Tag Recovery

Living when life does not feel good…

Debbie B. Leave a comment

What would you do if you had a loved one say to you “You are better off without me”? Would you take them seriously? Or if you asked someone that you noticed is down if they are doing alright, are you prepared for an answer like “I am not OK. My life is worthless and I do not want to stay here anymore”? What would you say or do?

What if similar thoughts like the ones I wrote are ones you battle with every now and then or are even battling with at this very moment? Will you keep choosing life even when it does not feel good? Man, I hope so. These are all hard questions. Especially for people who have no idea what it is like to be chained in a prison of darkness that seems so bleak and extremely painful that death sounds like the only means of escape. I know this because that used to be me just over six years ago. Either nobody knew of my torment, they were afraid to ask, or they just wanted me to “get over it” and did not think much about the destructive path I was on. I do not blame anyone for anything. No one but Jesus could have helped me anyway. I believed the lie that no one would even notice that I was gone if I had committed suicide. I think the only thing that people did notice about me was that I drank way too much. And as I became closer to my personal rock bottom of alcohol abuse, I cried way too much.

As you can see by reading this, I am a survivor. And thanks to my Lord Jesus Christ, I am more than a conqueror—a conqueror who is willing to be vulnerable and admit that she still has occasional bouts to overcome. In fact, I am going through one at this very moment. But I praise God that it is nowhere as severe as in the past. I no longer reach for alcohol or any other type of vice to soothe my troubled soul, I reach for Jesus. I am looking at this occurrence as another wonderful opportunity to share my hope in Jesus – Hope truly worth living for.

Suicide is on the rise and because it was National Suicide Prevention Week, it is no surprise to me that I have been battling with some old unhealthy thought patterns. They were mainly triggered by online articles of people who have lost loved ones to suicide, or people currently struggling. I did not realize at first why I was struggling, but I am glad I can see now what was causing me to want to hide again. It is not easy to share when sadness hits my heart in such a way that it makes my mind go to places I wish it wouldn’t. I sure do not want people to see me struggle. Not after all the good Lord has done in my life. But I think those of us whose struggle is all too real, need to be open and share about it and hopefully encourage others to keep holding on like we are. We need to be teachers of faith and hope in Jesus — yes, even when life does not feel good. I think the subject of suicide is difficult to talk about mostly because it makes some people too uncomfortable. People who do not understand the darkness that comes with anxiety, fear, and depression would rather not deal with it. It is not that they do not care, they just do not know what to do. Most people don’t. Even someone like me who battled for decades does not always know what to do, other than surrender it all to Jesus and trust Him to rescue again and again. But you know what? He ALWAYS does, every single time.

I have listened to some people who think that depression is something that we can just get over – they think that it is something that we can control and snap out of. Others lose patience and just want to fix us and end up making things worse even though they really do have good intentions. Then there are others who want to ignore it and hope it goes away. It is not going to go away. I think the best thing that anyone can do for someone they notice struggling is to PRAY. Ask God when to say something and when to just pray something. Encourage the person to talk about it and to not keep it bottled inside. That is when it can become lethal. Encourage them to seek help and not be ashamed — no one should ever be made to feel ashamed for their darkness. Maybe there are even opportunities to follow the example of  Job’s friends who did not say a word but just sat and wept with him when he was going through his extreme grief (see Job 2:11-13).

For anyone who feels that their life is worthless, I hope and pray this truth straight from God’s Word will help you to see past that lie. According to His Word in Psalm 139:13-16, God saw you when you were in your mother’s womb. He knew your mother and father and the circumstances of how you would be raised. He gave you the ability to survive and walks with you through good times and bad. He gave you survival techniques and guardian angels to keep and protect you (Psalm 91:11). He chose you before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blame before Him in love (Ephesians 1:4). I find tremendous comfort in knowing that.

I believe that God cries when we cry. I believe He laughs when we laugh and grieves each time we grieve. He watches and waits and looks forward to the day when each one of us would receive Jesus as our Savior. He longs for fellowship with us and desires that we would get to know Him intimately. I am grateful for that desire in my heart. The more I desire Him, the more I want to keep living for Him no matter what. If you haven’t asked Him into your heart yet, please do not delay any longer. And for those of you who have, remember that whenever He feels distant, do not believe the lie that He has left you. His Word says that He will never leave or forsake us. Remember that God is not a feeling, He is truth and He is there. Just call out to Him.

