You can overcome abuse, and we are going to talk about how that’s done.
The mind is incredible. God designed us so we can access our memories and relive events. As we do that the emotions wash over us again as if it was happening in that moment. In fact, that’s one reason Worry is bad for us because we imagine something bad happening and our bodies respond as if it did happen. All the negative chemicals start flowing through our bodies. Those bad chemicals can make us ill.
Ladies, If you’ve lived very long, you’ve been through heartrending stuff, you’ll have baggage. Stuff from the past that weighs you down and impacts your actions and even reactions. What can we do about that?
2 Cor. 10 5 says, “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,”
Today we are going to talk about how you can implement that verse and how Scripture can help you heal:
I have Becky Harling with me, and she wrote, Rewriting Your Emotional Script
2:25 Why pray Scripture? Isn’t that magical thinking?
3:12 How can God heal you with the Word?
4:00 How can we be ‘poor in spirit’?
5:30 We need God.
6:45 How is letting go different from being a victim
God make mothers to be nurturers. He wove that desire into our design. In fact, I still want to mother even though my kids are grown, so I use my mothering instincts on my cats.
There’s a story in 2 Kings four about the Shunammite woman. She noticed the prophet Elisha walking past her house, and she chose to help him. Her husband built a room for the prophet so he’d have a place to stay when he passed through town. Elisha was grateful, so he asked what he could do for her. She didn’t give him ideas, but Elisha’s servant pointed out that she had no children. So Elisha prayed for her to have a child.
After the boy’s birth, he went out into the fields where his father was working and became ill. He fell to the ground screaming, “Oh, my head!”
The father immediately ordered his servants to take the child to his mother. His mother held him until noon that day, and then he died. The mom went to find the prophet who raised him from the dead.
Let’s focus on that one phrase, the father said the moment he knew his son was ill “Take him to his mother.” That describes us. (of course, there are exceptions). We care for our children and will move all sorts of obstacles to make life work for them. However, we must learn to let our children go and face life on their own. It’s a tough assignment for us.
Today, my guest is Edie Melson. She had a son who became a soldier and went on active duty to fight. How scary. She wrote the book, While My Child is Away. She will give some tips on mothering that child who is leaving the nest.
2:10 What is the Headless Horseman of Faith?
3:30 How can we as mothers listen to our emotions and yet use them appropriately?
5:24 What about those times we fear failing as a parent?
6:45 Tell us the frog story? What does it teach us?
9:00 Share about loving the people your kids are with.
10:30 You had a son in the military, and you know about the ‘what ifs.’ How can we handle those?
13:00 Leaving the child with the Lord:
14:05 How can you avoid the trap of allowing your kid’s choices to define you?
16:10 What about the stuff that hurts?
Edie Melson
[tweetthis]Prayer is the most important thing you can do for your child[/tweetthis]
Cynthia Ruchti: Christmas and God’s Restoring Love
Psalm 51:12 Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation, And sustain me with a willing spirit.
We celebrate Christmas because God came to earth as a baby to die for our sins. That’s a pretty huge event, very worth celebrating.For many people, it’s a painful time. You may have sustained a loss during the year or miss someone who died years ago. We don’t often think about Christmas and restoration in the same sentence, but my guest, Cynthia Ruchti wrote a book, Restoring Christmas. What an interesting concept! I looked up the word restore and found it occurred about seventy times. (depending on your translation, that may vary.)
After giving the matter some thought, I agree with Cynthia. Jesus came to earth to be our redeemer. He came to pay the price for our sins so we can have restored fellowship with God. But what about all those other hurts we experience? Cynthia shares her heart on heartache during Christmas.
1:45 Share the basic story of the book
5:35 Did any event in your life prompt this story?
12:10 Talk about restoration for those hurting places.
19:50 Jesus is close to the broken-hearted. Share with people who may be there this year.
21:25 What about folks who are stumbling through Christmas with sadness or depression?
