"I'll Always Love You and I'll Never Leave You"

            "I’ll always love you and I’ll never leave you.” He said it and yes I had heard it before, but this time it would be different, this time I knew it would somehow be different. I don’t know why I thought for a second that anything would be different, after all, everything  was happening just as it usually did. Why did I think something was going to be different?

Nothing changes unless something changes.

       I have taken longer to post than usual and I am sorry for that. God has been guiding and leading me about what to write and share and it is going to get more personal so I had to really seek Him about specifically what to share and how to talk about such “tender” issues.

     My heart is to share and not only in doing so continue to heal wounds and scars of my own past, but also to hopefully, maybe, touch another’s life and help them find some hope through my story.

     I have said a few times in past articles that people can be addicted to people—the secular world and the addiction “specialists” call it codependency. Whatever you want to call it, it is an unnatural desire for another person to the point that it becomes interruptive to one’s ability to function, thrive and grow.

       “I’ll always love you and I’ll never leave you.” He said it and yes I had heard it before, but this time it would be different this time I knew it would somehow be different. I don’t know why I thought for a second that anything would be different, after all, everything was happening just as it usually did. Why did I think something was going to be different?

      He had come into my life talking tales of love and happiness as though they were something he knew anything about. And I hungered and thirsted for something, someone, enough to believe what he was telling me. The word tales here has a double meaning which fits what I’m referring to—a tale is an account or description of something (the great life he was promising), and a tale is a little fib or lie (the not so great truth that he wasn’t promising).  Over the years this would come to be my story and it would not be specific to any one man, but in fact a few men.

      I must say at this point I was not addicted to sex; however, when you have self-esteem issues as a young woman who didn’t have many or you had lacking or nonexistent healthy relationships with men you will begin to get your identity in sexual relationships in hopes that someday one of them will finally “notice” YOU and subsequently fall madly in love with you. In reality it doesn’t work like that—instead the more you give intimately of yourself the more your self-esteem is shredded to pieces. There is nothing more damaging to your self than to have given your most intimate parts to someone only to have them not want you anymore—ouch! That is pain that goes deep. I know. This is how damaging it is, the bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 6: 18 (NKJV), “Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.” It is damaging to the very core of who we are.

     I spent most of my young adult life being addicted, codependent or unusually, abnormally attached to men. Not necessarily any specific man, I mean, if any certain one stayed around long enough to make the unusual attachment more intense and “love like” to me then I would think, feel, or surmise that yes indeed he loves me and he might be one that was a little more difficult to get over when the time for leaving me came, but that is the only specifics about it. And of course, there was never any doubt that it was love that I was experiencing even though I really had no idea what love even was.

      I am sort of like the Samaritan woman at the well. Read the (true) story in John 4:7-29. I have been married four times. I was married the first time when I was only fourteen years old and I was honestly only in love with one of my husbands. Even that love, I would come to find out 5 years later, was not the kind of love I needed and I finally realized I didn’t want it either.

      I was on my fourth marriage and I was just figuring out a man can’t make me happy and this guy loves me the best way he knows how, it just isn’t enough for me.

     If we have never fully known love we will look for it almost anywhere, yes, sometimes even where we have already looked and not found it. And we will think and feel that emotions are somehow connected to real, true love. Yes, we can and should have emotional feelings for people we love and care about, but having feelings for someone does not mean we love them and it certainly does not mean they love us!

     I didn’t want this to be a lesson on love because everyone is an expert and really no one knows what they are talking about, unless they are talking about God’s love. God’s love is agape love which means it is unconditional love, there are no strings attached to it and you don’t have to pay a price for it.

     The world’s idea of love or the love that our flesh is familiar with is a love that always costs someone something. It is painful in its very nature and we only think or feel that someone loves us if we hurt either when we have it (love), or if we suddenly don’t. Codependent people become so familiar with the abuse and or neglect from others that when they don’t have it they feel as though they can’t go on. They “feel” unloved.

     Love is not a feeling. We have all heard this a million times, but people who have never known God’s agape love and who are codependent don’t seem to be able to separate the two.

     Even though I finally got over my thing of needing a man in my life, it wasn’t until I let God be the thing I needed that I finally felt fulfilled. He is the only man I need in my life and I have been set free from getting my identity and sense of worth through a mere man.

