I Celebrate….being a NEW creation!

Tell me once again who I am to You, that I belong to You . . . 

A song that has been touching my heart lately is "Remind Me Who I Am" by Jason Gray.  One of the great things I have learned through Celebrate Recovery is that I am no longer the person I used to be.  Jesus says I am a new creation!  Where the world has labeled me, criticized me, and condemned me . . . Jesus has loved me, accepted me, and changed me!

The world calls us, "addict," "alcoholic," "co-dependent," "victim," etc. . . Jesus calls us, "children," "beloved," "chosen people."

The world tells us we are guilty . . . Jesus tells us we are forgiven!

The world tells us to get even, hold grudges, and refuse to forgive . . . Jesus tells us that He will help us to forgive others.

The world says, "You're gonna pay for that!" . . . Jesus says, "I already did."

The world looks at us with hatred, contempt, and condemnation . . . Jesus looks at us with love, grace, and compassion.

Too often we can get caught up in how the world sees us and what the world tells us.  If we have turned our lives and wills over to God, all we need to be concerned with is how He sees us and what He tells us!

~Fellow Grateful Believer

(Borrowed from the Heartland Vineyard Celebrate Recovery blog)

Summer Furlough

{Jamie is a former CR participant at MRCC, and is now a missionary that lives in Rwanda.}

              After living in Rwanda for one year, I was writing on my personal blog about what it is like coming "home" to a familiar place, but not quite feeling like I fit. There are many new pop culture things, advances in technology and new songs on the radio that remind me that Kigali isn't really home and Oklahoma City isn't really home either. "This world is not my home."

I was surprised to hear two new Christian songs talking specifically about forgiveness. It reminded me of step 9, "We made direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others."

One song says, "Lord, it doesn't feel right for me to turn a blind eye. But I guess it's not that much when I think of what You have done...Oh, Father, give me grace to forgive them Cause I feel like I'm the one losing." (Losing by Tenth Avenue North)

The second song says, "It’ll clear the bitterness away, It can even set a prisoner free, There is no end to what it’s power can do. So, let it go and be amazed. By what you see through eyes of grace. The prisoner that it really frees is you." (Forgiveness by Matthew West)

(I love that the steps are so integrated into my everyday thinking.)

But honestly, reflect on the words of those songs. I live in a country who went through a massive genocide and 18 years later they are focused on forgiveness and can work side by side. My friend has started a fish farm in the community that her family was killed in. I was out with her one day watching the workers move huge rocks from one place to the other and she shared, "some of these people were killers. Some of these people killed my family." I asked her how she does it, how can one come to that level of forgiveness to employ people who have killed another human and some who were her family. She looked me in the eye and said, "It is only by the grace of God. I have to forgive them, because if I can't then God can't forgive me."

I don't want to be a prisoner trapped in my own un-forgiveness. I want the freedom in Christ Jesus that He offers to anyone who comes.

Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift. Matthew 5:23-24

Umwizera ishimwe,  (Grateful Believer)

Jamie

Forgiveness.

For me, the road to forgiveness has been a long one for the hurts in my life.  Each hurt has had a different path some were short and easy and others have been long and with lots of turns and twists.  I finally came to realize that forgiveness was not a light switch I just turn on and off. For me, it was a choice I had/have to choose every day. For a long time I was in deep denial about resentments. One of my biggest weaknesses/strengths is I REMEMBER everything and I tend to hold onto hurts until they fester into resentments.  A while back the lesson at Celebrate Recovery was on the idea of forgiveness.  The speaker gave an illustration similar to this:

"The prison cell was locked and the keys securely hung on the jailers belt. Now, surely, the jailer could rest since he had each offender ‘put away’ for good. But as he trudged away from the cell and up the stairs to the living quarters, the jangling of keys on his waistband constantly reminded him that he was responsible for the ones he had imprisoned.. Would the prisoners try to escape? If the prisoners did escape, was not the jailer and his family in mortal danger of retaliation? Was he sure he had locked each cell tight? Did the prisoners have friends who might try to engineer a breakout? These and many other thoughts flooded the jailer’s mind. As he sank into his easy chair, he began to realize a truth: The one who holds the keys to the prison cell is more the prisoner than the one inside the cell.

Are you a jailer? Well, yes, if there are those you have not ‘forgiven’. You may ‘hold the keys’ but the burden of ‘keeping people locked up and where they belong’ is a tiring and taxing task. You spend a lot of time and energy making sure the people who have ‘done you wrong’— some so long ago you don’t remember why— stay locked up and punished for their crime. You’re quick to remind everyone of the ‘crimes’ done to you by these offenders every time someone mentions ‘parole’. Retaliation is a nerve-racking possibility that haunts you wherever you go. Ambush could be just around the next bend in the road. You thought ‘out of sight, out of mind’ but you often review mentally the faces of those you have grudges against. When you pass a member of the ‘prisoner’s family’ on the sidewalk, a knot draws up tightly in your stomach and your eyes cut quickly the opposite way as if to avoid reality… but they know you have the keys… and you know they know.

God has always pulled at my heart when it comes to forgiveness inching me more and more toward it and when I think I have fully forgiven He has given me opportunities to really test that idea.  For the REST OF THE STORY, and to see how forgiveness has played a role in my journey,  join me Friday night at 7 PM as I share my testimony at CR. 

Grateful Believer,

Jen E.