Anxiety-Buster!

A few years ago, I had a very scary experience that I had never had before this point nor have I had since then. I woke up in the middle of the night out of a deep sleep and a feeling of panic overtook me! There was really nothing going on at that particular time to explain or warrant it, and I had no major decisions I was afraid to make at that point either. I had not just had a bad dream either. It is still a mystery as to why this happened.

I sat up in bed all of the sudden and my heart was racing and I felt like the inside of my entire body was literally on fire, from head to toe. I threw the covers off, turned on the fan, and turned down the air conditioning to cool off the room but nothing worked! I did not feel hot to the touch, like I had a fever but it felt like I was on fire on the inside, like I was about to spontaneously combust or something. I don’t really believe in that phenomenon, but if it was real this must be what it felt like.

After a few minutes, I began to pray out loud for God to calm me down and take this “anxiety” or whatever it was away. After about ten minutes of intense prayer, nothing was changing. It was then that I grabbed my Bible on the night stand and began to read scripture out loud. I read every highlighted scripture I could find relating to fear, God’s protection, anxious thoughts, etc. Then I came to the 23^rd Psalm and began to read it. “…Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me…” The second time through, the feeling completely went away and my body cooled completely down back to normal.

Maybe I was just supposed to be reassured that He is there with me, no matter what unexpected, scary situation comes my way. Only God knows. All I need to do is simply trust Him.

 

Shattered Mosaic

A series of broken dreams, unfulfilled hopes, illnesses, hard work and empty pockets, abuse and rejection over the years left little more than a pile of shattered glass around me on the floor. Jagged edges, different colors, different sizes appear to be nothing more than something needing to be picked up and thrown into the trash heap. Is this all that 40 years has come to?

Because I have chosen to put God first in my life, the answer is no! My story did not end with nothing but broken glass, useless to anyone. God’s word says that He makes beauty from ashes. He also says that He will never leave us or forsake us. It may take many years for us to see God’s plan for our lives, and how He will make something good out of all the bad, as it did me…44 years, in fact! This really seems like a long time when it’s our life we are talking about, but to God 40 years is like a vapor.

Five years ago, I looked back over my life and was overwhelmed by God’s grace, provision, protection and strength over the years and how He brought me through so much up to that point. What I went through could have so easily destroyed me, yet it didn’t. As I thought about these things, a big smile erupted on my face and joy welled up inside of me. I was the most grateful person on earth at that point and decided right then that I had too many wonderful things to share. I had a new passion from that point on to share all of the amazing ways God intervened in my life and made me what I was today.

At that moment I thought, “I have so many amazing testimonies that I want everyone to know about!” The question was, how could I possibly achieve this? The Lord whispered to my spirit the words, “You could write them all down,” and at moment my book “Struck Down, But Not Destroyed” was born. I then began to speak to small church groups, ladies conferences, Celebrate Recovery groups and Teen Challenge. I knew that because of all I had been through, it was only by the grace of God that I had not ended up with an addiction problem and spiral downward to the point of no return. Since then, I have had a passion to speak to various groups as God has led me to inspire them to rise above their circumstances and trust God to help them through their fears, hurts and disappointments.

I am forever thankful that God has taken all of these broken pieces of glass called my life and created a beautiful piece of art, a mosaic, out of them! To God be the glory!

Rejoicing in Trouble

Do you find it hard to rejoice and be thankful when you are going through major troubles? I sure do! That is still something I am learning gradually. It takes time to develop this “attitude of gratitude” in the middle of a crisis. How I long to be like Job, who, even though he lost his children, house, health and means of survival (livestock), he was STILL able to say, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Wow.

All I know is that when I have been thankful and able to praise the Lord even when going through a hard time, something powerful happens. An overwhelming peace sweeps over you and you almost feel as if you are lifted up over your troubles, or at least your perspective changes and you have a deep feeling that everything is going work out in the end. God has blessed me with amazing peace in the middle of some very difficult, chaotic times when I have been determined to push past all of the hurt, fear and feeling of little hope (in that situation) and praise him anyway. This is something very difficult to do on our own, however.

While things are going well, we need to continuously pray that when those times come that God will give us the determination and ability to push past all of the mess and praise him anyway (and remain thankful for all we do have). Once you try that, I guarantee the results will make it easier to do with the next difficulty or crisis you face until it gradually becomes something you do without even having to think about it.

