A Prayer of Loss

Dear Father,

Yesterday I stood at a greeting card display. In one hand a card for a mother who will soon birth her first child – in the other one for a friend who buried her only son today. In one hand life – the other death. The one hand is carefree – the other so burdened it can barely stand to bear the truth it confirms. The one exclaims, “I rejoice with you!” and the other whispers “I mourn.”So is life. A continual ebb and flow of coming and going. Arrival and departure. Joy and pain. We are never ready for our loved ones to leave us, whether they be fresh from You or well-advanced in years. You have set it within our hearts to long for eternity. Eternity with You and with one another.And so today I worship. Not because I rejoice in suffering but in spite of it. I worship because there is one thing I know – You have provided the eternity for which we long. Many shake their fists in Your face when loved ones leave us when in truth, You are the One who provided a way for us to never have to say goodbye. Satan came to kill, steal, destroy, and eternally separate. You made remedy through the spilled blood of Your only Beloved Son. You are the Compassionate One who understands separation because You experienced it with Your own child on that dark day at Golgatha . What was the reunion like when Jesus finally returned home? My mind wonders and anticipates….There have been so many ‘why’s’ in the past few days, so much anger for a loss friends and family can’t comprehend. Dearest Father, may the words you sent my own heart in Job be the words for this family and community I so dearly love:
“But it is still my consolation, and I rejoice in unsparing pain,
that I have not denied the words of the Holy One.” Job 6:10
If there be any consolation let it be that even when we couldn’t see, we still believed.
Come quickly, Lord Jesus. For we long.
Amen.

Look….they love each other!

Oh, how sweet! This one will be used to show them that they DID love each other one day!

I knew my boy was “big” for his age, but this is him standing among the other 4 and 5 year olds. I guess having a Daddy that is 6’3″ pretty much sets you up for being the “bigger” kid of the class.

When he is in children’s choir, the back seat of the car, at the house or the day care, he sings loud and with NO hesitation, but this time, he got quiet! Hmmmm….

Me and “My Boy” before the Cowboys game. It was COLD…so cold that I put that dorky headband around my head to keep the ears warm! Carlton had fun laughing at me, but I could have cared less, I was freezing!

This one is very random I know, but I thought it was cute. Before we left to go to Irving for the game, Rachel just wanted me to take a picture of her “stwabeddy”. Too Funny!

Timothy’s first BLACK EYE!!! Not from anyone, just a bike wreck in the driveway! He was pretty banged up. This was day 2 after the accident.

Finally, this was the night all the soccer boys got their trophy’s. Timothy was SO excited he slept with it that night….wish I had gotten that picture!

Well, hope you enjoyed! I will put the next lesson on the Lord I Want to Be Whole study tomorrow. Hope you come back!

This is our menu for the week:

Monday – Potato Crusted Cod (got mine at WalMart, will let you know how it turns out)

Tuesday – Hamburgers

Wednesday – Church

Thursday – Frozen Dinners ( I have practice for our Singing Christmas Tree)

Friday – Baked Chicken Supreme (we love this one…can you tell….it is on our menu a lot!) I have tried to find this exact recipe online but have failed thus far. I got it from this book several years ago. I might see about typeing it in my nest Menu Plan Monday.

That’s it….short and sweet!

For more menus head on over to The Organizing Junkie’s place.

If you stop by and you know I use to have you listed on the side, but for some reason I don’t now….PLEASE leave a comment and let me know!

Thanks,
Angela

I thought that was funny, Carlton thought it was disturbing! LOL

Hee Hee Hee Hee

Well, it has been over a week and I am ready to get this thing rolling. So, here comes the second part of the intro to the study.

In her book, Stormie lists 7 Steps to Emotional Health and they are as follows:

1. Release the Past: Confess to God the times you have failed and, by moving in full forgiveness, release the times others have failed you.
2. Live in Obedience: Understand that God’s rules are for your benefit and try to the best of you knowledge to live His ways, knowing that every step of obedience brings you closer to total wholeness.
3. Find Deliverance: Recognize who your enemy is and remove yourself from anything that separates you from God or keeps you from becoming all He made you to be.
4. Seek Total Restoration: Refuse to accept less than all God has for you and remember that finding wholeness is an ongoing process.
5. Receive God’s Gifts: Acknowledge the gifts God has given you and take the steps necessary to receive them.
6. Reject the Pitfalls: Avoid or get free of the negative traps and deceptions that rob you of life.
7. Stand Strong: Believe that as long as you stand with God and don’t give up, you win.

She says that these are the seven steps that she took in her own life to be freed from stress, fed properly, exercised, nurtured, retained, exposed to freshness and light, and given rest in the area of her mind and emotions.