     Isaiah 54:5-6 (NIV) “For your Maker is your husband—the Lord Almighty is His name...The Lord will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit—a wife married young, only to be rejected.” I have clung to these scriptures because they are my story. I was married young, rejected and abandoned by so many men who said to me, “I’ll always love you and I’ll never leave you.” Jesus is the only one who can say that statement to us and mean it! He is the only one who cannot (if we have accepted Him as Savior) ever leave us and if He went to His death so we could have life—He really, truly, with no strings attached—loves us. Think about that for a minute, before He knew we would accept Him, He still died for us, and He knew that some would never accept Him yet He died for them also.  I believe that qualifies as real love.

     I began in my life to let My Savior “court” me, and in turn, I am courting Him. Yes, guess who I finally “let” fall madly in love with me? My Savior, the lover of my soul.  I talk to Him like I would a husband, and I talk to Him like a close friend, because He is. I tell  Him everything and if I get too lonely I ask Him to bring healthy people into my life and He does. Jesus is my everything and my all! 

     I have been happily and joyfully in a committed relationship with Jesus Christ for years now, and I have never been happier. I have been single and without a man of many tales for over 10 years now, and I am truly blessed. The wonderful thing is that I can take what I have learned and am still learning about my relationship with Jesus and make it the center of any and all of my relationships and they will be better because of it.

     Jesus longs to know me and I long to know Him. If I miss a day of prayer with Him I truly miss Him, and feel lonely for Him! I can’t wait to get my heart connected with His and it is a relationship I treasure and want to nurture and have grow. His words are “love letters” to me and I read it as such. His word teaches me about His Ways and His Heart and guides me on how to open up my heart and my ways to Him—just the way a healthy, vibrant relationship should be.  

     Those of you who find yourself in relationship after relationship and you can’t seem to ever find love—STOP looking, let it find you! Jesus said, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock...” Revelation 3: 20 (NKJV), let Him be the love of your life, and you will finally know happiness.

     Jesus is the Only One who can ever say to any of us—“I’ll Always Love You and I’ll Never Leave You”—He means it. Let Him love you today.

~

    

       

         

"Just Get With The Program"...Why programs don't work!

     I scrambled hurriedly into what seemed like an abandoned hallway or wing of the hospital where the CO-DA meetings my daughter and I had been court ordered to attend were being held. I’m chronically late so I was just trying to get there before we were noticeably late. CO-DA stands for co-dependents anonymous and as my daughter and I sat down next to each other, we began to listen as the people announced who they were and “what” they were. My heart sank as each person took turns...”I’m so and so and I’m an ‘addict’ “, “I’m so and so and I’m an ‘alcoholic’ ”,  “I’m so and so and I’m ‘co-dependent’ on men”, “I’m so and so and I almost could not wait for this ‘meeting’ tonight”, “I’m so and so and I just got my 13 years ‘sober badge’.“ 

      Listen, 13 years sober is absolutely something to celebrate, but I have known people to be clean and sober for 30 years and fall back into the trap of addiction and if after 13 years you are still tied, tethered or bound to some kind of meetings PLEASE let them be meetings at the House of God learning how you can be set free from being an”------”.

      

     If my memory serves me I don’t think we ever went back to another CO-DA meeting and if we did it was only once.  Someone or “Something” made it possible that what was court ordered meetings we ended up not having to do.

     

     If we have to keep chasing a “lifestyle” or mantra to stop chasing our addictions then let it be the lifestyle and mantra of Jesus Christ who says “I have come to set the captive free.”, He didn’t just say it, He means it!  

    

     The addict’s anonymous meetings started out to be a great idea, but really if we can’t give credit for our sobriety to God Almighty do we really think we can find our strength in “God as we understand Him to be”? WHAT?  We better understand God as the Sovereign God that He is, and it won’t work to surrender everything to your higher power, unless you know Him to be The Highest Power!!! Think about how foolish all of this is...”maybe today”, says the ‘recovering’ addict, “is the day I am weak and WANT to drink or use drugs, maybe today I only understand God to be able to help me in the past, but not today, today I am weak and I don’t know or understand Him as a God who SET ME FREE, so I think I’ll have a drink and get back to ‘recovering’ tomorrow.”  Yes, if we do this we will always be addicted, but we DON’T have to be.

    

     This is nothing more than an excuse to relapse because after all you are only a recovering addict... always and forever recovering! That means that you ultimately become addicted to “meetings”, “sponsors”, this “higher power”, and some “god as you understand him” or it to be! WHAT??? This is not freedom, but in fact, “bondage”!  Galatians 5:1 (NKJV) tells us to “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” Don’t become entangled and in bondage to meetings, mantras or programs!