In Christ, God chose us as His own and has made us strong. God has placed His mark on us. He has placed His Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee for all He has promised (2 Corinthians 1:22-21). Truth!! When life gets painful, I remember Jesus on the terrible beautiful Cross and I thank Him that I will never ever have to experience the kind of pain He did on my behalf. He is my reason for living and I desire to help others along this journey to choose His gift of life too.

HOPE is here, so hold on knowing that one sweet day “He will wipe every tear from your eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:4) Until then, we can make our life count and help others along the way. We can be blessed to be a blessing. Please, choose life like I am. More lives are depending on it and even though you might not see it right now, it truly is the best choice you will ever make. God loves you so.

Thank You Jesus, for choosing me. Here is my heart. I choose You. I CHOOSE LIFE. ♥

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I am not proud of what these say of me…

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 Smiling but Dead on the Inside Drunk –  Sept. 2008

I never ever thought I would be brave (or crazy) enough to post old drunken pictures of me. It is not pleasant seeing this old truth about me. But I am grateful to God that my past is in the past and God is using all the bad stuff for good today. I would not be sharing these horrible pictures if it were not true! It took me a while to get courage to do this, but I feel like keeping it real about my alcohol abuse. Besides, how can I share about my miracle if I cannot openly share the hard stuff about the old me?

Anyway, I am celebrating my miracle sobriety milestone early because…well, because I am ALIVE and because I can! My heart hurts and rejoices at the same time when I look at those old photos. What I see in my eyes, the windows to my soul, is nothing but darkness and death. The smile means nothing. At least that is what I remember all too well — I just wanted to die. Actually, I was already dead inside. I was just using alcohol to try and finish the job, but it did not work the way I wanted it to. THANK GOD.

I do not want to wait for my official milestone date in order to celebrate. I am celebrating right here, right now. I am celebrating that I am alive when I should be dead. After twenty plus years of trying to drink myself to death and no end of the darkness in sight, I am celebrating that I found the Light – the Rock at the bottom — my Lord Jesus Christ who has saved me in so many ways! I am 27 days away from turning 50 years old and 28 days away from celebrating six full years of discovering that God is real. I discovered His power to change and because of that, I am sober, free, and living on purpose!

My life story is all over this blog so I am not going to rewrite it here. I just want to take this opportunity to Praise God for saving my life. I thank Him for pulling me out of the pit of hell and for setting this captive free. It has been a tough six years, but NOTHING is too hard for God to do within us when we get out of His way and let Him have His way. Soooo grateful that I caught on to that.

I am forever grateful and I pray with all my heart and soul that others will experience life like I am. I make a daily choice. I choose to be free from harmful vices. I have not relapsed, nor have I traded one vice for another. I am truly FREE. But only because of my Lord and Savior Jesus for giving me the power to change. It takes work, it takes faith and trust and the willingness to do some super hard stuff, but man is it so worth it. If you are struggling with something tonight, I am praying for your freedom. You can do it…JUST DO IT and reach for God above all and get ready to LIVE like never before.

God bless you and someone please…celebrate God’s mighty miracle with me! To God be the glory, amen? AMEN!

Nothing is impossible with God. This photo speaks for itself. Ah, the sober life with Him…cannot imagine any other way. Thankful!!! ♥

SURRENDER IS FREEDOM.

I Believe in Rock Bottom Miracles

Debbie B. Leave a comment

A conversation in church this past Sunday morning with my pastor and someone who has been going through some extra tough times and has endured much suffering this year inspired me to write this. I am so in awe and blessed by how God strengthens this person to keep her faith and trust in Him as well as my pastor who has also been through her share of suffering. I am always so encouraged by others’ strength and how they continue to praise God no matter what. I am grateful to be surrounded by so many strong Christians. That is how I want to be. It is so easy to praise God when things are going well. Unfortunately, it is also easy to forget about Him and not spend time with Him when things are going well. But to continue to praise Him in the midst of suffering, well, that is absolutely amazing to me. That is what I am being taught to do on this incredible but super challenging journey and I am grateful. It is life-changing. It continues to be life-saving for me. Praising God, especially with heavy hearted praises has brought incredible blessings into the lives who choose to praise Him no matter what. And now that I have learned to do that myself – to completely pour out my heart to God in praises, no matter how hard it may be at times or how many tears come with it, all I can say is WOW. God continues to show up BIG in my life and I am especially blessed when I hear from others how they can see God’s hand on my life. It is not just me telling a story, God is showing people!

