Fri, 25 May 2012 13:26:32 -0800WeeblyMon, 13 Feb 2012 15:16:10 -0800http://www.allaboutthecross.org/1/post/2012/02/whats-in-your-trunk.htmlWe All Got Baggage
Man talk about fighting on if I should write something about this? It really isn't so much about the baggage we all carry with us, because we all do. If you say you don't then, wow can you say “DENIAL?” I am coming out of the closet a little here.....this is some more person stuff that some folks would not want to hear, some folks would not want you to read and some folks might and try and some how use this against me....But we need to talk.

At some point, it is like the “Elephant” in the room that we all have tried to talk around.....but I got tired of talking around it and so I wanted to talk about it, address it, look at it as it truly was, as it truly is! 

As I continue to read about and hear about all the stuff that is being brought up about a college and all the finger pointing, the reports of abuse, made me feel I needed to write a few things. I hope as you read you will see how I can say what I say. You will see where all this stuff we are hearing about is coming from, or maybe part of the cause and and the real answers are!

These are some of the “Elephants” in my room

1. Anger

I believe part was the way I was raised.....not saying anything bad about that, I am grateful for my parents! But the way I was raised, was a product of the way my parents were raised. My parents loved me probably better than the way they were taught to love. However in our house, NO ONE disrespect my dad. I saw anger, physical and verbal stuff....today it would be consider abuse, and you DID NOT do anything that would disrespect “His wife”. I remember I got caught skipping school and mom went to smack me and I just caught her hand and stopped her, wow when dad heard about it, he went to hit me and asked me if I wanted to try and stop him, however some folks would view spankings as abusive too. So there is where some of my anger came from. Advents of my childhood. Anger became a coping skill.

2. No Self Respect, No Self worth 

I had to admit and come out of DENIAL and come to terms of my childhood. Here is a very touchy area for some folks. I was touched inappropriately, I was molested, it was beyond kid experimenting. It was being forced to do things and to see things and be involved in things that a child should never be around or subject too, somethings an Adult should never be involved. This started when I was 7 years old and lasted until I was 10 or a little. Here is what I got out of that....

No self respect!

 So it was OK for me to not respect myself, but it was not OK for you to be disrespectful to me, make sense? I carried this with me until I was 38 years old when I came out of the denial and got help pulling that out of baggage! I did things that was very clear I had no Self respect and very little for others,

No self worth! 

I had become to believe that the only purpose for me, was for others to abuse. I was a needy person looking for other needy folks to prey on. I would get my self worth from Alcohol, that worked for a while, I picked up smoking cigarette addiction at the age of 12.

I started smoking pot and that worked for a little while and then I moved to other drugs. I validate myself through relationships, if you liked me, I would feed off that; that would work for a while and then I would move on. Porn was something that you had to go get at the store and it also worked for a while......it is amazing the things we can get addicted too, or what our new "normals" have become. 

It is only through the Grace of Jesus Christ and Christ based Recovery Programs that I now have years of sobriety. It was the willingness of believing Jesus was and is who He says He is. It was that "Mustard Seed" faith. That works for me and works for all the folks that God has allowed into my path, I continue to see HIM showing off, because Jesus is in the Recovery Business Today!

There are a lot more stuff I could write about here, and I don't know how much of this might actually make it in to the blog. These issues just because we can't talk about them, does not mean they did not happen.........to you or to me, they are just as real! Just because we might not be hearing about them on Sunday mornings in our S.S. Class or the sermons, does not mean they don't exist, does it?

So there must not be any problems out there....

Look at what is being played out in the news. According to The National Sex Offender Public Web site (nsopw.gov) reported in 2009 that only 30 percent of cases are reported to authorities. That means more than two-thirds of abuse cases are not reported.

One of my favorite Scriptures in the Bible is Jeremiah 6:14 (TLB) says “You can’t heal a wound by saying it’s not there!” Other words I had to come out of the denial that it happened and become willing to turn it loose. Lots of Prayers, But where to send it?