    This is why Jesus said that He came to set the captive free, because, He is the only One who can set us free. He doesn’t want us to fill the void of our addictions with meetings, lies of never being free and always in a state of “recovery”—that’s not hope, that’s false hope and it won't last.  If you want freedom, you never have to entertain those things of your past again, unless you are “called” to help others after you have been set free, and then the thoughts of the past will be to tell the story of how our Great God set you free and how He can and will do it for others too.

     Too  often  in the actual meetings of these programs there is a lot of time spent hashing over the things of the past until it becomes a sort of glamorizing of these old behaviors and the next thing you know someone can’t wait to leave the meeting and go feed the craving they just spent an hour talking about.

    For anyone who is offended by what I am saying and it is because you have indeed found a way for a “program” other than God’s Program to work for you, then, I am sorry. I will say this, I don’t think it will last, in the sense that these meetings cannot fill you up with a fullness that comes from a living and powerful God, and eventually you will find yourself “wanting” more, and when that time comes please reach out to Him, the One and only thing that can finally once and for all fill you up and set you free! It might not be for 13 years, but you will not sustain freedom from addiction by becoming addicted to meetings, programs or by chanting a “one day at a time” mantra.

     If you replace those empty places inside of you with the One and Only Living God you will not spend the rest of your life claiming to be recovering from an addiction, you will be set free from any and all addictions that torment you forever. You will not be putting your faith, hope and future in the hands of some unknown entity you might know as God. Our Great God will set you free by and through the blood of His Son Jesus Christ and you will be set free indeed!

    You truly have to want to be free, as I said, some people want to become dependent on meetings and mantras, etc., but if you are serious and you ask God Almighty the One powerful enough to set you forever free, to show you that He can set you free, and you begin to seek Him and His ways He will NOT fail you!

    

    You will forever crave something more if you don’t fill yourself with God and the reason for this is that you were created by Him and for Him, your spirit and His Spirit long for each other. The bible tells us this in Romans 8:16 “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” (NKJV) A sort of homing device, if you will, that God put inside of us--that  our spirit knows we belong to Father God! The Message says it like this, “God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children.”

     

    I strongly believe that we can never be completely free from addictions until and unless we fill the “longing” in us with God and I also believe that is why people have become bound in addiction in the first place. They have not yet filled the part of them that is “longing”, “wanting”, “needing” more than this world has to offer, they haven’t been filled with the fullness of God Almighty, and they have not understood the real and specific reason for the journey of their life. 

    My heart breaks for people who spend a ton of money while time and time again checking into rehab centers in hopes that this time it will finally work. Even celebrities and the very wealthy are always and forever checking into high-end facilities, getting better for a while and then relapsing. Why? They need Jesus to set them free! Their money isn’t fulfilling them, their lifestyle isn’t fulfilling them, nothing but the Spirit of God can fulfill them.

    God has great and glorious things in store for us (Jeremiah 29:11) and spending the rest of our lives here on this earth recovering from an addiction is not one of the great things God has planned for us. He has plans to use us to further His Kingdom and to lead people to Him and show them with our lives how He can and will set them free!

     There are no meetings, badges or programs this world can offer us that will fill us enough that we will never need another addiction---only God is enough.

    This is why I am always saying that God is the ultimate addiction, because, if I am forever going to be addicted to something or someone then by all means let it be GOD ALMIGHTY and may I NEVER recover from this addiction to My Savior!

~

"Ain't No Shame In My Game"

    This slang term used to be a popular one and my younger daughter says it jokingly, but for those of us who have dealt with or are dealing with addiction shame is a very real issue and one that can keep the cycle of addiction spinning out of control. The stigma of addiction is the very thing that feeds the monster of habit. When people feel shame and condemnation they seek something that makes them feel better and that is usually an external thing that becomes habitual and so on and so on!

      One thing I have learned and am finally accepting in my life is that shame is one of the things Jesus took to the cross with Him and He doesn’t know how to look upon us with shame because there is none. “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:1 NKJV) and “Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame” (Psalm 34:5 NIV). As long as we are walking “in Him” there is no shame or condemnation.