She also says “You will be able to do the initial work on each of these steps in a week or so, but making them a permanent part of your life takes longer. However, understanding them with your mind will influence the state of your heart, which will affect your emotions and ultimately your entire life.”

In the Next Few Months (or however long): There will be information that will seem familiar, almost obvious, but don’t overlook that. There will be information that is unfamiliar. You’ve never heard it before, or you have heard it but have never applied it to your own life. Still there will be information that will be uncomfortable. This is where I have the most difficulty. You may react to it by closing the book (That was me!) or neglecting to work through the process. Whether the hurt is from scars as far back as childhood, or just last week, you can be whole spiritually and emotionally. You do the choosing. God working in you, as you allow Him entrance, makes it happen in your life.

Before she closed this chapter she wanted us to take a second look at our lives from a different perspective. Remembering her definition of emotional health: having total peace about who you are, what you’re doing, and where you’re going, both individually and in relationship to those around you.

Think about who you are. Write a description of yourself int he space below. (Be sure to include who you are spiritually and emotionally.) I am a wife, mother, teacher, friend, lover, cook, cleaning lady (when that gets done), daughter, sister, in-law, cousin, grand-daughter. I am overweight, out of shape, and unhealthy (although I am working on being in shape and healthy). I am loving, compassionate, kind, forgiving, accepting, patient, fun, predictable and at times can be angry, bitter, easily agitated and self-destructive. I am on my way out of a rut spiritually and emotionally I seem like a ticking time bomb at times.

Do you have total peace about who you are? If not, then mention ways you might want to change. No, I don’t want to be that time bomb that my husband/family has to be afraid of going off. I want and long to exhibit the fruits of the spirit, gentleness, patience, kindness, peace, humbleness and self control. I want to be so close to my Father in heaven that I know what He wants for me.

Now think about who you are in relationship to those around you: I am a wife, mother, coworker, minister’s wife, church member. To some I am Ang, to others I am Angie, and to some I am Angela. I am Gonka to my brother, Annie to my mother and Little Angie to my Dad. I am a peace maker and a sense maker. To Carlton I am at many times that time bomb I mentioned earlier.

Are you at peace with who you are in relationship to others? If not, mention below the ways you might want to change in relationship to others: Some times yes and others NO. I don’t want to be that time bomb, and sometimes I wish I was not just known as “The Youth Minister’s Wife”.

Think about what you are doing. Look back at the past week and month and year. Mention the activities that seem to consume most of your time:

• In the past week: vacation, kids, family
• In the past month: kids, family, work, church
• In the past year: kids, family, work, church

Are you at peace with what you are doing? If not, mention the ways you might want to change what you are doing in the future. Yes and No. I would like to spend more time bonding with my kids, telling them about God and showing them how He wants us to live. I want to be more serious about my job and I want to serve others more.

Now think about what you are doing and how it affects those around you. Are you at peace with the way you affect those around you? If not, mention the ways you might want to change the way you affect others. I feel that my lack of motivation is hurting those around me at work, at church and at home. It causes me to be a poor role model for my children, my coworkers, the kids in our youth group and it also causes a lot of tension and agitation between me and Carlton. No I am not at peace with this way of acting/living. I hope that prayer along with a study like this that guides my thinking in the right direction, I will be better at this. I pray that through all this my thinking will become right and I will be more in line with God’s word.

Once again, that was a lot! I can not leave you though without posting a few scriptures. Look them up then think about the promises that God gives in each of them and what they direct you to do in your life.

Deuteronomy 32:39, Jeremiah 3:22, Jeremiah 3:17, Luke 4:18, and James 5:13-15

Next time we will look at Step 1: Releasing the Past: Confessing the times you have failed and, by moving in full forgiveness, releasing the times others have failed you. Now, if you are me, that doesn’t sound all that great! I promise it will be hard, but like Stormie said in her book, “Do not forget that emotional and spiritual wholeness is a process that involves changing habits of thinking, feeling, or acting. These seven steps are not a quick fix, but a permanent way to transform your inner being.”

Till next time!

Any time there is something that is in italics then that is something that is said directly from Stormie’s book, “Lord I Want To Be Whole” or from the workbook that goes along with this book. Anything else that I might grab from I will do so online and will link to that information. How about that?

All that said, here we go!

Yesterday I mentioned to you what Stormie’s definition of emotional health was.
“having total peace about who you are, what you are doing, and where you are going, both individually and in relationship to those around you. In other words, it’s feeling totally at peace about the pst, present, and future of you life. It’s knowing that you’re inline with God’s ultimate purpose for you and being fulfilled in that.”