Our hurts and habits and hang-ups, all our baggage is not about a religion.....a religion might work briefly....... a relationship with Jesus Christ works always! It was and continues to be a relationship with Jesus Christ that saved me and saves me. I believe HE existed and HE loves me and HE wanted to take all this away from me. I started to believe HE would turn all this around, not erase it, however take it and use it for HIS glory and HIS honor.....I believe HE promised that in Romans 8:28?

How did it turn around, I very special person, who was a lay person at our Church who had passion for Jesus and a Compassion for others.....she helped me. She starting pulling and asking questions and had me reading Psalm 139

3 times a day. It was with these folks help, from Church....that help me realize I had buried my past hurts, I never forgot about those hurts, I masked them!

Thank you Linda H. I will forever love you! Thank you for allowing me to see Jesus through you!

Jim C, thank you brother for never giving up on me.....for seeing past the past and believing in me.

Thank you JoJo....even when I was not honest (I lied to my Pastor and made him cry)with you, you never gave up...

Folks the Elephant in the room is hurting our children! We, the people, the parents, the community, the Church have got to start to address these issues.....LOOK at all the more baggage it is causing....it's not going away, it's getting worse.

This is creating more hurt people, but our children are growing up lost and hurting.......Hurt Lost People Hurt Lost People! Hurt People Hurt People!

Abuse of any kind is not from GOD. Its from satan! How do I know that? Well if whatever we are going through, whatever we are doing, if you can't see Jesus in it or doing it.......then it isn't from up above.

See I do talk about addictions......drugs, alcohol, porn, eating, gossip, smoking, anger, fear.....just a few, however I talk about life.....we are either in something, going into something, and/or coming out of something, right? Because as long as we are taking in air, we have junk in our trunk!

I just got tired of trying to fix all this junk myself. So I went back to the manufacturer of me and asked HIM for help. In those areas of forgiving the folks who hurt me? I had to become willing to forgive first and then Jesus showed me how. HE told me that stuff was still allowing those folks to have the power over me, just as if they were still doing it.

I had to believe HE really loved me. I had to believe that the Bible was HIS Word, the Word Of GOD. I had to believe in scripture like Matthew 11:28 where Jesus said "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” that meant me too, and especially you!

I found out Jesus Christ has value for me.....that is where I am getting my self worth from! Jesus Christ is the Answer! HE is the Answer for all this stuff, we need to turn back to HIM.

These are my views and yours is always welcomed!

Please know this, Jesus does love you and HE cares so much about you and Longs to be in a relationship with you!

If you need help, just ask....HE is easy to be found. Your Church, Your Pastor are there....I am easy to find also.


]]>Fri, 10 Feb 2012 19:39:34 -0800http://www.allaboutthecross.org/1/post/2012/02/whats-this-new-normal.htmlI have so often thought about the way things work, haven't you? As a kid, I can remember tearing things apart and then trying to put them back together again. Sometimes, I could and sometimes it just did not fit back together. I would start with simple things, only to realize once I torn into them, they were not that simple.

This world we are living in, is like someone made the decision to tear it apart and it has not been put back together. I know Adam and Eve in the garden went against God and that changed that and brought evil into more and more of this world. The choices we all make, the things we do with our lives, wow! We get so lost we can't find our way back. What happen to the old normal and this new normal was sub standard back then, but now it is the new normal.

See some folks have had their lives torn apart and they haven't figured out how to put it back together or it just doesn't seem to fit back?

Some where we have gotten re wired from God's master wiring plan. It is like we woke up one morning and made the decision to tear our wiring out and started running jumper wires every where.....not at all like GOD designed us. We begin to realize it hurts less this way?

As a person who is in recovery, I too forget how my thought process use to work, the addict's way of processing things, or our way of coping with things. I felt for some reason as I am sitting here at 2:41 am on a Tuesday Morning the need to explain this?

When things got tough.....I walked out!