      Condemnation is something the devil likes to try and use against us—he  is the lord of shame. If he can keep you operating under shame and condemnation he knows you will not be effective for God.  Satan will keep telling you that you are nothing but an addict and that you can never be free. He will tell you even if you have already been set free from drugs, drinking, pornography or whatever the addiction may be, he will try to tell you that everyone knows what you used to be and they don’t believe you are or can be changed and set free. It’s a LIE! It’s a LIE! I’m going to repeat it...this is one of the biggest lies you will struggle with, BUT it is a LIE!!! Remember, who the Son sets free, is free indeed! (John 8: 36)

      Don’t waste precious time that should be spent to grow in God and your new found freedom from addiction by believing the lies of Satan. Don’t wallow in shame because any shame you are experiencing is coming from the enemy of your soul and he does not want you free. It is his job to keep you bound so DON’T help him by believing his lies!

      God delights in using broken people, the more broken we are the more glorified He is. Fixing broken people is what our God does. Once we are free it is then our job to tell the world how He delivered and set us free! This is how we grow in what God has done for us, we help others.  We also overcome Satan by telling others how God set us free. “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony...” (Revelation 12:11 NKJV).  Words have tremendous power and when we speak God’s word we have supernatural power. By God’s words the entire universe was created and everything in it! God’s words have supernatural power and He is more than willing for you to access that power for your own life.

      Here is the hard part for all of us who have a “dark” past that is less than “shining”. The devil will use people in your life and around you, if you let him, to try and impart shame and condemnation on you, and even though Jesus redeemed us from the shame of our past when He paid the price for our past, and God remembers our past no more...people will never forget and they rarely forgive (even if they say they have). So we must keep our focus on the truth, that we are new creations in Him and without our past we don’t have a testimony to tell the world what He saved and redeemed us from!

       Never underestimate the power of your testimony...your story of how you and God came to be...how you and Jesus first met...the first time you and the Holy Spirit had a Supernatural Experience! All of these are what feed your spirit and destroy the enemy and at the same time you are sowing seed, spreading God’s Good News so that others will see what a great God we serve and WANT Him too!

      I can tell you that I have done enough things to myself and exposed my children (adults now) to enough things as a very young single mom that if I did not have the blood of Jesus to wash me clean every day I would literally die from the weight of the shame. I will share some more of my “past” in later blogs, but for now I want to stay focused on keeping away from the trap of shame.

     There is absolutely no sense at all in seeking freedom from addiction only to succumb to the bondage of shame and condemnation.  Jesus did not endure your condemnation on the cross for you to now wallow in the mire of shame. Shame is/was part of the addiction it is NOT something separate—they are one in the same. Think about that—if you are no longer addicted then there is NOTHING to bring shame upon you!

      If you have been set free from the external addictions, but are still suffering or struggling with shame you must try to remember that any sense or feeling of shame is in your thoughts and your mind but not in your reality. Get your thoughts lined up with your truth; because, we know that God does not look upon us with shame. He sees us as the righteousness of Jesus Christ because we are! (2 Corinthians 5:21) If we see ourselves differently we are not living in Him and we have not let Him truly set us free.

     God showed me in my heart that it was the same as crucifying Jesus His precious son over again each time I chose or choose to allow shame to have a place in my spirit and my heart. Oh how hurtful it is to Him to allow shame to have the spot in our heart and life that is meant for “that very One” who redeemed us and set us free from “that very shame”! He was already condemned in our place! Let’s not continue to condemn Him by taking on the shame He already forgave and set us free from.

      Sometimes I just imagine God is in heaven thinking...what sin, what shame, what are you talking or suffering about? I have already set you free and I don’t remember what you are even talking about! Of course, He knows in the sense that He sees our hearts and knows us better than we know ourselves. But He can’t forgive you twice for something He has already forgiven you for, that would be like saying His work was not a complete work, or it is like asking Jesus to go to the cross AGAIN because it just didn't work for you the first time!!! WHAT? Would we literally ask Jesus to do that? NO!  But each time we do not walk in the complete freedom of our redemption that is essentially what we are doing.

     when I am sharing these things with you they are meant for me as much as anyone else. I struggled many years with shame and to be honest it still tries to creep up in my life so I have to be careful and vigilant in my own freedom from addiction and shame. I have to constantly walk “in Him” to be free from the shame of my past.

        Let’s walk in this new found freedom and new life in Him together and give God the Glory for all He has and is going to do in our lives!  And remember, “Ain't no shame in my (your) game”, Jesus took it to the cross with Him...forever!

      Praise the Powerful Name of Jesus!

