CR at University Carillon

“You provide a broad path for my feet, so that my ankles do not give way.”   Psalms‬ ‭18‬:‭36‬ ‭NIV‬‬ “...May those who love you be secure.”   Psalms‬ ‭122‬:‭6‬ ‭NIV‬‬ Thinking this morning about how in the journey it's easy to lose sight of any progress and get frustrated. Some key nugget reminders for me today... Trust- Trust is essential to taking the next right step. He never failed me before, I believe He will be there again...keep trusting Him again for today. Faith- Even though I can't see the end or even the progress, I need to keep walking in faith. Hope- knowing with confidence that He will bring change because He never lets me down. I can't wait to look back on the progress and see how far I've come. Gratitude- I want to be intentional to stop and look at the progress in the journey and appreciate it. Don't wait for the finish line to give thanks. Even when on those days when it doesn't feel like I want to take another step, I...

As someone who has struggled with Love and Relationship Addiction as well as Codependency for years,  the lines can sometimes become blurry when looking for signs that I am loved.  I learned early on in life to do and say what I needed to in order to win the affections of those around me.  I was a chameleon, changing who I was in order to feel loved and accepted.  I see clearly now that for all of those years, what I really was doing was controlling and manipulating everyone around me so that  I  didn't have to feel the sting of rejection or abandonment from anyone.  I just wanted to feel loved, accepted and adored, so that was how I coped. Over the years that I've been at Celebrate Recovery,  God has helped me to learn three very important  truths  which I can use as tools in my recovery toolbox whenever the enemy whispers the lie that I am unloved. 1:   God has always loved me! " This is how ...

Another week, another hospitalization. One of my organs decided it wanted to kill me this past week, which resulted in emergency surgery. Praise Jesus, all went well and I am home and convalescing.  Speaking of praising Jesus, I had the opportunity to witness Him at work directly and through folks in the medical community. The afternoon I was to be released is one such example. It was busy, a lot of Doctors/Nurses/Techs coming and going to poke and to prod. In order to be in as best shape possible to be released, I was also spending a lot of time pushing my IV Pole all around the hospital. I came back to my room pretty exhausted, and was greeted there by a nurse who needed to take my vitals. I sat down, huffing and puffing, and he proceeded to do his deal; temperature, pulse, and setting me up with the blood pressure cuff. Inflate. 30 seconds later, the verdict.  Way too high, 167 over 109, because I had been strenuously (for me on that day) walking the hospital floor. "Let's ...

Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.  Philippians 1:6 NIV Walking into my recovery journey, I always had this grand idea of who I was “supposed” to be. Much of my pain in life revolved around seeing how far short I fell of my own expectations of myself. I think that’s because for most of my life I thought that God’s love for me was contingent on how well I behaved. If I was doing everything right, I was good, but if I messed it up, God was disappointed in me. I thought that God only loved me as well as I could follow Him. If you’ve lived that way before, you know how hopeless and frustrating it is. In recovery, we learn that that way of thinking is also dead wrong when it comes to God’s love for us. The beauty of the Gospel is that God loves us not because of what we’ve done, but because of what Jesus had done  for us.  And now when God looks at us...