[tweetthis]I can’t unravel, I’m hemmed in hope[/tweetthis]
[tweetthis]Christmas is all about God’s love[/tweetthis]
Prayer. We know we need to do it. The Bible commands us to pray, because we have a God who wants to interact with us. However, praying is not easy. It’s not easy! Trying to set up a regular time to pray takes herculean effort. Whenever I prepare to pray, I feel a sudden urge to do other things. Suddenly I have to make phone calls, and I hate phone calls. During a crisis, I can squeak out one work, “Help.” My creativity gets tangled up, and I can’t slow down long enough to concentrate on a conversation with my maker. At a time like that, I recall the Apostle Paul’s command to pray rather than worry. How fast that rolls off the lips, but doing it requires effort.
Once when Spurgeon was very ill, he wrote to his congregation to pray at a blood heat. What an image. Truly he understood the importance or prayer.
Julie K Gillies is my guest today. She believes prayer ministers to a woman’s soul and can even bring healing. We are going to get her input and learn from how it’s ministered to her. She’s the author of Prayers for a Woman’s Soul.
1:45 Do you consider yourself an expert on prayer?
2:20 What practices help you to pray?
7:06 Are you talking about praying through the day or that concentrated time when all you do is pray?
7:52 How do you keep from getting distracted?
I really like the statement, “You are worth praying for.”
9:15 Did you ever feel like you were cheating God when you showered AND prayed? I’ve heard people say to only pray because God must have our full attention.
11:06 Do you see any differences in yourself because of your prayers?
11:51 How do you keep other issues from crowding in?
13:01 Tell me how the Holy Spirit brings up your needs?
I can recall when I was a child in class. We were getting ready to study the human body, and I was so excited to learn what my internal organs did. I had some strange idea that my organs did wonderful things for the world. How disappointing to discover they merely kept me alive. Of course, in adolescence, the question of identity rose.Those questions are important to ask because it’s difficult to live without meaning.On the other hand, it’s very easy to build our self-worth around what we do.
When I finished school, I became a nurse, but I gave up that career to raise five children. That made me really sad, but I’ve been giving up my whole life in some ways. Later I found myself as a young mother who nursed her babies, but that didn’t last either. I grieved that role when I weaned my youngest child. Then I saw myself as a homeschool mother. That job lasted longer, but that distinction disappeared also. Each time my job description changed, I felt pain and had to adjust. I had to rethink life as a child of God. Someone Jesus loved and died for, but that transition can be tough.
Sometimes life really falls apart. How can we pull the shreds of life back together? How can we get through those times of disappointment when we wonder who we are?
Cynthia Rutchti is my guest. She has written Song of Silence. In this novel, the main character loses her gifting and finds herself afloat.
4:30 The main character, Lucy, was giving to others from her gift of music. How can we find that sweet spot so we can bless those around us?
6:30 Lucy was based on a real person who ministered through music.
8:40 Music contains rests, and Lucy taught her students to ‘play the rests.’ How can we do that by using those hard times in life?
10:10 What if we resist that reset time?
11:20 What does a healthy identity look like? How can Christians get there?
13:50 How can we achieve a healthy marriage in later years like Lucy and her husband?
16:25 Lucy’s family did things to comfort her she didn’t like. How can we avoid facing that in a crisis?
19:00 Lucy’s doctor sent her to a club. What was that great idea about?
Healthy Grief Processing – Carol McLeod is my guest today. She’s an expert on grief processing after losing five babies.
Nobody wants grief. Truly! Like many of you, I grew up in America. All my life I expected good things. WE had the freedom to pursue whatever career we wanted, and I had dreams of being gloriously happy. On the other hand, the church taught we would face heartache. I heard that, but I’m not sure I really believed. My husband was the same way. He even commented how he was tired of singing about the ‘Sweet Bye and Bye’ while ignoring the ‘nasty now and now.’
However, the longer you life, you see heartache and sorrow. I can say now the Lord has walked me through some grueling times, things we never dreamed we’d face. Now I sense the brokenness of our world. It’s shocking the intensity of the pain we see. God designed us to live in a perfect work, and we ache when we see tragedy.
My husband calls Romans chapter eight ‘Groaning 101.’ “For we know what they whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth until now. Woe! you talk about childbirth, and we ladies can relate. That’s serious pain. And yes, that’s our world.
But the Apostle Paul wasn’t finished. “For I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed.” (Romans 8:18) That’s a pretty huge contrast. The sufferings, however hefty they may be, can’t outweigh the glory we will have. What a statement. We all need that hope.
Here’s a guide to topics you might enjoy in the interview:
