc.,

Permission is granted for non-commericial use to reprint these articles in hard copy form, as well as sending them to your own email lists and posting them on your own websites. We ask only that you keep the date of the word, "What The Lord Is Saying Today," and the author's name (Ras and/or Bev Robinson and/or Kevin Robinson) intact and include this entire copyright notice.  For any other use, please contact us at: info@fullnessnetwork.net.

 In The Answer to Arguments the word acceptance is the word for the day, today and every day. And it is just what I need to apply to my life. It's a great day for Recovery in the State of Florida!

From "Grace for the Moment": Max Lucado

Get along with each other,and forgive each other. If someone does wrong to you, forgive that person because the Lord forgave you. Col. 3:13

 

Unity doesn't begin in examining others but in examining self. Unity doesn't begin in demanding that others change but in admitting that we are not so perfect ourselves. ..

The answer to arguments? Acceptance.The first step to unity? Acceptance. Not agreement, Acceptance. Not unanimity, Acceptance. Not negotiation, arbitration, or elaboration. Those might come later but only after the first step, Acceptance" Max Lucado

“Loving by Intervention”

I’m writing and encouraging others to write and help the Substance Abuse Task Force as they go to Tallahassee to speak about addictions and how it affects families. Trudy Duffy has mentioned a new website FAMM - Families Against Mandatory Minimums http://www.famm.org/ with important information.
For those who don’t know what The Marchman Act is, it is a legal procedure (free) that someone can be involuntarily held for about 72 hours in a detox facility. It puts your loved one on a priority list that bumps them ahead in the recovery system. It is named after a wonderful pastor in our area Hal Marchman whose church and reputation are big in Recovery in the Daytona Area and now all over. I’m sure Stewart/Marchman is named after him also; I looked up where it was at his request that the Stewart/Marchman foundation was formed.

But is isn’t as easy or as fast as we may think it will be.
If anyone wants a copy of my free copy of my story,
“Loving by Intervention” Please sign up as a follower of my blog: http://thornrose7.blogspot.com/ and then email me at ThornRose7@aol.com with the subject, “Loving by Intervention” with your email address and I will work on getting you a free copy (for your personal use only) this week.