In the workbook there are some questions in reference to this definition. I will list them and my answers may or may not be there…depends on whether or not it is just too personal.

1. List the moments in your past that give you peace and well-being when remembering them. My wedding day, sitting on Mema’s couch while she rubbed my hand, the birth of my children, the day I went to college, when I first started going to church with Momma, hearing Grammy tell me that she DID know the Lord just before she passed away
2. Think about the moments that make you feel uneasy and agitated. List those moments. memories of Dad and my uncles fighting, memories of the rape and molestation and everything that surrounded them, all the lies, Mom and Dad’s 1st divorce, memories of certain people, other’s struggles with certain addictions, my own struggle with a self-abusive behavior
3. Look at your present. List the moments that give you a feeling of peace and well-being. hugging my children, being at church, watching my husband and children play, blogging, moments when I can be myself, when I, with the help of the Lord, overcome the urge to self-destruct
4. Look at the moments in the present that make you feel agitated and uneasy. List those moments. Making our house payment (the cost of living is much higher here than it was where we came from and our house payment makes me nauseous) when I make mistakes or forget things, when certain people are around Carlton, differing opinions on discipline at times, having not spoke to Dad since he and Mom split (back in September)
5. Think about the future. What events in the future might make you happy and at peace? List them. getting out of debt, watching the kids succeed, watching the kids come to know Christ, turning my home into that Santuary that has been mentioned in times past, having a home that is warm and inviting, getting Rachel potty trained, knowing that I CAN and WILL find peace
6. What events in the future might make you afraid and uneasy? List them. making another mistake in the checking like I made a few weeks back, looking ahead to the day that Dad and I finally talk about him and the drugs/alcohol, the overall thought of failure at something

Looking at the lists above, note the two most important events (the ones that make you feel the most uneasy and afraid) in the past, present, and future that you need to deal with as you go through this study and list them.

Wow….that was a lot for me. It took some time and some major honesty to write some of that down and there was still a thing or two that I just couldn’t write on here. You can email me if you would like and I might share, but I just couldn’t post it just yet! I’ll make my list of the two most important from the past, present, and future for ME to look at since one or two of those things might be from what I didn’t post here. You do the same.

After looking through the workbook I decided to split this introduction inot two parts. They both took some time when it came down to answering the questions she poses. And if you are as “emotionally messed up” (you notice I didn’t say disturbed!) as I feel I am, then it might take you some time to sort too!

You don’t have to post a comment that has all this information listed…you can do one of many things….journal it privately, blog it and then leave a comment letting me know so I can stop by, send me an email with it all IF you wish to share…or just simply leave a comment letting me know what you are getting out of all this so far. Just don’t leave me hangin’.

The next part will define those 7 steps to Emotional Health that I mentioned in here. We will define each of those a little then do a little more reflecting on who we are as individuals.

Look up these verses in the meantime: Proverbs 16:1, Jeremiah 30:17a, Psalm 38:8, Psalm 23:3

I will be out of school for Thanksgiving break for a week, therefore, I will not be online! So I hope you have a great Thanksgiving and I will post part 2 of the introduction when I get back.

** I am going to try to figure out how to list my labels on the sidebar so that if you only come for this study, you can go straight to them without sifting through evererything else.

Happy Healing!

Here is what I am thinking about doing. As I go through this process I want to share it with you all so I will do a lot of my journaling here. There are some aspects that call for VERY personal redponses and depending on how I feel, or how the Lord leads, I may or may not post some of those personal responses. I don’t know how to set up the “Mr. Linky” thing yet or anything, and quite frankly I don’t have that much traffic coming through here either, but I will post some of the questions from the study and you can leave a comment when you feel led to do so.

This is a journey toward emotional healing for me. I hope that if this is something you need as well that you will join me. I don’t know at what pace I will go, or how often a post will be related to this study yet, but I do know I feel led to share it somehow, so this is how I chose to share it for now.

Here is a little introduction to what will be discussed and hopefully learned!

Stormie wrote that her definition of emotional health was;
“having total peace about who you are, what you are doing, and where you are going, both individually and in relationship to those around you. In other words, it’s feeling totally at peace about the pst, present, and future of you life. It’s knowing that you’re inline with God’s ultimate purpose for you and being fulfilled in that.”

This book also suggests 7 steps to emotional health:

1. Release the Past
2. Live in Obedience
3. Find Deliverance
4. Seek Total Restoration
5. Receive God’s Gifts
6. Reject the Pitfalls
7. Stand Strong

I am going to take some time reviewing these seven steps tonight. Then tomorrow I will share a little description of each of them for you. I hope some of you, if you need it, will join me and not hesitate to comment.

Here’s to emotional healing!