Celebrate Recovery

I revisited CR tonight along with my husband.  It was good to be back.  Refreshing and soothing to my soul.  This time around I was not going for myself.  I went to support a sister in Christ and my husband went to support the husband, a brother in Christ and the struggles they're going through.  I guess God knew how much I needed to go and be reminded of the steps and the Serenity prayer.  To be amongst other people with hurts, habits, or hangups and worship a God who is big enough in corporate worship together unified with celebrating and struggling with the same milestones and set backs.  God used it to remind me that He is working in my family and that He is about to do great things.  Whether the turn out is good or bad based on the choices that people will have the freedom to choose, He will still be in control and I must trust Him; as His child.  The same way that I call upon my children to obey me by trusting me even when they do not fully understand because they're just not at an age or place to comprehend what I can.  So, I am leaning on my Lord, trusting in Him, and He has given me peace and hope.  I'm still tired and exhausted from only getting three hours of sleep last night.  But I have a new perspective for His mercies are new every morning; great is His faithfulness!  Oh, and thank you my dear friend and fellow homeschooling mama who reminded me that true forgiveness is forgiving people not only for their sins but for the consequences of those sins; even as it pours over and spills into so many lives around them and the damage it causes.  I'm called to forgive.

O' Restless Night

My heart is heavy, my tears are many, my soul is restless, and my thoughts are more than I can count spanning my whole lifetime.  Retracing the footsteps of my life and the impact that a certain person has had on it.  And the tears flow.  There is anger, so much anger I'm working through hoping to get to a place of forgiveness that I so desperately want to give.  There is sorrow over the seemingly hopeless life this person is choosing to live.  And there is exhaustion from feeling these feelings towards this person for so very long.
I want so desperately to forgive this person and the pain, hurt, and fear that they caused all my life.  But how do you forgive someone who doesn't want to change?  I continue to ask God that.  I continue to wrestling with Him, begging Him to help me be more like His Son.  To forgive a person who knows exactly what they're doing, doesn't see any wrong with it what so ever and continues right on doing it.  How do you forgive someone who cuts your heart into a thousand pieces over and over.  Someone who has broken your trust and respect and has hurt not only you but loved ones around you more times than you can count- but the effects of the damage is there.  It's there in the anger I have in my heart.  Here I am.  I've come to place where I find myself angry at God.  As much as I love Him and adore Him, revere Him and worship Him, I wrestle with Him too.  I'm so thankful He's that personal to me.  He's that intimate with me that I can be real with Him.  Open and honest about my anger with Him.  I'm thankful that He is a patient, forgiving and loving God who can carry me even in my anger and who stays with me even as I yell at Him in my heart. 
I'm struggling with trying to understand free will co-existing with His Sovereignty.  I'm wrestling with understanding free choice versus the knowledge that He can choose to soften or harden whomsoever heart He chooses according to His good, pleasing and perfect will.  I want so desperately to understand why my God doesn't want this person.  This person who has caused me so much pain.  Why doesn't He want this person?  Why doesn't He this person?  Why. Doesn't. He. Want. This. Person.?  Why doesn't He break this person's heart, humble them and let them to see the Light?  I'm desperate for that.  I'm desperate for healing.  For all my loved ones healing.  For their healing.  I'm desperate for life-change, I'm desperate for all the decades of damage this person has caused and continues to cause to be restored and made new.  I long to see this person as a new creation through my Savior, Jesus Christ.  I'm desperate in ways that words cannot express.  My soul groans with groans that only He can understand.  My heart is heavy, my tears are many, my soul is restless, and my thoughts are more than I can count spanning my whole lifetime.
And yet, in the midst of my inner turmoil, in the midst of my anguish and sadness, He comforts me still.  I was laying my bed at two o'clock in the morning after laying there for an hour trying to go to sleep while the tears fell on my pillow and He spoke to me through a band, Shane and Caleb, and a chorus to a song of theirs.  And it soothed my soul.  "Peace, be still.  And know that I am God."  This song written from His Word which is so powerful and peaceful and true: Psalm 46:10 "Be still, and know that I am God."  So I got out of bed, at 2:30 in the morning and listened to the song which He used to comfort me in the midst the raging storm within this broken body and soul.  And I have peace.  May this song, and His Words through this song, bring you comfort.  And if you do not know the God of the Bible and His Son's sacrificial love for you, may you come know it and be comforted by Him when your in the midst of turmoil.  -May you know His peace which passes all understanding.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R35oiiDiVOw