Let's Be Real For A Moment

Hello. I'm a grateful believer in Jesus Christ and I am in recovery from Codependency, lying, self hatred, self harm, blame, bulimia, depression and negative attention seeking. 

It has really amazed me how God has put the right people in my life, at the right times and in the right places. 

 

For the last two years, God has used Celebrate Recovery to refine me and prune my heart. He's done a lot. 

 

I'm not saying that to brag on myself. I say that to give God glory. 

 

But the thing is, I still struggle. A lot. With a lot of things.

 

My main, um...maybe I should say a big issue...because I guess only God knows if it's my main one... issue is that I seek the approval of people instead of God. I mean, it's not like a conscious choice to choose people over God. It's such a habit that I do it automatically. It's my default.

 

Not only do I seek the approval of people, but I compare myself to them. And you know what?! I NEVER measure up. 

 

And you know what that feels like?! It feels like being paralyzed. I want to move, I want to act, I want to be free and my brain tells me to, but my heart believes my fear instead of the good sense that God gave me. I don't text because I am afraid that the other person doesn't want to hear from me. I'm not friendly because there are far more interesting and likeable people for them to hang out with. And I'm not myself anyway because I am so stinkin scared. It's so stinking frustrating.

 

So life happens. And I am reminded of how fragile it is. And how trivial it can be. And my desire to be set free is renewed. Somehow it's easier to tell the voices in my head where to go. And real change seems possible or at least worth hoping and working for.

I want to live the life that God has for me. I want to be brave. I want to take risks. I want to learn from my mistakes. I want to live the life that God instilled in me the desire for.

 

So I'm starting the steps over. 

 

Father, I am powerless over my desire to please people and seek their approval. I am powerless to change my heart. I am powerless to quiet the lies that Satan tells me about my self worth. Father, I know who you are. You are good. You are MY God. You are my Provider. You are a rewarder of those who seek you. Father, my spirit wants to see You with my whole heart but my flesh is weak and sinful. Please empower me to live by the spirit and put to death the desires and habits and false beliefs of my flesh. Father, I know that you can change me. Not for my glory but for Yours. Change me Lord and I will sing your praises from the roof tops. Father, I turn my heart, my mind, my body and my soul over to your care and control. Father, please search me. Change me. Mold me. Father, I have sought the approval of people and I have done things out of a desire to please people. Father I have stifled the girl that you made me. I have kept quiet when I should have spoken up, I have spoken up when I should have stayed quiet. Father, I have lied to avoid negative reactions from others. I have lied about how I feel and what I like and who I am. Father, I have been unforgiving and judgmental. Instead of seeking to see others through your eyes, I have judged their hearts and been unloving. FAther I have been impatient with my kids and lazy about caring for my home and body. I have used food to fill the place in my heart that only You can fill. Father, I am sorry for this. I repent. Father, have mercy on me, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. I know I have sinned, my sin is always before me. I have sinned against you God and done what is evil in your sight. You are justified to condemn me, I deserve your judgment. Please place truth and wisdom in my heart. Father, thank you for discipline. Father, please create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me. Father, please don't cast me away from your presence, and please don't take your Holy Spirit from me. Please restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit. Father, please take away all of my defects of character and please search me and purge any sin in my heart or mind or soul or body. It's in Jesus name I pray, Amen.

Good Directions

Before Google or smartphones, he gave me directions. Not super precise ones, but accurate directions nonetheless.

 

I got on 360 as directed, with the intention of following the directions without fail. But, the exit he told me to take from I-20, appeared out of nowhere on 360.   

 

I felt confused and pressured to make a decision...maybe he meant for me to take this exit and he made a mistake in telling me to go to I-20? I mean, what are the chances that there are going to be two exits with the same name within a short distance?! Did I write the directions down incorrectly? Did I misunderstand? So, in my "about to pee my pants" crazed intoxication...I took the exit. 

 

About 20 minutes later, I realized that he COULDN'T HAVE POSSIBLY meant THIS EXIT, so I did the drive of shame back to 360. Went west on I-20. Got off on Green Oaks. Made it to my destination. 20 minutes late. 

 

Have you ever done that spiritually? 

