Hello guys.  I’m so happy to be back with you.  Alejandra did a great job talking about Overcoming Fear.  Today starts our new topic on the new subject of being unqualified.  We’re going to talk about our insecurities, shortcomings and our fear of failure.

Totally Unqualified

When you think of the word unqualified, what comes to your mind?  I think of someone who interviews for a job and they don’t receive that expected call back because they lack experience, or education in the field they are applying for.  To me, it is a word that sounds harsh and cruel as if to confirm that you just aren’t good enough.  I’m working on my second book and hope to have it published before the end of the year.  In this book I am hoping to show the Christian walk in a different way—not a better way–just expounding on another side to this life.  I took a step of faith and decided to pitch the manuscript to a certain agency, but before doing that I questioned my abilities, qualifications and expertise in this area; I questioned everything.

These were all the same questions that they asked me before reviewing the manuscript.

1. What makes you an expert on this topic? 
2. What degree do you have? 
3. What organization do you have behind you?

I had to wait 30 days for them to review my book and then they would let me know if my manuscript was good enough to be reviewed.  Over 30 days later, I was taken back by their answer when I saw the review from Editor #9 of my manuscript.  It was nothing short of pure negativity and discouragement.  They went on to tell me that my story is fast-paced and exciting, but there was one thing wrong with the whole thing…I was a nobody.  They went on to remind me of the thing I told myself before I even sent the book in, I am not infamous or famous enough and my manuscript is not something people are talking about, but if I was (basically) a somebody they would have taken me.   Even though the manuscript was something that would keep everyone’s attention and even though the world needs to hear what I was writing about, I was unqualified to be the one talking about it because I am a nobody and so I was denied.

Unqualified and Knowing It

In the current season of my life, I have been in need of messages that were going to stretch me beyond my own warped thinking.  I am in a season now where I know that God is calling this ministry and myself to something more than what I could ever imagine.  During this season God gave me a distant mentor to help encourage me to do the unthinkable.  Even though he is 2 years younger than me, God has used New York Times Best Selling author Steven Furtick, writer of books like Crash the Chatterbox and Seven-Mile Miracle to minister to me now.  As the Senior Pastor of his church of 25,000 people in 15 different locations, he was faced with an expert’s opinion of himself and ministry by a famous theologian.   In one of his preaching’s Steven Furtick explained that one day he turned on a random YouTube video, just to listen to something, and was surprised when his name came up in an interview with an undisclosed famous theologian.

The interviewer was asking the theologian what he thought of some people and Steven’s name was on the list.  Steven was intrigued as he waited anxiously for the man to answer and express  his thoughts.  You would think he would say words like, fresh, new, inspiring, exciting, unique even perplexing, but unfortunately, Steven listen as the theologian told the interviewer what Steven already knew about himself.  When this theologian hears the name Steven Furtick he thinks, “unqualified.”   How did Steven feel hearing this judgmental, critical, man say that he was unqualified to be a pastor?  In his preaching (there will be a link after the blog) to introduce this new book, he stated that he laughed because Steven called himself unqualified long before this YouTube video ever came out; it wasn’t news to him.

For myself, I wondered, “How do I move forward when the world confirms my worst thoughts of myself?”  I remember when I was 8 or maybe 9 years of age I felt “good for nothing.”  Think about those words.  My home life didn’t help my own thoughts of myself.  My environment made me feel like there was nothing I was good for; I was just a waste, just a loser.  I remember one occasion where those feelings came up and I looked at myself and said, “I’ll prove you wrong.”   When you battle within yourself about who you are, you want to give up on reaching that better you because those that should be rooting for you are trying to get you to quit.

When I read those words from Editor#9, I wondered what the next move would be.  It’s true, I am a nobody, I’m not famous, I’m not infamous.  It was no different than hearing that I’m good for nothing.  So I guess the best thing is to put my new book away and wait for someone more qualified to lead the world into that new revolution.