I hear Christians wonder how others get through life, especially the tough times without God. I hear it often and I have said it myself even though I have not been a Christian for very long. For the first time today, once I heard my friend say that she wonders how others get through things like she’s been going through without God, suddenly I realized and said to her and my pastor that I know how others are getting through this life without God. How could I forget that I used to be one of them! I was reminded of exactly how my life was when I was going through it without God. Many people are barely surviving life because He is not a part of it. That was me. That was the choice I had made. No one made it for me, I made the choice. I chose to live with no hope. I chose to live in depression, drunkenness, darkness, and death. Amazing how they all start with the letter “d” just like “devil”.

Anyway, my heart breaks now because I see so many making those very same choices. Unfortunately, most would have a hard time admitting it or seeing that they are indeed the ones making the choice. A lot of us go through hard times in life and we end up blaming everyone else for our troubles. We blame God. For me, it was all my dad’s fault that I reached for alcohol when life got too hard after he abandoned me. It was all his fault even though he was not there giving me that first drink. I made the choice to drink that one and much more. Does this kind of thinking seem familiar to anybody else? I think it probably does. People who do not know or even want to know God, choose to stay in darkness and are reaching for things like alcohol to numb themselves so they cannot feel anything. I only know because that is how I spent my entire adult life until I turned 44. Before God revealed Himself to me, all I knew how to get through life was to try to drink it away.

For some reason, I was supposed to remember the godless part of my life today. Perhaps it was so I could write this with the hope that God will use it to pierce someone’s heart. Maybe He’ll pierce someone’s heart who may be heading to rock bottom like He pierced mine IN my rock bottom.  I do not think I will ever forget what life was like without God, nor do I want to forget. It feels good to say that now. For a while I would wonder, now that I have Him – forever — why do I need to remember?  Aren’t we supposed to forget about the past? Well, I do not think so. We are not supposed to dwell on things of the past that we can’t change, but how can I share God’s amazing miracles in my life if I forget where I came from and what God has done for me? I can’t. I want to and need to remember my miracles from God. For me, remembering the miracles means remembering the past. But only because of my strong desire to share Him with the world. I don’t remember the shame to hold on to it, I remember it to tell the world how God took it away. He helped me to finally accept His forgiveness and he helped me to forgive myself. That took a while to happen, but it was another amazing breakthrough for me when that day came. I know without a doubt that God desires to do for everyone else what He has and continues to do for me. The problem is, many people who are in a bad place like I was do not want to make the tough choices that need to be made.  For example, like giving up things such as friends. As someone who knew that I had to stay sober or eventually lose everything, even my life, I had to make the difficult decision of giving up time with friends who like to party and drink. Thankfully, God gave me the desire to know Him and gave me new godly friends to spend time with who to this day continue to keep me on the right path for my life. I choose to surround myself with godly people who keep me safe and do not put me in places where I might stumble. I am grateful for godly friends who have become a chosen family for me! I never worry about relapsing when I am with them. Actually, after being sober for 5 ½ years now, I do not worry about relapsing at all because God has strengthened me and as long as He is the center of my life, I have no need to numb myself with alcohol. Jesus is my Savior and my center and He is all I need.

I seem to get a lot of search engine “rock bottom” hits on this blog. I know some people are concerned for a friend or family member they are watching head to rock bottom. I feel their hearts searching for something to tell them how they can help. One of the questions I remember was something like: “Is it Christian to allow someone to hit rock bottom?” Another one wanted to know about Christians hitting rock bottom. I sense it was someone giving up on a friend or loved one or maybe even themselves. Well, all I can say is that Christian or not, NOBODY can prevent anyone from reaching rock bottom. A person can’t prevent it themselves, not on their own. Not without God. There is nothing that anyone can do. Only God can do that and I am not so sure that He will intervene before rock bottom. It depends and I will not pretend to know the answer that only God knows. All I do know is that it usually takes a very desperate person to finally surrender their entire life to Him. It is unfortunate that most of the time it takes rock bottom for that to happen, but it is the truth. So if you’re someone who is concerned for someone else, give yourself a break. Give up the burden that was never yours to take on. What you can do is love them and pray and leave the rest to God. Pray that God will intervene and make the person desperate enough to call out to Him before they lose everything. I think it is a possibility worth praying for. But you need to believe and leave it all up to God.

I think there are people that want someone to change, but they may need to be the one who changes first. This is just a thought from my heart that I feel is important to share. I hid my problem for many years. But when it started to get noticed, the last thing I wanted was advice from someone who was not walking the talk. If I am going to be there for someone and encourage to give up a vice and seek God instead, I better be walking that walk myself and it better show through my actions louder than my words. When we change ourselves and God’s light shines through, people in need get drawn in to Him. Be that person!