 

(When I say spiritually. what I really mean is "have you ever done this in your life?" Because, as a follower of Jesus, my whole life is spiritual. Right? I'm sure that God doesn't care a lot about which brand of toothpaste I buy, but I still do it in His name and for His glory. Because as a follower of Christ, scripture tells us to do everything we do in Jesus name and for His glory. Does that meant that EVERYTHING that I do brings Him glory?! Sadly, no. But it should. And my life is calibrated with HIM at the center. I lose my way and do the wrong thing frequently...but staying on course and letting God infiltrate even the part of me that buys toothpaste is what this life is about, right?! I don't know, maybe I'm completely wrong. Feel free to correct me.)

 

ANYWAY. 

I've done this. I'm plugging along, following God's direction and trusting His faithfulness to make my paths straight, when out of nowhere a sign appears. And I relapse into trusting in MY OWN ability to discern the will of God instead of in His wisdom and faithfulness to direct my steps. I feel confused and pressured to make a decision. Do I stay on the course I'm on or take a turn? Is this the rode He means for me to take? Did I misunderstand? Am I misunderstanding NOW? 

 

I recently realized that I may have made a wrong turn.

 

Lately I've been feeling like a dirty mop. Like a dirty mop that doesn't ever take the time to be cleaned in between moppings because "there's no time". So, I am technically performing the task, but not well or sufficiently or really AT ALL. It might LOOK done, it may be better than it was. But it is NOT done in the way it should be. 

I've been doing things out of people pleasing and approval seeking instead of being called and gifted by God to do them. And I have not been taking time to recharge and allow God to restore my soul and fill me up so that I am ready and able to perform the tasks in front of me. 

 

So, I am taking a sabbatical of sorts, through the end of this year. I am taking time to discern the will of God and to just listen to HIM. To take His directions instead of trying to figure it out myself in my "pressured to make a decision and fear of the judgment of people" hysteria.

 

I understand that there are some tasks that just have to get done and they aren't necessarily a calling. But I've realized that the gifts I've been given aren't being used in the tasks I'm doing. I'm doing the things I'm doing to please other people. And I want to stop that. Because even if, at the end of my self imposed sabbatical, I realize that the things I'm already doing are the ones God has called me to, I want to approach them in THAT way instead of from a place of people pleasing and approval seeking. I want to bring the gifts that God has given me to the table instead of being a pawn who just does what she's told to do like a little robot, being afraid of rejection...because I'm operating from people pleasing/approval seeking instead of in Jesus name, and to glorify God. 

 

So there you go. Is it okay to end a blog with "The End"? 

THE END.  

Embracing Uniqueness

I haven’t baked anything in a long time. Well, I take that back. I have baked but I have baked in a time crunch just to get it done. I’ve done the sort of hurried/shoddy baking that I do when I am tired and I have a deadline.

 

I have baked brownies from a box. I have baked cakes from a box.

 

So, if you do both of those things regularly...no judgment. I just REALLY enjoy baking from scratch. And if you know me very well, you know that I prefer to not bake from boxes. (Partially because I don’t want my children to grow up and think they have to have a box to bake.)

 

I have done very little baking just because I want to in the last almost 2 years.

 

I feel like my whole love affair with baking and cooking has hit a rut.

 

Honestly, most things that I enjoy doing just for the sake of doing them have been pushed aside in lieu of other things.

 

That’s not bad necessarily, my focus has been on my Recovery and transformation.

 

But I think in all my recovering and transforming, I forgot that God gave me gifts and desires and I’m not using them or enjoying them.

 

I have a tendency toward codependency. What that means, partially, is that I pick a person that I admire and then I try to be just like them. I try to like the things they like and do the things they do. But the thing is...I can’t do that. So I just give up and feel inferior.

I feel like God has awakened me. He has brought me out of denial in this area. He has reminded me that I am who He created me to be. I don’t have to be like anyone else to be loved. He loves me just the way I am. And that’s enough.

Broken Together...Work in Progress

My first car was not a clunker. But the air conditioner stopped working. My dad took it (before it was technically mine) to the shop to get that and some other things fixed. The shop called us and told us it was fixed so we went to pick it up.

 

I got in the car and drove to a gas station across the street. I pumped the gas and then got in my car and it wouldn’t start. Nothing. Nada. It wouldn’t start.

 

Needless to say, it went back to the shop. The mechanic diagnosed the problem and after a few days, they called us again to let us know it was ready.

 

When we picked it up, it ran well but the air conditioner still didn’t work. It would blow air, but it blew hot, dusty West Texas wind.

 

So, back it went. Again, the mechanic diagnosed the problem and fixed the issue. And again, we went to pick it up. The air conditioner worked for about 10 minutes and then it stopped. Again.