Accepting My Weakness

Steven’s book Unqualified came out just in time to pick me up from the floor and it’s the reason I wanted to use it to encourage you because I know I am not alone here.  On page 4 of his book it says, “Many people…deal constantly with the voices in their heads telling them that they don’t qualify, that they will never qualify, that they are totally, epically disqualified.”  Can you relate with those feelings of being disqualified for the blessings, a better life, a mind of peace, good health, joy etc?  Well he goes on to say, “This book isn’t about just changing what rattles around in our minds or what comes out of our mouths.  It’s about understanding who we really are now in order to be who we are capable of becoming.”  My challenge lies in the “becoming” part.  What am I becoming?   I have no problems with my current struggles in my mind about myself.  I have evidence that I am disqualified and a pure screw up, that’s not an issue for me, I’ve accepted that, the struggle comes when I’m told that there is a better version of myself that God is molding me into.  I battle with seeing how to look past what I am and believe for better.

The war in my mind is not won when I am reminded that God is in the habit of picking people who have been passed over (pg 4).  If anything I wonder if the majority is right and maybe God is the one that’s wrong.  I want to believe that I am a somebody, but when my actions mirror the life of a nobody and I fail just like a nobody, I question why he would waste his time with someone who is at the bottom of the barrel.

My problem also lies in the fact that that I allow the majority to dictate what competency really looks like.  “We compare people to our standards—spoken or unspoken—to see how they measure up.” (pg6)  Like the majority, I have my own standards for people and I join the majority in what goals and achievements I need to have before I can be considered “qualified”.  It’s about how good I am at what I do and about how much I accomplish.  The truth is, sometimes, I’m my worse critic and I hate the fact that God’s standards don’t match mine.

Steven says a lot of powerful, thought provoking things in the book,  but pg 9 hit me hard and I want to leave you with two things he mentioned that allows peace to come in…

1. Understanding that God accepts us unconditionally.  God knows your true identity—the real you—and he loves you just as you are.  What angers me is I don’t know the real me, am I alone in this thought right now?  Am I trying to change the real me, the part that God loves the most?  Can the thing I hate about me be the part that God accepts?
2. We must accept ourselves, including our weakness.  That means confronting the parts of ourselves that we may prefer to ignore.  And it means knowing who I am (and who I am not) in and through Jesus.  Confronting my weakness is just a reminder that I am unqualified.  It is just the thing I want to forget and erase, but God wants me to face it, embrace it and give it to him.  This point just reminds me that God is the only one who can make me into that person I am aiming for.  It also reminds me that who I may be aiming for, may not be his goal for me.

In the words of my cousin, I’m putting Editor #9 on blast! Mark this day down Editor #9,“I’m gonna show you what kind of God I serve.  He’s in the business of taking nobodies and using them to help change the world.”  I know 12 men in particular who were unqualified and they turned the world upside down!!! Our book will be coming out by the end of this year/beginning of next year.

Weekly Challenge:

Check out Steven’s message called The Glitch That Keeps on Giving

We have to look at God’s resume’ of turning nobodies into somebody.  We know Moses as a man who God used to bring down the Egyptian Empire.  God used him to bring Pharaoh to his knees through plague after plague.  Ultimately Pharaoh lost his life when he tried to follow Moses in the parted Red Sea.  Even though Moses was used to do miracles that had never been done before, he disqualified himself even though God qualified him with his presence.  Take some time to read Exodus 3 and 4.  In these chapters can you pick out the different excuses that Moses makes that mirror our own?  What are your excuses?  We all need to give God our weakness and trust that our failures won’t change God’s plans for us.  If you are comfortable enough, start a conversation or you can email us for additional support.  Follow us on Facebook and Instagram @throughthewinters.com

Hey, ya’ll! It’s Alejandra with the last and final week of the “fear” series. Last week I challenged you to look at some things that you may have to forgive yourself for and that some of you may have to come out of your “mental prison,” thinking you are constantly being punished by God.  Now, this week I want to speak about how to capture fear before it continues to spread.  Let’s get to it…

Tackling fear hasn’t been an easy road for me as most of you know from the previous weeks.  We’ve learned that fear can be a “belief” that something or someone is trying to hurt you in week one.   We also uncovered that love is the opposite of fear and last week I shared about my belief that I was being punished by God, but all it took was His perfect love to cast out that fearful lie. This week I want to close by talking about the importance of catching fear before it spreads and how it paralyzes you.  I want to talk about the importance of surrounding yourself with amazing truth bearers who will speak the truth in love into your life.