It doesn’t have to be a long, fancy, drawn out prayer to be effective. All it takes is genuinely being able to say (or sing) from the bottom of your heart, “I love you Lord, and I am going to praise you through this! Thank you for everything you are going to do in this situation. Blessed be your name; you are worthy to be praised!” It will probably take everything within you to muster up the courage to do this, but the results are well worth the effort!

There are many promises to us in the Bible…promises that God will never leave us or forsake us, He will take care of our needs, He cares for us, He will give us strength, He will heal us and on and on and on. I challenge you to write out a few of these encouraging promises and post them up when going through a particularly difficult time that you can meditate on and claim during those times. Use scriptures that describe where you want to be and who you want to be through those times and determine that you are going to take the steps necessary to live that scripture out in spite of the mess you are facing.

One of the particular passages I used when I was going through the most difficult year of my life was Habakkuk 3:17-18 (NIV), “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the Olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, YET I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.” (Obviously you would apply this to your current situation).

As I said, this is something I am still learning. I have been through far more than my fair share of very, very difficult times. Sometimes, life is very tiring from going through all of these things all the time. However, I live day by day and week by week, trusting God to give me the strength I need to face the next difficulty, and He always does! Usually in my case, it’s more like “hold on for dear life and ask God to give me the strength to survive through the trial intact and help me learn what God is teaching me in the process.” However, I am asking for God to refine this in me so that I can say with full confidence and certainty every single time, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Forgive who???!!!!

It is only a matter of time before a friend, family member or even a spouse lets us down. Most things are easy to forgive and move past; an unkind word, a forgotten date on the calendar or a wrong look. However, other things are much harder to forgive, especially when it cuts deep or it was abusive in nature. Sometimes, those things can take months, if not years, to forgive. However, we are told in Scripture to forgive. Why?

There is more than one answer to that question. For one thing, we are all sinners and need forgiveness from God. Matthew 6:14-15 states, “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” (NIV) Ouch! I know that I am not perfect and need God’s forgiveness; how about you?                   

 

Another reason to forgive is that forgiving others sets us free! We are no longer in bondage to the anger, hurt and bitterness that the thought or sight of that person brings along with it. One way you can tell if you have truly forgiven someone is that the thought or sight of them no longer causes your skin to crawl or your anger to rise up. You have peace about the situation. You may never forget what happened, but the intense emotions no longer pull you down anymore. Believe me, I have been there, and it takes a lot more energy to be upset or hurt with someone than it does to feel at peace about the situation and person.

 When I was in a bad marriage, I had a really hard time dealing with the fact that as soon as I forgave my husband for something he did, he turned right around and did something else just as hurtful or painful! It was like a vicious cycle and at one point, I even wanted him to hurt as badly as I did because of his unfaithfulness, abuse and addiction issues. When God told me specifically that I needed to forgive my husband I thought that surely God had not seen everything my husband had put me through and He was mistaken! I was afraid that if I forgave my husband that he would be getting away with all the bad things he did and said to me.

It was a big step for me, but I was finally able to forgive my husband for everything and to this day, although we are no longer married, we maintain a decent relationship. The minute I did that, trusting that God would deal with the situation appropriately, I felt a huge burden lift off my shoulders. I was finally free from a burden I was not meant to carry!

The problem with not forgiving someone is that it will eventually destroy you, as they go on merrily with their lives without a second thought. I have seen people who are still bitter 20 years after somebody “did them wrong” and they are still very unpleasant people to be around to this day.

One thing that really helped me forgive my husband in particular, besides asking for God’s help, was that God had revealed to me that forgiveness is like an onion; it has layers you need to peel off. In my particular situation, I had to go through and verbalize all the little things I was still holding onto, forgiving my husband for each one, until I got to the core of the “onion.” As I began to “peel these layers” off, I found it getting a little easier with each layer to forgive my husband and move past these things that were hurting me. The best part was, with each layer gone, I felt a little freer and lighter!

Regardless of whether or not someone deserves our forgiveness, it is the best thing we can do for ourselves. In order to gain courage enough to do so, you may even have to think to yourself, “I will forgive you…because it will set ME free.” Watch amazing things happen when you choose to forgive! Trust me, it works! J

Ideas taken from Chapter 5, Lessons in Forgiveness
"Struck Down, But Not Destroyed"  www.storenvy.com/products/8041482-struck-down-but-not-destroyed-book