In my case, even though it took something like issues with my heart to wake me up to the choices I had been making and a new desire and desperation to change, I will be forever grateful for that wake-up call in the hospital. Even if it means that I need to take heart medication for the rest of my life. It was my rock bottom. We all can reach a different severity of rock bottom. Some could look like mine and others may lose EVERYTHING. No matter what though, once we get there, if we give our lives to God, miracles happen at rock bottom. It does not have to be the end of anything, except a destructive lifestyle. My rock bottom miracle was finding out that God is real and soon afterward I discovered my miracle sobriety! Grateful!

I chose death for too long but praise the Lord I now choose life! I choose God to be my one and only center. No more destructive living. No more wanting to be dead. No more living to please my own flesh by seeking worldly things that brought emptiness and led me on the pathway to hell. I live to please God now and I am grateful for His desires of my heart. I see so many others where I used to be and it breaks my heart because they do not have to stay there. If only more would finally surrender their entire life to Him. It has to be ALL because He is an all or nothing God. My ongoing prayer is that God will use my journey and those who have also fully surrendered to Him to be a Light for Him in every dark place we encounter. May He open our eyes to the mission fields where He places us so He can reveal Himself to others through us. May their hearts be softened and open and willing so they will be drawn to Him too. Time is running out. I am asking God to give more people the desire that He has given so many of us to know Him. I thank Him for rock bottom miracles. I thank Him for my greatest lessons learned in the midst of my greatest challenges. I thank Him for not delivering me from the trials, but for delivering me IN the trials where He continues to refine me. I know I would miss out on so many blessings if my life were easy. God catches every tear. He never lets us go. I thank God that He will do the same for anyone who seeks Him with their whole heart. I pray people will stop delaying and choose God — LIFE today.

My heart overflows with these words from a beautiful Christian worship song that I have been singing for days. It is my prayer for my own heart and every seeking heart who comes upon this story that was written just for you…”Holy Spirit You are welcome here. Come flood this place and fill the atmosphere. Your glory God is what our hearts long for — to be overcome by Your Presence, Lord.”  Welcome Him in today, dear friend. You won’t regret it.

Oh God, overcome more hearts. May they turn to You, find You and discover Your power to change like I have. Thank You for saving me and so many others in so many ways…

Friend, today is the beginning of something great in your life, if you so choose…I pray you will!

This is me worshiping with my church family. This is my heart of worship that God has blessed me with after sobering me up. I am forever grateful!

To the Lonely, Depressed, Broken: You don’t have to stay that way…I didn’t.

Debbie B. 2 Comments

I am grateful to God for giving me an amazing desire to share my vulnerable heart with anybody who will listen. I share my struggles as well as victories. God has performed miracles in my life and what good is it if I don’t share what He’s done for me with the world? This has given my life much meaning and I do it with the hope that people who are struggling will be encouraged to perhaps either turn to Jesus for the first time, or renew their faith in Him.

I am focusing on recovery today. I pray that anybody who is hurting, lonely, depressed, broken, or whatever your struggle may be, will consider beginning a recovery program. I pray this post will inspire you to take that courageous step sooner than later. There are different recovery programs out there, but the only one I am going to share about is Celebrate Recovery because that is where I go. It’s all I know. First and foremost, it is Christ-centered which is extremely important to me, but you don’t need to be a Christian to attend. Everybody is welcome. Second, recovery is for anybody who is struggling with “hurts, hang-ups, and habits” (as CR states it). I love the fact that it’s not just for alcohol or drug addiction like many people incorrectly assume. I happened to be one of “those people” before I gave it a chance and found out more about it.

Not many of my earlier posts on A Reason to Live have been about the progress of my recovery journey at CR. It’s not because I don’t want anybody to know about my progress or know that I’m even in recovery to begin with.  If you know me at all, you know my life has been an open book for quite a while now. Being this vulnerable and transparent was SO not part of my plan at all. No way would I have chosen that for myself. I believe some people who know me think I’m crazy to share such personal things about my life. I mean, you gotta be crazy to share very personal things for all to see on the internet, right? Well, you can call me crazy, but I like to call myself an obedient servant of the Lord. He’s creating an incredible testimony through my life and I’ll do anything to share it for Him. Somehow A Reason To Live has reached 37 countries including the USA. I’m not a typical blogger. I only write when the Lord puts something on my heart to share. I am amazed that this blog gets hits almost every day even though I’m averaging maybe one post a month lately. That’s a God thing for sure.