Paralyzed

My friend Sarah once told me, “Fear is like a spark in the woods; if you don’t catch it in time, it will spread like a wildfire, destroying you and everything in your life.” This couldn’t be truer.  I’ve allowed fear to destroy relationships in my life and my ruin my faith.  Fear had paralyzed me, and I was blind to hold it had over me.

How does fear paralyze you?  Well for me, there were many phrases that people would say that would easily flame my fear.  For example, “The closer you are to God, the bigger the Devil you’ll have to fight.”  So this made me think, “Okay, then I’ll remain in the safe zone and not get too close.”  There was even a scripture to back it up.  James 1:2-4 says,

“When troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.”

So after reading this passage, full of fear, I thought, “Okay, if I don’t get close to God then I won’t go through too many trials, because what if the trials are harder than I can handle.”   So I was basically walking around stagnant, never choosing to grow my faith, but I was o.k. with that because as long as I stood in my “safe box” then nothing would happen to me. WRONG!

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33  

Regardless of what I thought, we will face troubles there is no running from that. The issue is whether to go through our problems with God or without Him. And I choose, to go through troubles with Him as the center of my life.  Fear can cause us to back down from things in life that we were created to conquer.  It can “paralyze” us keeping us from moving and growing.  Knowing that as a child of God, He will never leave me nor forsake me and that He will provide strength to me for all my battles, I confront my trials not with fear but with courage.   I get empowered by relying on scriptures like, 2 Corinthians 2:19 which says, “Where I am weak, He is made strong” because without Him I am just plain old weak.  God used my husband and the Through The Winters family to help shine light on my fear.  Which brings me to my next point.  The importance of the company you keep, as I spoke about in the “Love Yourself Journey.”

Truth Bearers!

God put some pretty amazing people in my life, people who challenge me and who speak the truth even when I do not want to hear it.  We need people in our lives to be “truth bearers”.  What’s a truth bearer?  They are those who speak to build you up, not fuel your fears.  People that, with love, will cause you to see your actions and the results they bring.  They do not always tell you what you want to hear or believe, but instead tell you what you need to hear.  They are not self-serving, and instead are sacrificial in helping you grow.   The ones I allowed to become this in my life began to speak to me, and they did it in love driving out my fears one by one.  It is not enough to have a “truth bearer” in your life, you have to be willing to let them have that access into your heart.  This is why it is so important who you place in this position.

My husband has become one of those people for me.  Let me tell you about a funny and yet not so funny conversation I had with my husband at the supermarket.  I was dealing with depression that day and I couldn’t enjoy the day at all.  I was walking around all gloomy I was so fed up with the day.

I told my husband David, “I think I have a tumor.”

He said, “Why?”

“I feel as though my eye is throbbing…” and I went on and on. I don’t remember the exact things I told him to convince him, but my husband, being a paramedic along with all his medical schooling, looked at me, and with the utmost love and said, “What you just explained is physically and medically impossible.”

Can you believe that at that moment all False Evidence Appearing Real left me that day? This is what I mean by truth in love.  He didn’t shame me because of what I was dealing with, or make me feel less than I was.  With love, he helped me through my fears.  He spoke to me in a way I could understand and receive. The Bible speaks to us so much about those people we surround ourselves with.  It is true, we cannot choose our family members, but we can definitely choose who we surround ourselves with.

Ephesians 4:1,

“Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ.”

Proverbs 27:17,

“As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.”

Proverbs 18:21,

“The tongue has the power of life and death”

Our thoughts continuously need to be on God and on who He is in our lives.  We do that by reading the Bible more and retaining what we read in our hearts, but also by surrounding ourselves with people who do not walk in defeat.  If we feed our fears instead of our faith then we aren’t really doing anything progressive.  In simpler terms, stop being around those who help you stay in fear, in doubt, depression, and who are down in spirit for comfort and guidance.  How can they in that state of mind help you?  We need people that will tell us the truth in love like Ephesians 4:1. My husband could have easily said, “Ugh, you and your stupid depression,” but instead he chose to speak to me about my concern in love.  We need someone to sharpen us like iron sharpens iron.