 

But this time, I didn’t have time to take it back. So I lived with it.

 

A while later I took it to another mechanic...who diagnosed the problem and then “fixed it”. For about ten minutes.

 

Every time I took it in, it was in better shape when I got it back and ran better than it did when I took it in. But the problem I took it in for wasn't necessarily fixed.

 

I eventually just stopped trying to get it fixed. The car ran well and air conditioning is luxury...so I just stopped putting money into it.

 

A while after, I had trouble getting it to start. A friend diagnosed the problem and showed me how to get it to start without really fixing the problem...with the intention that I would temporarily use this method and then get it fixed when I could.

 

But my car started so I didn’t get it fixed. For over a year, before I could start my car I had to lift the hood, bang on the thing my friend told me to bang on with a long screwdriver and then run to get in the car and start it. There were times when I didn’t hit it efficiently so I would have to start the whole process over again.

 

I feel like my experience with my car is kind of what I’ve experienced in my spiritual life.

 

I identify my problems and get help fixing them. Only to discover there’s a whole other level of stuff to fix. Or I have fixed the problem on a surface level but there is an oceans depth underneath that I didn’t even know was there.

 

And sometimes I’m so excited about the growth that I don’t even realize how bad something still is. Like, it’s better than it was and I don’t realize that it still isn’t good. I grow complacent, simply because I don’t realize that it or I could be even better. I set my expectations low because I focus too much on myself and what I think I’m capable of, instead of trusting God to do whatever work He sees fit to. I think, well, this is great, better than I ever thought it could be...because I don't expect to receive really good things. I believe that I deserve livable conditions but not an abundant life. So I don't expect it. I stop allowing God to work because I don't think I can have really good things.

 

This is also true in our marriage.

 

Michael and I have been getting some counseling. And last night he looked at us and said “how on earth have you made it this long?”

 

I don’t know the answer to that. The thing is, I feel like we didn’t and maybe still don’t know how bad things have been. I mean, we’ve always known that things were bad. But, I guess we didn’t know how bad they really were. Like, you know how sometimes people who have been abused don’t realize they were abused because they thought it was normal? Like that.

 

I guess God has allowed us to see things as we were able to. And I am thankful for that. And I am thankful to know that there is something better. That God can make this new. That somehow he can find that boy who held my mints and this girl that asked him to and make us into the people He always meant for us to be and we destroyed in our sin.

Plan B?

 Asa, confronted with an inevitable battle, was overwhelmed. He loved God. Asa had purged the nation of idols and restored worship to the One True God. God had been good to him. But in the face of this battle, he didn’t turn to God. He turned to an evil king nearby. A man who didn’t love God. And who certainly didn’t work or speak for Him.

To be honest with you I can understand where Asa was coming from. I struggle with waiting. My instinct is to figure it all out for myself, and I have a hard time discerning whether it’s time to flex my muscles and get my shovel or hit my knees and lie in green pastures. Not infrequently, I go with the muscle and shovel approach.

Today I am challenged by Asa. Am I trusting God? Am I allowing Him to open my doors or am I building my own? Am I allowing God to lead me in my pursuits to shed pounds, have a meaningful job, be a nurturing, life giving mother, purchase a home? Or am I looking for a way to accomplish these things in my own power? Am I trusting in the power that brought Christ out of the grave? Or am I trusting in my own or others to accomplish what concerns me?

Father, I know you are good. You are faithful. Your eyes are all seeing and all knowing and your thoughts are infinitely above mine. Father I praise you. Please search my heart and open my eyes to the ways and areas where I am not trusting fully in You. Please help me to look to you and not to myself or other people to accomplish what You have for me. Father, I trust you to fill me with your Spirit. To shed these weights that are holding me back while I am running. I trust you to give me the job that bring you glory and as You give me opportunities please help me to say yes. I trust you to make me the mother that my kids need and I trust you to provide us with the perfect home at the perfect time. I repent of my doubts and fears. I repent of my presumptuous actions and thoughts. It’s in Jesus name I pray. Amen.

Announcement!

I have a new website and I am so excited to share it!

Check it out here. I just wrote my first blog!

The Proverbs 31 Woman Did WHAT?!

You know what Proverbs 31 doesn't mention the "Proverbs 31 woman" doing? This discovery was actually kind of shocking to me.

