Interesting links for Tuesday, April 22, 2014.
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Worth a Look 4.22.14
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Make Room For You. Your Story. For Rest.
Everyone has a story. All of us were once little girls. We all have memories. Some happy. Some not. Some we share. Yet, many more lay hidden in the secret pages of our heart. We try to forget about them. So that we can be strong. So that we can be happy. So that we can be free. That’s what I thought, until one day, I stood at the cusp of a childhood dream about to come true. I. was. going. to write. a book. But as my pen hit the paper to capture those moments, they all came alive. My memories were no longer stories I once told myself. And I began reliving them. Unexpected. Painful memories. Trauma. Anxiety. Just a Visit I was seven years tall. I didn’t want to be afraid. It was supposed to be simple. Just a visit. On the weekends, my father would come see my sister and me. After the divorce. I was supposed to climb into the car with the cracking vinyl seats, into the car with the peeling rooftop — of my daddy’s olive green Nova. It smelled like old, dirty ashtrays, as I slid in the back. It smelled sad and lonely. But, ...
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News Release: John the Baptist’s Beheading
Here is how people in Galilee and Jerusalem responded to the demise of this beloved and controversial prophet.
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I Was a Porn Addict and a Pastor’s Kid: My Porn Story
It was on the playground, during recess, when the Playboy bunny made a "visit" to my elementary school. A classmate of mine wanted to show me a picture of a naked lady. I was six years old. Little did I know that moment would forever effect the rest of my life.
That image never left my mind. To this day I can remember that picture, and even the emotions it triggered in my little innocent self. In fact, I always sought ways to recreate those feelings by seeking similar images. My dad never had a "porn stash." Or at least, I never found it. I did find naked women, however, in the R-rated movies my parents occasionally watched.
As I grew older and began earning my own money, pretty much every day I got paid I immediately went to the adult stores in the surrounding cities of my little rural town. I spent hundreds of dollars, splurging on hours and hours of XXX-rated porn. Then I’d trash my precious VHS porn tapes in fear of ever getting caught by anyone, especially my parents.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: I was a pastor's kid who grew up in a very religious home.
This fact, of course, was one reason I never shared my secret life of porn addiction with anyone. And as a result of that secret, I felt alone. I felt as if I was the only person experiencing this kind of shame.
Once I was married, I thought I would have a "healthy outlet" for my urges and that I could fulfill my fantasies with my wife. Boy, was I wrong. My wife couldn't compete with the airbrushed images and edited videos of the women I saw in my porn.
After years of trying to push my porn fantasies on my wife and being met with heavy resistance I "had" to find a way to get my fantasies fulfilled somehow and so decided to pay someone to fulfill my porn fantasies.
This was my lowest point.
After confessing this shameful deed to my wife and to our mentors I was painfully confronted with my own depravity and for the first time actually felt broken over my addiction to porn. This was the turning point.
It was at the beginning of this journey of restoration and purity that I discovered that my porn addiction was actually a symptom of something deeper: isolation.
Porn is usually consumed in isolation (Tweet This!), and so I learned that what I needed was community and accountability. And not just that... I needed to give people full ACCESS to my heart. People knew my victories but nobody knew my vices--this all changed once I became accountable and accessible.
And once accountability and access became a regular part of my life, purity became a very tangible reality. Much more real than porn every could be.
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Richie Cruz shares his story with hundreds of men a year because he wants to see men find freedom. It's time to share yours.
I Was a Porn Addict and a Pastor’s Kid: My Porn Story by XXXchurch is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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I Sing the Body Eclectic
No doubt Walt Whitman would have sounded his barbaric yawp from the steaming rooftop pool of Spa Castle in Queens, had the multi-level Korean day spa been around the corner from his Brooklyn stomping grounds as it is today. I’m not saying he would have retitled “Song of Myself” to “Song of Ourselves,” but I [Read More...]
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Revelation 1:17-18 – King Jesus: His Work
Daily Devotional Bible Verse When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. […]
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20 Things I Have Learned as a College Professor
As the start of the fall semester is almost upon me I have been diligently trying to complete my summer projects and prepare for my classes. As I was working it dawned on me that I am looking forward to the beginning of the year.
The post 20 Things I Have Learned as a College Professor appeared first on The Scriptorium Daily.
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Making the connection
Health and Healing. Day twenty-nine...
A “surprising connection” is one of those moments when we realize that one issue in our life is being affected by another issue that appears to be totally unrelated.
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The Tenets of Post-Christian Spirituality
Derek L. Worthington describes the three tenets of post-Christian spirituality in his book The Call of Jesus:
- a distant God — remote, detached, and uninvolved with our lives;
- "me" as a functional god, with the individual creating his or her own ethic and the ultimate authority;
- consumption as the path to happiness.
It's a common but futile way to live.
Contrast this with the teachings of Jesus in John 12:24-28:
- God is not distant. He is intricately involved with the world, and God the Son walked among us;
- I am not a god. God is in control of all things with the agenda to bring glory to himself;
- Service — laying down our lives as Jesus did — and not consumption is the path to happiness.
It's a truer way to live. And it's a more compelling way to live. We're invited.
Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. (John 12:25-26)
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Links I like
China on Course to Become ‘World’s Most Christian Nation’ Joe Carter: Christians in America often find reasons to be pessimistic about our religion’s waning influence on our country. But we should remember that our land is not the last bastion of hope for the faith. The remarkable growth in global Christianity — particularly in Asia and Africa […]
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Tator-Tot Casserole
Sometimes life gets in the way and the post that you wanted to write you simply do not have the time to put it together the way that you would like. I know that my posting schedule is all off right now and I hope to get it back on schedule by next week. I […]![]()
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Christian girls kidnapped, forced to marry Muslims in Pakistan
Every year in Pakistan, an estimated 1,000 girls and young women are kidnapped, forced to convert to Islam and then married to Muslim men, according to Barnabas Aid.
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Proverbs 11: The Needs of Others
I found an interesting little piece of information in Proverbs 11. I have to admit that it sounds a little bit odd off the top, but if we think about it a little bit, I think that it makes quite a bit of sense. Pro 11:26 He that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him: […]![]()
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Raising Up A Garden
Each year, I excitedly wait for the frozen ground to thaw and spring to return so that I can again have a beautiful garden of flowers. While in our previous home, I planted a lovely little flower bed and a garden in the back. Each spring, we watched the bulbs popping up green through the earth gifting us with gorgeous blooms. Then every fall we enjoyed ripened, juicy blackberries from our thornless bushes in the backyard.
Now, at our new home, my new flower beds are bare. Last summer, we were only able to pick a handful of strawberries off of our freshly planted strawberry plants. This year, only a couple of bulb flowers poke up through the ground teasingly.
Yesterday, my children and I went outside to plant spring flower seeds, resolving that not another year will go by without a blooming garden. It was a beautiful day. After a downpour the night before, the sun beamed through the clouds in a radiant, clear sky. The ground was saturated from the previous night’s storm.
Little hands poked holes in the loosened mud in anticipation of planting tiny seeds into the earth. Kids chattered, found worm friends, and had a good time in the mud. A little voice broke through the mumbled conversations, declaring, “Daisies grow faster than roses!”
This phrase jumped out at me and found a home in my heart. You see, I have 7 adopted children, four daughters and three sons. All of my daughters are named after flowers. Coincidentally, it was Daisy who pointed out to Rose which flower grows faster. Oh, how profound that little statement was!
Daisy joined our family at 5 years old and adjusted quite well. Rose arrived at 4 years old and has struggled with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), an attachment disorder, and ADHD. Before becoming members of our family, these two little girls had nothing in common. They came from two different countries, had two different cultures, even spoke different languages. They have completely different stories of how they came up for adoption. They are truly different flowers, both beautiful in their own ways, blossoming at different times into the lovely little girls that God made them to be.
“Daisies grow faster than Roses,” kept running through my head that day. Such a simple concept, yet many times I have caught myself thinking, “Why can’t Rose be further along in her attachment? All 6 of our other children adjusted faster. What is different with her that it is so much harder?”
I am so thankful that my small 5 year old offhandedly made this remark because it has helped me come to a better place with my children and those around me. Each of us are uniquely made. We grow at different paces and need pruned at different times. Some may produce flowers each year from one large bulb, some may have their own root system to flourish consistently, and others may need tiny seeds planted year after year.
No matter where you are in your growing and pruning process, remember that you are still a beautiful flower. Sometimes it just takes some of us longer to bear fruit. Keep planting. Keep growing. Keep believing the flowers bloom and the fruit will come, for that hope is how you raise up a garden.
Romans 8:18-25
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
What are you hoping for today? Raise up a garden, my friends, and keep patiently hoping in the unseen.
See You In The Round,
Kim
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Earth Day and Christians: 7 Ways to Observe It
Biblical Christians know every day is Earth Day. We know this because the Word tells us the whole earth is full of the glory of the Lord (Isa. 6:3). And we’re 100% certain that “the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Isa. 11:9). But these facts are little known and little acknowledged in our world today. As Howard Snyder shares, this means we have works of faith, hope, and love to do.
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Introducing The Common Room
We are delighted to introduce the first episode of The Common Room, a conversation among the faculty and friends of Biola University’s Torrey Honors Institute. Conversations will include book projects by members of the faculty, introductions to the texts you’ve never read but have always
The post Introducing The Common Room appeared first on The Scriptorium Daily.
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Evangelism by Mack Stiles
Our church has always been very clear on stressing the need for evangelism. Whenever our local missions pastor preaches, it almost always turns into a sermon on evangelism (especially when he’s trying not to). We have a local missions team that goes out every week to open-air preach and interact with individuals on the streets […]
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Save on These 3 Valuable Counseling Resources
It’s part of life: whether you’re a licensed counselor or a compassionate friend, people are going to come to you for advice. When they do, it’s important that you be ready with counseling that’s both helpful and biblical. Why walk that road alone? Some of the world’s most respected, experienced counselors have put together resources […]
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Wow And Awe!
Two words: Wow! Awe! These words leap from our hearts seizing our breath when we dive into wonder. We are so mesmerized, captured by amazement, we can barely mumble one syllable. Anne Lamott describes it as when we feel the breath of the invisible, of the eternal. We are shaken awake, we notice, we grasp […]
The post Wow And Awe! appeared first on Healthy Spirituality.
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Book Review: Knowing God by Name by David Wilkerson
Book Review: Knowing God by Name by David Wilkerson This book is about exploring deeply, ten names of God. Mr. Wilkerson picked the names most likely to bring hope and encouragement. He discovered in his research that God revealed His names to His people in their times of greatest need so he revolves each name with the biblical background that … Continue reading →
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