As we conclude this series, I want to thank you for joining me and for being patient with this journey.   I urge you to review this series whenever fear tries to creep back in.  Together we have defined fear, understood the opposite of fear which is love, learned that God’s love can drive out each of our fears, and that we must take the proper measures to catch fear before it becomes a wildfire, destroying everything around us.

Let’s pray:

Dear God, help us as we conclude this journey. Shine your light to show us where fear has been lingering and help us deal with it. Bring us to understand each truth you’ve helped us understand through this journey. Guide us Lord, and put the proper people in our lives to help us through our sorrows. We thank you for all you’ve done in us through this ministry. In Jesus’ Name, we pray. Amen!

Weekly Challenge:

As we end our month talking about fear, it would be great if you would join us in May for our series on Steven Furtick’s book, “Unqualified”.  This book is centered around our warped thinking that we need to fit into the world’s box of competency.  The world rejects us when we don’t fit their mold and sometimes we join them in critique.  Take the time to think about which areas your fear may have disqualified you from the future God has for you.  You can purchase the book on our website if you want to follow us in this study.  Please join us next week.  Also, if you haven’t already, subscribe to receive weekly letters, updates, contests, and giveaways.   Follow us on Facebook and Instagram @throughthewinters.

Hey, guys! What a week! We have been covering fear; the purpose of all this is to discover where fear has taken a toll in our lives and how we can overcome it.  This week we will be more focused on the opposite of fear, which is LOVE!  That’s right, more love; after all, the key to all things is love.  No, seriously the more I run away from love the more I seem to run right into it.  This week, I wanted to tackle the thing I feared the most in hopes to help you confront the thing you may fear the most.  Let’s get to it…

My Biggest Fear:  Hypochondria Depression

Depression can take many forms, but mine happened after my Pastor, Milca Plaud, passed on to be with the Lord.  I wrote about her in my “Nurtured back to Love” blog.  After her passing, I began to think: If God didn’t save her from cancer, He sure ain’t saving me from ANY illness I get.  That thought turned into: Maybe you have an illness now.  Later, after thinking about this enough, I began to see in myself the symptoms of different illnesses I read and thought about.

Hypochondria Depression is an abnormal anxiety about one’s health, especially with an unwarranted fear that one has a serious disease” (Merriam Webster’s Dictionary 2017).  I feared every illness (especially cancer) because it was what took my close friend and pastor away.  Eventually, the fear turned into hopelessness and my mind began thinking crazy stuff like…

“Why go to school? You are going to die anyway.”  

“Why lose weight? You’re dying anyway!” 

“Why eat healthy? You’re dying anyway!”

As I mentioned in week one,  I was raised to be paranoid with fear, with Milca’s death, now someone who really mattered was gone and I was afraid that I would share in her fate; if not worse.  I wasn’t in a happy place with my thoughts and I couldn’t shake it because I felt that death was staring me in the face.  Even when I praised God, fear would whisper in my ear “Why are you praising? You are dying anyway.”  I didn’t trust God enough to believe that He would fulfill what He said over my life, or that He loved me enough.  Fear was my “go to,” it became my familiar emotion.  It felt normal and justifiable, but thank God that He sent my husband Dave to point out to me that something was wrong.

How Does Perfect Love, Casts Out All Fears

As I have grown stronger in my knowledge of God and who He is, I have allowed His love to help calm my fears.  I was able to get to the root of my issues which wasn’t a lack of faith but a failure to believe that He really loved me.

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with torment.  The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” 1 John 4:18

Another aspect of the Hypochondria depression had me afraid of punishment from God because of my past actions.  For example, if I spoke bad about someone, I questioned if I would be punished.  There was a time in my life where this one individual hurt me so bad, so out of anger, I said to myself: Maybe God didn’t give her children because of how evil she is.  I would make fun of her and laugh at her situation repeatedly.  Today, I am struggling to have a baby of my own and I battled in my mind if I was barren due to my actions.  (Woahh, that’s the first time I’ve mentioned this out loud.)   These thoughts haunted me day and night as I thought I had an illness that prevented me from having children myself.