~

  

Practical Steps To Help You Live In Freedom From Addiction

  

  Jesus is the ultimate addiction!  

I have experienced being supernaturally touched by God and I can tell you that His touch is better than any drug you’ll ever do or any high you’ll ever experience.  But we don’t all get supernaturally touched by God, in the sense that we can physically feel it, and we don’t serve Him with, or because of our “feelings”.  However, don’t lose hope, there is still God’s supernatural power to deliver you and set you free from any bondage that keeps you from Him and His will for your life.

                         This process will work:   

                         1. If and because you want it to help you…...

                         2. Because you have the supernatural power of                                 God...

                                          
                         3. If you believe in the power of prayer and                                       God’s Word...

     Without these elements I don’t give freedom from addiction much hope, but if you will engage sincerely and “addictively” to these you can have success, growth, and best of all freedom in your future. 1. You have to want this process to work. 2. You have to have God’s supernatural power to help you. 3. You must believe in the power of prayer and God’s word. Prayer will direct your actions, and your actions will direct your prayers, and His word will be your guide and instruction book. Read and study His word and you will find the wisdom, the strength and the courage to stay on this path of freedom from addiction.
     Here are some in the moment, right now steps you can do- they will help you if you get into "a habit" of using them.

1.     To help with this, begin to visualize your life free from your addictions, see it in your mind’s eye, entertain these thoughts often, think about and visualize what great and godly things will replace the addictions. Do this ALL the time, as often as you crave to go to the other addictions, do this instead.  It may seem menial--but I know it works!

2.    You must believe that you can change and that it is God’s will that you change, and make sure to give Him all the glory and honor for your new life. Also, remember that God is more powerful than any drug or addiction, and He is NOT shocked by anything you are bound in—He died for your addictions. He died to set you free from anything that keeps you from Him!

3.    When you are craving your addictions, get somewhere quiet and private (if possible) and pray, pray and pray some more—begin to ask Him to strengthen you, ask Him to fill you with His Spirit and thank Him that He is taking the desire away and filling you with the things of God and His Kingdom.  Now, begin to fill your mind and thoughts with these new godly cravings and desires—Keep praying and meditating on these things until the craving passes—It Will! When the craving comes again, pray again, meditate and think on these godly things until they are the things you crave the most. When you begin to see results from your prayers, you will begin to crave the things which bring results: Godly thoughts, prayers and desires that are godly and free from the addictions. These are the things which will and should replace the old addictions. Be faithful to these things and God will fill you with brand new godly desires and cravings. Desires that are eternal and matter to God and His Kingdom. WOW! Doesn’t that seem like something that is worth giving up your destructive wants and desires for?

          These new desires will hold a place in God’s heart and His Kingdom and they will have eternal purpose! When these new godly desires are sought after and fulfilled they will bring a sense of fulfillment that no earthly thing, addiction, or want could ever compare to, and the best part, there is NO destruction when habitually going to them over and over again!

    “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, ALL things have become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV)

    You are NOT once an addict ALWAYS an addict! If we believe this then we can have no hope in our Savior and His power to deliver us from evil/addiction and set us free. But we do have hope! We have the only real hope there is, we have the power of God Almighty and the blood of Jesus. This is not the false hope the world gives, this is the hope of Jesus Christ our Redeemer.

    “If God Is For Us Who Can Be Against Us?” (Romans 8:31 NKJV) There is nothing more powerful than His power to set you free. If He wants us free (of course, He does) and we want freedom too, then nothing can hold us back.

    Embrace this new life free from addictions, in your thoughts and actions, even if at first it seems awkward. Surround yourself with positive, godly people who have also been changed by the power of God and soon it will not be awkward at all. It will be the way things are now that you are a new creation in Him!

    If anyone is “in Christ” he is a new creation. This means you must live “in Him”, you MUST embrace and engage this newly created life in Jesus in order to overcome the old cravings and desires. Live in freedom with Jesus and pursue your new life just as tenaciously as you did the old life and see how much  supernatural power you will have to overcome the old desires and way of living. Seek Him, His word and His ways. Fill your days with the things of God. He is your Refuge, your Tower of Strength, your Hiding Place, your Prince of Peace.

      He will never leave you at any time along this journey to freedom from addiction. NEVER!

    Hallelujah! He is a good and gracious God and He wants us free from the bondage of sin and addiction. He wants it for you even more than you do, so you do your part and He will do even more!    

~