Anyway, the reason why I haven’t written much about my recovery is because it has been quite intense for me. My progress is where much of my focus has been, so writing gets put on the back burner. I am glad that I am finally able to share how I’m doing. I have no reason to hold anything back so I will share that this recovery journey at CR has been THE most difficult, and many times, THE most painful process that I have ever been through in my entire life. EVER. I don’t mean to sound like I’m trying to discourage anybody from doing recovery, I just have to be honest with how mine has been going. You must also know that it has been more than worth it because I am learning life-saving lessons. Even though I have suffered much growing pain, this recovery journey is turning out to be the biggest blessing of my life. I do not regret one moment of it. I do not regret one tear. I am receiving healing for past hurts that I could have sworn I was over and were forgotten. It turns out that they were only forgotten. They had been buried very deeply into my soul. I think that’s an extremely dangerous place to be for someone like me who used to be a severely depressed alcoholic in isolation.

I will never forget that first night as I drove into the church parking lot to check out CR. I did not want to get out of the car! A dear friend from afar contacted me that night and gave me the encouragement I needed to just do it, so I did. I was warmly greeted by strangers and that helped a lot. But when I first walked into that CR meeting, I truly did not feel that I belonged there. After all, I had already been sober for a little over two years. God gave me that miracle sobriety so why did I need a recovery program?? I kept asking God, why are You sending me here? Weeks later, I would get my answer, but initially I remember feeling so out of place. I had no idea what CR was about prior to that first night. I thought it was strictly for alcoholics and drug addicts and I only thought that because that’s what I had understood from someone else who was misinformed at the time. I learned quickly that CR is so much more. It truly is for everybody.

It took about eight consecutive weeks of showing up for me to start to feel that just maybe I really did belong there. I kept hearing the seasoned people say “keep coming back” and I honestly did NOT want to keep coming back. But I did, and I am so glad I did. I was encouraged to join their Step Study which is known as the Christ-centered 12 steps. It was something else that I really didn’t want to do, but I felt the Lord leading me to do it, so I signed up. This part of the program has been the toughest part of the journey for me. I cry a lot. But I am amazed at the healing that is taking place in my heart. This program is transforming my life all over again. I have put my whole heart into this and it is taking me to a whole new level on this faith walk with Christ.  I am a leader in the making now. The Lord has shown me that my future includes being a CR leader. It’s been God’s plan for my life all along and I’ve just discovered it this year. How blessed am I to have found my divine purpose in this life.

I feel I’m supposed to share these important events in my life. Not because it has anything to do with me or what I’ve done, but because it’s all about God and the great things HE has done. And I just hope and pray that it will be encouraging for others because it shows that God will do great things, beyond any imagination, in the life that seeks Him with their whole heart and makes His will their priority.

God gave me my miracle of sobriety in early 2010. It came from a rock bottom call out to Him in a hospital room. I wasn’t even sure He was real, but I fully surrendered all of me to Him for the first time and He answered my prayer and I have never touched another drink. He delivered me from the depression. HE IS REAL.

October 2011

“Miracles Remembered!”

If that wasn’t amazing enough, I was asked to share God’s miracle during a televised church service that was recorded on October 2, 2011, and aired weeks later reaching many people nationwide and internationally. That was a miracle in itself because I’m just me. I never could have imagined that a seven minute interview would be so powerful. But that’s how God works. I agreed to do it because I wanted people to find hope in Jesus and turn to Him for help. I didn’t think about those who knew me and that they would be finding out for the first time through an interview that I had lived decades with depression and a drinking problem. At least I tried not to. I was a bit nervous about speaking in church and knowing it would be recorded, but my pastor prayed over me prior to the service and I was comfortable enough to get through it with her. It was a wonderful experience and my life hasn’t been the same since.

I remember that one of the questions my pastor had asked was if I had done a 12 step program and of course the answer had been “No”. How incredible is it that one year later, in October 2012, I would start attending Celebrate Recovery not really understanding why I was there?! I never could have imagined that I would be starting the 12 step program just two months after that.

You see, in my case, God didn’t send me to CR to get sober. He had already taken care of that. God sent me there to receive proper healing so I could have a better chance at staying sober. He sent me there to use my life and testimony to encourage and walk with others in their recovery. He sent me there to get leadership training so I can one day bring this wonderful and needed ministry to my own church home. He sent me there to give me purpose–to have a meaningful life. He sent me there so I could bring Him glory. What an honor. What a gift of life. And to think I almost ended it a while back. I am so in awe and grateful for what He’s doing.