Depressed and hopeless, I went through all kinds of medical procedures that would confirm if, in fact, I was ill.  I asked God for forgiveness over and over again for those comments, but the unanswered prayer of giving me a family kept me in the belief that maybe God was punishing me.  I was afraid it was because I was not accepting His perfect love.  However, thank God for His Word.  It was through the scriptures that I began to find freedom from my thoughts and how I perceived God.  As I read His Word and studied it, I saw life and His LOVE differently.  I began to understand that He will do it.  He will complete what He began in me as He will with you.  When we fully understand His love and what we mean to Him, evil and struggles will still exist in this world but it will not cause me to be afraid.

Fear of Punishment

1 John: 4:18 clarifies to me that God isn’t punishing me, and He isn’t punishing you either. Our fear reigns when we struggle with the understanding of God’s love for us. This is why last week I spoke about changing our thoughts daily is such a necessary thing.  We are injected daily with negativity. Satan is called the “accuser”, and daily I lived accused by my enemy.  Can you relate to me?  Are there things you have done that the enemy convinces you that God is punishing you?  Well, I believed the lies and thought because of my past mistakes and shortcomings God would condemn me. Then I learned this passage, Romans 8:1

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death…but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.”

Thank the Lord for His GRACE and MERCY.  Without them, my sins would have sealed my future, as would have yours and all who have existed.  The new opportunities we are given through grace and mercy is because of God’s great love for us.  Fear, however, holds us captive into believing that God is constantly punishing you or condemning you for your shortcomings and wrongdoings.  If today you face hardship the reasons can be various, but know this.  If you truly are following after God, your hardship is not because He is punishing you.  Now, God may discipline us but never with evil intent.  God’s word tells us in Hebrews 12:2

“The Lord disciplines everyone he loves. He severely disciplines everyone he accepts as his child.”

There is no condemnation, but there is discipline; He loves you, so He will correct us if we need to be corrected.  Any good parent can concur with this logic.   I do not recall anyone who loves it when their parent corrected them, in turn, we might not like it when God may correct us, but it is very needed in order to reach the perfect design He has for our lives.  I, for one, am very thankful (after the fact) for God’s discipline in my life. I’ve done pretty horrible things, one of them being that I chose to make fun of and make hateful comments to a woman who suffered pain and anguish for being barren.  The depression I faced wasn’t God’s punishment, it was Satan’s lies holding me pinned down to the things I did.  John 10:10 says,

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that you may have life, and have it in abundance.”

Our enemy desires to steal your joy (like he did with me), to steal your peace and keep you depressed and hopeless. Today you may say, “But Alejandra I have done pretty terrible things”. I can tell you today that I have too and if He chose to forgive me, He will also do the same for you.  This is the basis of our gospel, forgiveness.

Weekly Challenge:

Sometimes fear keeps us captive, to our past and our present. It does this by fooling us into thinking God is mad at us. But the truth is that God loves us so very much. This week as we have been uncovering the truth in fear I will ask you to search areas in your life where you may believe that you did something so wrong, that you are way past the line of forgiveness and I want you to forgive yourself. If God has already done so, then why should you keep yourself captive to this, it will only keep you in a mental prison.  This week read Psalms 51.  These verses were shortly after David had sex with another man’s wife, got her pregnant and killed the man to cover everything up.  David knew how to repent and God’s love kept him from him getting what he deserved.  Our actions have consequences, but the love he has for us protects us from the destruction we deserve.

Hello there!

I hope all is well.  Last week we started talking about fear and I shared how it affected me.  This week we are going to ask the question, “how does fear hold us back?”  I meditated on how fear had been stopping me, I don’t know about you, but I am about ready to nip this thing in the butt! I don’t enjoy fear having a hold on me, how it controls how I move forward in life and in God.  What if I told you that fear is the opposite of… LOVE.  Would you agree?  If you don’t then you and I have way more in common than you think.  Let’s get started!

