Bandages in Recovery

Ending my addiction was a great gift of mercy and grace from God. I was blessed in my life to have loving people who prayed for me regularly and God answered their faithful prayers. I feel it is a gift every day to be in recovery.

However, it is not easy. I made tons of messes along the way while I was busy being a selfish addict- which all addicts are- and bandages have to be ready to apply all the time. God forgave me and I have recently also forgiven me. But, I made many bad choices that people are not so easy to forgive because they seriously hurt them. I have to try to heal relationships with my kids for one. I have given them years of bad parenting- I did my best and tried to love them but was a secret selfish addict and that always affects innocent children for years. Trying to do my best now is hard because I am not sure how to do all this while feeling everything. I have come a long way but have very far to go. I need a lot of bandaids ready at a moment’s notice and hope and am praying that my kids don’t take up addictions to temporarily mask their pain. They never last long and God is a much better, healing choice for true freedom.

I have to give myself grace while feeling very alone. My saving grace is having a relationship with the Lord. I trust Him and He takes care of me. I am trying to figure out how to do things. So I keep putting on bandaids and pray for God’s deep healing in their lives and mine as we keep going in recovery. Praise God! I am so thankful to be in recovery! God is so good!😃❤️

Wake Up Call

God scheduled my neighbor to visit us today to practice taking blood pressures for her training to be a nurse. Gladly willing to help, I was surprised at the result. High blood pressure! I checked it myself and sure enough, it was very crazy high (168/132), like about to have a heart attack high. You must understand that for me, with normally very low blood pressure (90/70), it is more significant than someone who runs a bit high or even normal. It was a shocking wake up call.

With the dog’s heartworm treatment and us having to keep his heart rate down, I have been walking very little. Also, having achieved my weight goal of losing 50 pounds, I had started cheating lately a lot and eating unhealthy and salty food, like fast food grilled chicken (which I had just eaten before she checked me) etc. and chocolate.

So I confess and now see the immediate repercussions of such gluttony on my part. And if I don’t do something about it, I will regain the weight but more importantly be disobedient in maintaining my health for the Lord and the work He has me doing.

So, I repent from those horrible and irresponsible decisions and will be eating strictly Paleo nutrition and exercising at least once per day alone- until Blue’s heartworm treatments are finished- or with my kids and with Blue when it is safe to do so. And I will continue fasting and praying on Wednesdays. So here I go… awake, obedient and proactive.

And thank you, God, for the wake up call before I did have a heart attack!❤❤❤

Meeting Imperfections with Humility

I am far from perfect. I strive for being purified by God. I am way too realistic to strive for perfection. I understand full well that is impossible with me. Not because I am bad but because I am human. I strive to live to please God and be purified by Jesus. That is it. That makes me look not perfect but restored. I still have the scuffs and dings and scars but I am a restored, refurbished work of God.

Today, I blew it and again need restoration. Thankfully, God is in the business of detail work. I became angry at a leader in the church, an intern, actually. I said true but inappropriate things about him to a coworker in the kids ministry. I should not have. My anger was just and things are not being handled appropriately, but that is no excuse for me to vent and blow my cool, which I certainly did. True or not, gossip is wrong. Very wrong. I blew it. I saddened my God and I am fully sorry. I said my apologies and prayed my confession and apology and am now in the restoration shop of God again for some detail work.

The thing is, none of us is perfect. I handle my screw ups/sins way better than I used to, however, and I am thankful to God for that. He helped me meet my imperfections with humility rather than pride. The imperfections almost always originate from pride, so to meet them with humility is the cure. It is the step of repentence back. Humility is beautiful. And anyone who says humility is for sissies has never tried it. It requires far more bravery and strength and energy than base pride. But the results are restorative and glorious.

So I wanted to share that and maybe it can help someone too. God is so very good and full of grace and generous with forgiveness. Praise be the Lord!!!❤❤❤

Character Development

What we struggle with effects our children. I have been healed by God of the crime/sin of anger/rage. God healed it because He is the only One who can do such a thing. But in my pre-healed days, my son picked up on the sin as a coping mechanism. It is brutal because I taught him that. And I know from experience that only God can heal it and my son has to be willing to let Him. He has to humbly ask like I did. And I am praying for that to happen while talking with him about it and praying about it with and without him. But I wanted to caution all you with kids’ eyes on you. They pick up and mimic and adopt our good stuff AND our bad stuff so we need to be careful. God heals though and forgives so there is hope. But just know that. ❤