GIVE THANKS

Give Thanks

We were at the dinner this afternoon after church that the Nazarene Church in Castle Rock, WA  puts on every year for Mountain Ministries staff, volunteers and those in the program. It is a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner - all home made stuff... and served with laughter and love.  Doesn't get any better than this.

There were four young women sitting across the table and to my left who were beautiful and totally acting age appropriate for older teens. They were just a joy to watch because they were so "normal".   If you had plunked them down into any high school cafeteria all seated together you would never dream they were in the program for addiction here.  I thought I recognized 2 of them but couldn't come up with names.. so I asked Julie (sitting across from me) who they were.

She named them in order... I didn't know the 1st or 3rd ones. They were recently in the program (entered while we were gone this summer.) The 2nd one graduated a year ago but has come back for a tune up.  She got back into addiction so she came back into the program.  Graduates don't have to come back for a full year. they can come back and just stay as long as it takes for them to be grounded and strengthened.  The 4th one has been here a year and is close to graduating.   I was shocked at the change in her.  She had changed so much from just 3 weeks ago that I did not recognise her at all until they told me who she was.  

OF COURSE I knew who she was then... I had taken her photo many many times.  She came in off the street last November, pregnant. homeless.  Her parents would not even come visit her.  She had been kicked out of their home by her folks.  Her mom was done with her. She was sitting, begging outside a grocery store in Portland and one of our graduates saw her, talked to her, found out what the deal was and then brought her here.  She had zero self esteem then.  Zero.   She wanted pics of her belly (side view) through the pregnancy so every month I took pics and saved them for her.  She wanted to send them to her mom but she never gave me an email address so I just hung onto them. (Those in the program are not allowed to use cell phones or go onto the internet without permission.)

Just before we left on our trip, I took mother's day photo's of the mom's with their children.  I took photos of her with her baby and had them printed out for her before we left. 

 We came back from our 8,300 mile, five month trip, in early October and i noticed she was still here.  The baby was doing fine. She looked about the same as I remembered.  So what the heck happened between the first couple weeks of October and now??  I said that to Julie... Cause she looked and acted like a whole new person. Julie said that it finally clicked and she accepted Christ as her Saviour about three weeks ago.

This young girl was just glowing from inside.  She wasn't shrunk in a corner now. She was out in the middle of the room laughing and talking with such joy it was something to behold. She also had a new haircut and had changed her hair color... but she would have glowed anyway. Christ was just beaming out of her.

Going into a program, even this one, does not guarantee that kind of break through.  I've see it happen a few times but not every person going through a year here comes out that way.  But I think the more that a person has gone through, the greater the change in them when it does happen.

I was raised Catholic and thought I knew all there was to know.  My first introduction to Christianity was in 1980 when we were living close to Erie, PA.  I was so homesick for Illinois and my horse (sold him to a friend before we moved) that I got a job on an appaloosa breeding horse ranch.  They had four studs and about 50 mares.  In the good weather months they ran a livery stable so horses had to be groomed and saddled for who ever showed up to ride on the trails by the hour.  This lady that hired me had a Christian library in her home.  I started reading a few books on people that had been through horrible things and then found the Lord.  Horrible things like air plane wrecks, fires, and accidents that took their abilities away in one form or another.   Here is where I first read about Joni Eareckson Tada  She was diving and hit her head and broke her neck... went from healthy to paralyzed in an instant.

Those books inspired me but they didn't make me realize I needed to do something.  I was Catholic.  I'm in the club already... The Pope's batting for me... 

Then I met Lou.  We were married in a Methodist church in Elgin until my 1st marriage was annulled... and then the plan was to get married in the Catholic church because I wanted him "in the club", too.  But in between our wedding day... 9/5/87 and any Catholic church wedding we started attending Elgin Bible Church.  I think we attended six or seven weeks before I realized a few things.  I asked Christ into my heart in November and was baptised by immersion in February in that church. I'm pretty sure that I was glowing after I accepted Christ.  In fact, the MOMENT that I accepted Christ I know for a fact that I was changed.  

I had all kinds of bitterness, anger, frustration, low self esteem,  you name it... I was carrying all kinds of stuff on my shoulders about what I had been through from childhood to then. I just thought that's how it had to be.  This was normal.  This was life. You push it down deep, grit your teeth and deal with it alone.

 Not so.  It didn't have to be that way.

For some, it's a journey.  For others it's instant.  Whatever and however it happens, it's like being born again.  No other way to describe it. You go from being boxed in from the suffocating weight of burdens to being able to fling your arms wide, release the weights and breath.

Churches have changed. Some teach from the Bible and others teach from some other source so I'm not even suggesting you need to attend a church to find Christ.  Christ is where you are.  He's there.  Waiting.  

Now, don't go thinking about all the bad stuff that happens and God doesn't do anything to stop it so there isn't any God.  You can't equate bad stuff happening to God doesn't love you.  I won't even discuss that.  If you have Christ in your heart.. you know the answer to that bad stuff and if you don't have Christ in your heart, no amount of explaining is going to give understanding to it.

If you want Christ in your life.  If you want Christ in your heart.  You just ask Him.  Right now. Ask Him to come into your life and into your heart. and then every day, just remember that you asked Him and trust in that. BELIEVE that He's going to do it.  Little by little you'll start to see Him in this and in that... you'll be amazed what you will see once you start looking.

  Keep a journal.  You'll start to see changes in yourself.  In your thoughts.  and begin to read the Bible to find out as much as you can.  Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you.  The Holy Spirit is the comforter and gives understanding.   You won't find Christ in a church. You will find Christ within yourself.  WE are the church.  Believers are the church.  It's not a building.

About that pain, frustration and anger thing.. some of those may never go completely away.  But if you have Christ in your heart...  you won't be alone trying to deal with them.

Sometimes the Lord gives us stuff to deal with so that we seek Him out, realize and never forget that we need to cling to Him to get through that stuff.

I'm THANKFUL for a lot of things.  My husband, my son, my daughter-in-law and the grand children are on my "PRAISE GOD FOR THESE" list but I could sum it all up in one word... "EVERYTHING".  Everything I have. Everything I am.  Everything I once was and am now..  I owe it all to God. 

 Thank you, Jesus for your gift of salvation.  Thank you, Lord, that Your love for us is NEVER ENDING.  I hope I never stop living my life in gratitude for what You gave to me, what You are doing for me, what You are giving to me, right now, Lord.

 Thank You.