In blog one of this Fear Series we spoke about the Garden of Eden, which was where fear first entered the equation.   When God came looking for Adam and Eve, they hid in fear. Why?  Because they had disobeyed God and in doing so they were ashamed and scared.  Now, this is not how fear occurs for you and I all the time.  Disobedience can bring upon someone fear, but fear can creep up on us in other ways as well.  For some, the unknown causes fear as does doubt and the feeling of inadequacy.  I give credit to Adam and Eve because at least they admitted that they were afraid.  For me, it took years to realize that fear was ruling my heart in an abnormal way and that wasn’t of God.

Love the opposite of Fear?

Before I tell you about the secret of getting rid of fear or how to at least not let it rule your life, allow me the opportunity to tell you about how I came to terms with my battle with fear.  As I stated before, I struggled with fear for years as I did with receiving God’s love.  One day I got into a deep conversation with Marsha where she further explained to me that fear is the opposite of love.  I was baffled by that statement and said NO!  (In my super duper spiritual voice) Fear is the opposite of faith, and love is the opposite of hate!  Marsha explained it to me by using my relationship with my husband David and asked me the following.  In my conversation she randomly asked me I trusted my husband David.  She then asked if I ever feared if he would cheat.  My answer was a firm “Yes, I trust him.”  I never question David’s faithfulness.  She then went on to ask if feared that David would kill me.  What a ridiculous question, of course not.  She then asked me why?  I’m not to sure why she would ask me something like that?  I know David wouldn’t do anything like because he loves me.  That’s when Marsha said, “That’s why love is the opposite of fear.”

I must confess I was a bit mad at her for saying this but she was right.  I love my husband and I am undoubtedly sure he loves me so he wouldn’t hurt me on purpose.  In fact the bible tells us in 1 John 4:18, “Perfect love cast out fear…He who fears is not made in perfect love.”   Why does the Bible choose love and fear in the same sentence?  It is in the same sentence because fear is the opposite of love.  If I trust and do not fear David or his actions because I know that he loves me, then why do why do I fear if God will protect me?  The answer is because I struggle with knowing that God loves me.

Can I trust a God I don’t believe loves me?

I’ve learned about how God loves me and I knew what I had to accept as a believer in Him, but I never truly accepted that in my heart of hearts.  But it makes sense.   I have seen God as my father figure for years but I saw Him as I did my earthly father, which wasn’t in a good way.  Marsha wrote in “The Father’s Love” blog, “How can I trust God when He compares himself to something we have found over the years to be unstable, inconsistent, flaky and faithless?”

I met my dad when I was eight years old, and since I grew up in a broken home, I thought families were meant to be broken.  I thought that dads and moms were suppose to be apart.  I thought that seeing your dad maybe once or twice a month with conversations here and there was normal.  So when I became a Christian I would say, “Well God I’ve spoken to you enough this week.  I don’t want you to get tired of me.  So maybe we can talk next week.” Actually about a couple of months ago I remember thinking this very thought, “God could get sick and tired of me.”  With tears in my eyes I confess that today I had this conversation with God just about an hour ago.  I started asking,” What if I don’t trust you God?”  He answered so lovingly, “That’s o.k. I can handle it.”

“But what if I am too scared, and believe again that you’ll let me down?”  God went on to tell me that he would show me that side of him.  I just didn’t think I could do it because it was hard.  He went on to say, “My power is made perfect in your weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

I mirrored my relationship with God against the relationship I had with my father from when I was a little girl.  Though my relationship with my dad isn’t nearly as good as it is with God, I still believed that somehow my Heavenly Father would let me down like my dad did.  After we had the above conversation, I remembered that not too long ago I cried about the hold fear had on me and I opened up my bible without any specific scripture in mind and this is where God brought me to Zephaniah 3:17 again.

 I have used this scripture before in my previous blogs, and it is the scripture that confirms my conversation with God over and over again. The Bible tells us in this passage that with love He is calming our fears.  Though many have failed me in the past, I now understand that He won’t.  With His great love He rebuilds our broken hearts and any severed relationships with Him.  He never says that He is going to give me all that I want or that all of my fears will be taken away.  It’s not promised that I won’t ever be hurt again or that nothing bad will ever happen to me.  He does say that He will comfort and delight in us, meaning that though things may get tough, there will be a sense of calmness and peace where there should be worry and concern.  His love covers us like a security blanket and as long as we are wrapped up in it we are safe and nothing outside of that blanket can harm us.