Proverbs 31 never mentions the "Proverbs 31 woman" reading her Bible. Or getting up at the crack of dawn to have a quiet time.

Wow. I've typed Proverbs 31 a lot. Proverbs 31.

Anyway...

You know what Titus 2 doesn't command the older women to teach the younger women? Bible reading or getting up at the crack of dawn to have a quiet time.

And you know what Hannah did while she was breastfeeding? She stayed home from the yearly trek to offer sacrifices.

I used to feel guilty when my quiet time or spiritual growth pursuit didn't look like someone else's or the way I thought it should or the way I was told it should. But you know what I've learned? I've learned that when I think of it that way, I'm completely missing the point.

Reading my Bible and going to corporate worship and praying are stepping stones to the relationship. They aren't the relationship themselves.

Imagine that you decide to go on vacation. You're going to Paris. You have to get on a plane, right? But the plane isn't Paris. The plane GETS you to Paris. And even when it lands in Paris, it's still not Paris, right? Nobody would sit on the plane and look at the Eiffel Tower from the plane window. The plane is merely a form of transportation.

And that's what spiritual disciplines are. Kind of.

They are a vehicle. They remind me. They convict me. And I should absolutely do some. Every day. But I don't think it has to look like the way I've previously believed it had to.

I would like to take the next little while to explore spiritual growth. Especially in the lives of women. I would like to delve into methods and myths and whys and how-tos.

But mostly I would like to become more aware of God's grace in this topic. Because it's there. Jesus blood covers me. Even when I get behind in my Bible reading.

Moving On

I've been blogging off and on for over 9 years.

I've been blogging here since 2009. Not always consistently, but I've posted here for almost 7 years.

I started out as The Happy Homemaker. And then switched to Wisdoms Pupil and for the past 5 years or so, I've been Stepping Out of My Boat.

I've grown a lot in the years I've been blogging. I'm really thankful to be able to look back on what I've written and know without a doubt that I have grown.

Something that I've discovered about myself is that I need purpose. I struggle to keep up with household chores that I just have to do over and over again. I forget to do them. I know that sounds silly but I am very Absent-Minded-Professorish. I would rather be working out a Biblical concept in my head or communing with God among the trees than folding clothes. I've grown in this area but I still struggle a lot.

This blog has given me purpose. It's given me a place to share things that I'm learning and thinking about. It's helped me to process those things. I've learned to use 'I' statements and to talk to people directly instead of writing a post about the situation.

This blog has been a voice for me when I really didn't have one otherwise. I tend to not talk a lot in group settings, and this blog has been a place for me to get my words out without feeling pressured and in a place where I can completely think through it before I 'say' it.

I feel like my life has moved on though. I feel like I keep trying to make this blogging thing work because it's what I know. It's my habit. It's a way to interact with people on my own terms.

But like I've said several times recently, I only want things in my life that God wants there. And I'm thinking that blogging isn't one of those things right now.

And so, I am releasing myself from any obligation to write here. I may write more in the future, who knows?! But for now, I'm moving on. This isn't something I decided today. It's been coming on for a while now. I've thought about it and prayed about it for a while and I just think this is the right thing to do for now.

Thank you for taking the time to read what I've written and to encourage me! I appreciate that more than you know!

Love,

Hannah

Personal/Family Update

God is working in our family. Isn't it amazing when it's obvious?! It is to me.

It just blows my mind that God would work in my life at all. That He would allow me to glorify Him. Not because He's not good, but because I am who I am. I have character defects and things I fall completely short in. And yet, He is working in me and in my family. 

Mind. Blown.

The kids are enjoying public school. They have awesome teachers and they are all getting to discover gifts and talents and interests. It's so interesting to see them grow. Some of them are doing course work 2 grades above their own. Some are struggling to do their grade level work. All are working hard, using whatever their level of academic talent is to the best of their ability. 

I've always wanted my kids to do better than I did academically. Don't get me wrong, I was smart. But I was lazy. Really, I want them to be responsible and do their best. 

Well, I just want to say upfront that I take absolutely zero credit for this, but they are responsible. They do their homework, they ask for help when they need it and they don't wait until it's report card time. They pay attention to their grades and if there's a problem they confront it. Immediately. 

It's an amazing experience to see them grow and work hard. 

Michael started a new job a few months ago and his start and quit times are flexible so he's been going in early so he can get off early. So he's been getting home an hour to an hour and a half sooner than he was previously. It's so nice to see him more!