When life happened....I walked out!

When things did not meet my expectation, I walked out!

My way of coping was to exit....not to stay and work it out, but leave! So how do we leave?

I would pick a fight with Kay and then you see I could justify almost anything. See now it's not my fault, it's her's. She pushed me too hard, life pushed too hard, so I am out of here, I don't have to stay for this.....I am the problem....

We pick things to numb ourselves.

We drink 

We take drugs, legal drugs can mess you up too!

We have sex

We act out with ourselves

We spend money

We play games

We gamble

We over eat

We smoke

We lie

We steal

We cheat

We work

and this list goes on and on!

We were not wired that way. The Bible says were created in HIS imagine....I don't see our Maker having these issues do you?

But when we do come out denial of it all, why then do we not choose to turn back to HIM, Jesus Christ?

What is one of my greatest fears? Getting a call in the middle of the night and I can't fix it!

I see it everyday! People with great hopes and then something happens and they can not deal with it, they choose not to work the tools that they have learned and pow, there goes their sobriety...we see it too many times.

What Tools?

Jesus Christ!

The Word of God.....I never acted out why I was reading the Bible!

Prayer....I never acted out when I was Praying!

Calling someone as an accountability partner of the same gender!

Never staying up late at night alone.

Hanging out with the family.

Staying away from all old playmates.

Started learning the things that trigger us.

Going to Christ based and center recovery programs.

Church

Small Christ Share groups

See changing the wiring or re-wiring by getting rid of all those jumpers wires. Allowing Jesus to come in and start turning our lives over to HIM. See Jesus can work on ALL Hurts and Habits and Hang-ups.

There are a lot great recovery programs that are Christ Based.....find one. If you need help finding one ask Kay or I and will be glad to help.

]]>Sat, 03 Dec 2011 09:01:01 -0800http://www.allaboutthecross.org/1/post/2011/12/what-if-the-church-did-pray.htmlCasting Crowns has a song out called "What if the church Prayed", what could happen? What would happen? 

Could the church change the world? I believe so. If we who call ourselves "Christian" actually did Pray without ceasing and if we really treated others as we were instructed to by Jesus, wow what a difference we could make, what an impact we could make, what an example we could be!

Go with me on this for just a moment. If we loved others as we love ourselves and treated other the way we want to be treated, expecting nothing in return, instead of "what's in it for me" attitude...would that make a difference? 

This a tough thing to do, but first I believe we must be willing too first and I believe God would honor that, what do you think?

One of the first Bible verse I learned was Luke 6:31
"Do to others as you would have them do to you."

Maybe it just too late? What if we as "Christian" put half the energy we spend on complaining or being negative and prayed or moved each day closer to that "Light in the mist of a dark world" that we are suppose to be? Just half? What would happen? What could happen?

How did you vote? When we vote, how do we vote? Did you vote based on your Christian Values or hoping it might put more money in your pocket? 
Did you vote for the right to live for unborn children or because of the extra change you thought 1 person would put in your pocket? Did you vote on color of ; money? Skin? Folks there is but 1 color and that is the color of Jesus' Blood! There should only be 1 value if we are to call ourselves followers of Christ, am I wrong here?

Well maybe you do treat people like you treat yourself and just maybe you do love people like you love yourself, but what if you don't love yourself? Can we give what we do not have? A Lot of us need to spend months in Psalm 139 and see real love and learn how to love ourselves, then Jesus will show us if we truly ask Him too, He will show us how!  

Did you know that Jesus told us if we went to the alter to make our offering and we realized that our brother has something against us or we have something we are holding against our brother, that we are to leave and go makes amends, ask for forgiveness before we leave our offering? We ask God to forgive us when we do not offer forgiveness? Isn't that kind of messed up? Half the step here is to be willing to forgive and ask God to help and He will.

Dr Tony Evans said this and I believe it more than ever now; 
"we may have all come over here on different ships, but we are all in the same boat now!"

Just my thoughts for this moment.

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