Turn Everything To Work For My Good

Romans 8:28 says,“God will turn everything to work for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”

I know that in many cases this is hard to believe, but yes this especially includes even the bad.  The cancers, deaths, miscarriages, financial ruts, sickness, lost children, war, politics, unjust laws, brokenness, abandonment, rape, abuse, molestation, barren hood, depression, and on and on.  The truth is, that whether you follow Christ or not we all fall victim to this fallen and destructive world.  There is no escaping it.  The difference is in “…those who love Him…”  All these things that we fear, yes somehow, He will turn out for our good, be it in this world or the next.  Without Him I have no hope with what this world has to offer, but with Him I realize there is so much more (John 16:33).

I come from a past of abuse, hurt, brokenness and sickness, through it all God has seen me through each and every step of the way.  He has allowed me to go through my hard and painful times but because I have learned to truly love Him and have found my purpose in Him I am a vessel being used for His Kingdom.  Because of all that I have gone through yesterday and the days before, today I am able to be used by God as an official member of this ministry, “Through the Winters”.   I stand as proof that He can turn our “pain into purpose”.

This Weeks Challenge:

Romans 8:37-39

The above bible verse talks to us about His love for us, and reminds us that nothing can separate us from His love; not even our fears.   This means that God isn’t done showing His love to us. If you haven’t made Jesus Christ the king of your heart, meaning that you have let Him in and let Him be your God, then I urge you to do that now with us. Or if you are today in need of reconciliation with Jesus then don’t worry I have reconciled with God about 1,000 times. Simply pray this simple and yet powerful prayer,

“Father, I recognize my need for you. I’ve lived in fear for long enough and I am ready to make you king of my heart.  I want you to come into my heart and ask you to take control of my life and turn all my hurts, pain, and past to work for my good. Today I choose to believe that Jesus Christ died for me and my sins on the cross and that He rose again on the third day. I pray this in Jesus name Amen.”

If you prayed this prayer for the first time the Bible tells us in Luke 15:10 that TODAY! RIGHT NOW! Angels rejoice in heaven for you!  Take sometime this week and meditate on these verses, John 3:16, Romans 5:8.

If you need additional help or support contact us through email or commenting below.  Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at throughthewinters.com.

Hey, guys! It’s me, Alejandra, again.  So last time I covered the blogs, it was about love, this month we will be talking about FEAR! … … …Yay!

A Relationship with “Fear”

I decided to cover this topic because, like many others, I thought “fear” was a normal part of life.  Fear and I were best friends.  We took walks in the park together, it would follow me to work, school, and then back home again.  I woke up and said “hi” to fear in the morning and made an extra plate for it when I cooked dinner at night.  What I’m trying to say is that I had a peculiar relationship with fear.  In fact, as I write this blog I would say that I have some kind of courtship with fear.  But today I’m serving fear a notice!  It’s time we break up.

I was raised under circumstances that allowed fear to be constantly instilled into me.  I believe that when you are raised in fear, it can become the only thing you know and the only way you know how to respond.  I can pinpoint the exact times in which fear took over different circumstances of my life.  See I know it starts small but unchecked, it can spread like a wildfire and, in time, wound up EVERYWHERE.

According to Webster’s Dictionary, fear is defined as, “An unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is trying to hurt you.”  In other words, when we fear, something has caused us to feel that we have lost control.  It has caused a sense of vulnerability and/or inadequacy.  So when we “fear” something, we first have had to believe that there is a reason to be alarmed.  You may ask, “What are those reasons?   Well, that depends on the person.  For some, we fear what we do not understand and/or choose not to learn more about.  Others fears are caused by past experiences that we do not want to experience again.   Genesis 3:9 introduces to us the first mention of fear:

Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?” Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.”

Fear first entered the scene when Adam and Eve sinned against God.  It’s my belief that Adam and Eve hid because, like every child and parental relationship, we hide when we feel we’ve done something wrong.  We weren’t suppose to even know what fear was.  Their act of disobedience in the Garden of Eden caused fear, depression, broken families, betrayal, and every other type of negative effect.  Thankfully, because of Jesus’ act of love on the cross and the resurrection, a new path was forged for us.  It is one that gives us the chance to walk in courage and not fear.