People need to know that this is not just about putting an end to our destructive patterns or addictions. We must get behind the issues that caused us to be destructive in the first place. I had no idea I was still carrying around deeply rooted pain until I participated in the step study. I do shed a lot of tears, but it’s true that there is healing in tears. I am learning to let go of hurts and the shameful things I’ve done in the past. It’s not easy, but the Lord is definitely healing me through this wonderful ministry. I am so grateful for the friends He has placed in my life. I need my friends. I can’t do this alone, none of us can. It is scary for me to think how easy it is for people to relapse. It doesn’t matter how long a person has been in recovery. Everyone is capable of relapsing if they stray away from God thinking they can do it on their own. I know that I am absolutely powerless without God being in charge of my life. And I need godly friends to hold me accountable. I have recovery friends and other ministry friends who do this for me and they pray for me and I am beyond grateful for every single one of them.

I pray this post will encourage someone to take a step of faith and allow the Lord to help them. And if anyone is in need of recovery for any kind of hurt or struggle, I pray you will give Celebrate Recovery a try for a while and see what God does. Even if you don’t believe in Him, He believes in you. I believe in time, you will know He is real and your life will never be the same. God is still in the business of doing miracles. My life is proof of that.

In just over five months, I am celebrating my fourth year of sobriety. Wow. What an incredible ongoing miracle that I get to keep telling the world about!

To God be the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

“If You Build It, He Will Come”

Debbie B. 4 Comments

Okay, so that’s not a scripture verse…I think I might be getting a little loopy from not getting enough hours of sleep in lately, but since God just opened a big door for our church, Hope Center of Christ, I couldn’t stop thinking of those words. I remembered the famous quote from the movie Field of Dreams, I’m not sure why that would come to me, but it did and I can’t stop thinking about it. Actually, I was thinking about “If you build it, they will come” which is how most people misquote the movie. Anyway, instead of wanting to build a baseball field to bring back dead baseball players, I can’t stop thinking about the potential of bringing the Celebrate Recovery Ministry to our church. I believe Jesus will cause “them” to come when the CR ministry gets implemented at Hope Center in the future. It is becoming more real since He led us to a new church home! The cool part is that I’ve been in training at CR for a while already. I have a ways to go, but I’m definitely off to a great start.

This is an extremely overwhelming position to be in. When I said yes to God a few years ago, I just wanted to stop hurting. I wanted to stop drinking, and I am eternally grateful for the Lord’s miracles that saved my life. Once the Lord sobered me up and lifted the depression, the desire was placed in my heart to get close to Him. In time I found myself wanting to give my life back to Him in service. That’s what I’ve been doing (He’s really got me sold out for Him). I so wanted to find purpose in life, but I never could have imagined I’d be given a mission as big as this one. He has made it very clear that CR is my God-given mission. It’s not only so I can be healed, it’s so I can help others in their recovery. It’s why I’m alive. There’s only one problem with “If you build it…”, I’m not a builder of anything! It is IMPOSSIBLE with me. But I do realize that’s what is so great about it. We know what God does with what’s impossible for man (or woman). Thank You Lord, that ALL things are possible with You for those who believe…I BELIEVE!

I believe God wants to keep doing miracles through Hope Center of Christ. I don’t know why, when, or how I became so blessed to be a part of something so incredible. I keep waiting to wake up from this dream, but He keeps reminding me and showing me it’s not a dream. It’s mind boggling to be dreaming God-sized dreams and living them out with Him. I am so grateful for Pastor Sheila and other dear friends who pray for me and encourage me to keep going in this tough journey. They listen every time I cry and they love me anyway! This journey would sure be much more difficult without their continued support.

I pray a lot, I cry a lot, I talk to God a lot, and He is growing me A LOT! I even manage to get some laughter in there now and then, I’m sure I make the Lord laugh a lot. He sure has done such amazing things in my life and I am willing to do whatever it takes to become the leader He needs for me to become—to be the hands, feet, voice, and heart for Jesus so that through me (and whomever He provides to help), He will build this very important ministry at Hope Center of Christ. And I believe with all my heart, that once HE builds it, THEY WILL COME!

To God be the glory. Amen? AMEN!

(The amount of worshippers in this photo is a God-sized dream to have…I’m dreaming big. After all, we have a BIG GOD!)

They will come to worship Him!