About a month ago, I applied for a job. One. I have thought off and on about getting one but I made the decision that I was not going to chase one down. If God wanted me to have one, He would provide it. And He did. 

I saw and applied for the job on Wednesday around noon. I received a call around 4 that afternoon where an interview was scheduled for the next day. I was super excited but super relaxed. I only had one pair of close toed shoes and they had holes and unraveling of the stitching. But I wasn't worried because I trusted that if God wanted me to have the job, I would have it regardless of the shoes I was wearing. I also discovered that my most recent resume had been deleted from our computer and I wouldn't have time to redo it. Again, no worries! if God wanted me to have the job I would, with or without the resume. 

I went to the interview completely relaxed. I just wanted the outcome to be whatever God made it. I wanted to be sure that I was allowing God to open the doors and I wasn't building my own. 

My boss hired me within 5 minutes of the start of the interview. The hours are perfect. My coworkers are amazing. And I love my job. I basically go in there and file for 4 hours everyday. I get lost in the files and before I know it, it's time to leave. And my work is appreciated which is a HUGE blessing. 

God is also working in my marriage. Like, it's amazing. We are connecting like never before. God is obviously working in us and in our marriage.

Last night I lay in bed just thinking about how good God is. Not because everything in our life is easy or good. We have our problems. I still struggle with negative thinking and a host of other issues. But He is good. And He's working in us. In me. And you know how amazing and mind blowing that is?!?!?! There are just so many things going on and we are growing in ways that are absolutely not possible without God's hand.

In the last year, I haven't always been confident that I and my marriage were redeemable. I wondered if I could change and if our life could really be different. But it is. It really is and I am just sitting here in complete and utter awe of God's grace!

He's been so good to me!

Beautiful words written by someone else...

"Christmas art depicts Jesus' family as icons stamped in gold foil, with a calm Mary receiving the tidings of the Annunciation as a kind of benediction. But that is not at all how Luke tells the story. Mary was "greatly troubled" and "afraid" at the angel's appearance, and when the angel pronounced the sublime words about the Son of the Most High whose kingdom will never end, Mary had something far more mundane on her mind: But I'm a virgin!
       Once, a young unmarried lawyer named Cynthia bravely stood before my church in Chicago and told of a sin we already knew about: we had seen her hyperactive son running up and down the aisles every Sunday. Cynthia had taken the lonely road of bearing an illegitimate child and caring for him after his father decided to skip town. Cyntiha's sin was no worse than many others, and yet, as she told us, it had such conspicuous consequences. She could not hide the result of that single act of passion, sticking out as it did from her abdomen for months until a child emerged to change every hour of every day of the rest of her life. No wonder the Jewish teenager Mary felt greatly troubled: she faced the same prospects even without the act of passion.
       In the modern United States, where every year a million teenage girls get prengnat out of wedlock, Mary's predicament has undoubtedly lost some of its force, but in a closely knit Jewish community in the first century, the news an angel brought could not have been entirely welcome. The law regarded a betrothed woman who became pregnant as an adulteress, subject to death by stoning.
       Matthew tells of Joseph magnanimously agreeing to divorce Mary in private rather than press charges, until an angel shows up to correct his perception of betrayal. Luke tells of a tremulous mary hurrying off to the one person who could possibly understand what she was going through: her relative Elizabeth, who miraculously got prengant in old age after another angelic annunciation. Elizabeth believes Mary and shares her joy, and yet the scene poignantly highlights the contrast between the two women: the whole countryside is talking about Elizabeth's healed womb even as Mary must hide shame of her own miracle.
       In a few months, the birth of John the Baptist took place amid great fanfare, complete with midwives, doting relatives, and the traditional village chorus celebrating the birth of a Jewish male. Six months later, Jesus was born far from home, with no midwife, extended family, or village chorus present. A male head of household would have sufficed for the Roman census; did Joseph drag his pregnant wife along to Bethlehem in order to spare her the ignominy of childbirth in her home village?
       C.S. Lewis has written about God's plan, "The whole thing narrows and narrows, until at last it comes down to a little point, small as the point of a spear--a Jewish girl at her prayers." Today as I read the accounts of Jesus' birth I tremble to think of a the fate of the world resting on the responses of two rural teenagers. How many times did Mary review the angel's words as she felt the Son of God kicking against the walls of her uterus? How many times did Joseph second-guess his own encounter with an angel--just a dream?--as he endured the hot shame of living among villagers who could plainly see the changing shape of his fiancee?
       We know nothing of Jesus' grandparents. What must they have felt? Did they respond like so many parents of unmarried teenagers today, with an outburst of moral fury and then a period of sullen silence until at last the bright-eyed newborn arrives to melt the ice and arrange a fragile family truce? Or did they, like many inner-city grandparents today, graciously offer to take the child under their own roof?
       Nine months of awkward explanations, the lingering scent of scandal--it seems that God arranged the most humiliating circumstances possible for his entrance, as if to avoid any charge of favoritism. I am impressed that when the Son of God became a human being he played by the rules, harsh rules: small towns do not treat kindly young boys who grow up with questionable paternity.
       Malcolm Muggeridge observed that in our day, with family planning clinics offering convenient ways to correct "mistakes" that might disgrace a family name, "It is, in point of fact, extremely improbably, under existing circumstances, that Jesus would have been permitted to be born at all. Mary's pregnancy, in poor circumstances, and with the father unknown, would have been an obvious case for an abortion; and her talk of having conceived as a result of the intervention of the Holy Ghost would have pointed to the need for psychiatric treatment, and made the case for terminating her pregnancy even stronger. Thus our generation, would be too human to allow one to be born."
       The virgin Mary, though, whose parenthood was unplanned had a different response. She heard the angel out, pondered the repercussions, and replied, "I am the Lord's servant. May it be to me as you have said." Often a work of God comes with two edges, great joy and great pain, and in that matter-of-fact response Mary embraced both. She was the first person to accept Jesus on his own terms, regardless of the personal cost."

--from The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey

Imperfect

John the Baptists birth was a miracle. His mother was an old woman and barren when she was told she would have a child. His father became mute until his birth. He leaped in his mothers womb when Mary, pregnant with Jesus, walked into the room. John ate locusts...that's commitment right there. He baptized Jesus and saw the Holy Spirit descend on Him and heard God's voice declare that Jesus is His beloved Son. He declared the truth to Herod, despite the obvious danger in doing so.

His entire purpose in life was to prepare the way of The Lord. His whole life is wrapped up in Jesus.

And yet, at one point he sends his disciples to Jesus to ask if He is The One.

That is mind blowing to me.

He was human. He had moments of uncertainty.

Sometimes I think of people like John the Baptist as super human. If God chose them they must have been a lot better than me. And I'm sure he was/is...but I think it's kind of important to remember that the people that God chose were human.

Moses didn't get to enter Canaan but he got to hang out with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. Jacob was a jerk but he was the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. Judah was apparently a flaky womanizer who didn't keep his commitments and whose daughter in law knew would hire a prostitute.

What if you knew a man who had slept with prostitutes? Would you trust him with ANYTHING?

Nowadays it seems like we only deem people who are seemingly perfect as fit for Kingdom work. But guess what?! Nobody is perfect. Those guys you think are perfect could very well be mired in some secret sin...or pride. Pride is not any less a sin than sleeping with prostitutes. And since it's less quantifiable, it can fly under the radar...which is dangerous.

We preach sermons about these men and learn lessons from their lives...but if someone just like them showed up in our midst how would I treat them? Would I get angry if they lead a public prayer or gave a lesson or lead a song? Or did any actual, real Kingdom work?

In a lot of my experience, not always, but a lot, when a man commits adultery and then repents, it's like he has a mark on his back the rest of his life. We never forget. We never trust him again.

But a man who committed adultery and then murdered someone to cover it up is called "a man after God's own heart". Not because he did those things, but he repented and loved God.

All I'm saying is, these men who we respect and hold up as examples were not perfect. They had doubts. They needed reassurance and sometimes outright rebuke.

Give these men another name and imagine them walking into a church service. How would we treat them?

One of the things that I love about Celebrate Recovery is that it's a safe place to confess sin and deal with it. It's not just a place of wishy washy people where we all sin and ignore it for the sake of acceptance. We confess sin, we point it out and we help each other overcome it. It's not a gossip fest or critical atmosphere. It's an open, honest and transparent atmosphere. We learn to be safe people. But safe people aren't passive people, safe people confront sin when necessary, but they do it for the sake of the sinner...not to make themselves feel better or superior.

The whole church should be that way. We shouldn't need Celebrate Recovery. We should all be safe people who help each other overcome sin.

Let's stop judging and holding grudges and love each other enough to take care of ourselves so we can help others. Let's be like Jesus.