Let me tell you about a conversation I had with Marsha not too long ago.  As I had expressed to you before in previous blogs, because of my past it is hard for me to let people in and become part of my life.  It is all out of “fear” that I believe that if I allow them to get close they will hurt me like others have in my past.  So, one day I texted Marsha and told her that I was having a problem because the new people in my church kept inviting me to cover over their house.  Don’t get me wrong, they are nice but I just didn’t want to go.  After texting Marsha she responded sarcastically, “You mean they are being Christians?”  I was still drowning in the old me.  Out of the fear of being hurt by others, I convinced myself that I needed to “stay away,” even though I knew that God’s Word tells me to “love people.”  A change needed to take place, fear was spreading and it was spreading fast!

When Fear Raises You

How do I walk away from something that I’ve lived with for years? This is a question that I’m sure Alana from our “Survivor series” would have asked herself.  What do you do when you’ve known fear longer than you’ve known love?  Alana said that her mother gave her lecture after lecture to be fearful of this and afraid of that.  In time that was the only way she knew how to think and it was what the enemy used to introduce fear into Alana’s life.  This was planted into her way of thinking from a young age and, in essence, “fear” raised her. Likewise, in ways my mother thought it would protect me, she taught me how to be afraid of things.  I allowed fear to be my “go to” emotion in life.  Our mothers were trying to keep us safe and alert physically, but emotionally we became naïve and paranoid, opening doors for the enemy to have his way. What better way for the enemy to convince us that fear is a positive thing, than to introduce it through people we trust and love the most?

Changing My Thoughts

Before I could stop my fears I needed to be honest about the things I was afraid of.  There were areas in which I need to step out of my comfort zone.  Writing these blogs is truly one of those ways that I stepped out.  I’m also learning to be vulnerable in this ministry.  In writing to you, I realized that there is no way to overcome fear without making changes.  We have to slooooooooooowly “renew our minds” (Romans 12:2).  I heard of the term “renewing your mind” and thought that God was going to remove my mind and give me a new one.  Unfortunately that’s not it.  After the world beats us up and throws us away, our mind becomes warped into thinking that what is wrong is right and what is right is wrong.  We think that good is bad and bad is good.  In Christ however, when He renews us, we find comfort in His Word, guidance by His Spirit and peace in His presence.

It sounds so simple to renew your mind right?  I’ll tell you, it isn’t simple!  It’s ugly, painful, annoying, and sickening at times. Why?  Because in order to remove your fears, God will make you face them.  2 Timothy 1:7 talks about how He didn’t give us a spirit of fear.  Instead, He provides us with the tools needed to confront those things that would normally make us afraid.  Have you ever gone on a rollercoaster that you really didn’t want to go on because you dreaded the ride? That’s what facing my fears is like, dreadful, paralyzing, shocking unexpected turns of life.  I cannot explain the pain of going up those stairs, thinking I’m making progress just for me to experience an extreme free fall. There is a lot of clenched-fist-grasping on to those bars and screaming “please no!” But when the ride is over I realize I can do it, and the more I do, the easier it is for me to move forward.

There were many things that I feared and yet here I am.  He is changing my fears, and turning them into prayers, faith stories and testimonies that I can share with others.  God has totally, because I have allowed Him to, changed the way I think.

One of the bible verses that gave me peace was Zephaniah 3:17…

“For the LORD your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”

Notice that God “calms” our fears, he doesn’t take them away.  How does he do that?  He does it with his love.  We have blogs that talk about the different kinds of love that God gives that may be uncomfortable for us at times.  Know this, though: with His love, if we allow Him to, He is able to calm all our fears.

Join me next week as we speak on, “Fear, the Opposite of Love”.

Let’s pray,

My God you are so amazing. Thank you, Jesus, for dealing with us in every area of our lives. There isn’t a better place to be than in your hands, as you mold us and shape us into the new us you long for us to be. You change our thoughts and give us new ones to hold on to.  My God, this month we want to give you all of our fears, our worries and Lord turn them into faith.  Guide us through this journey and show us how to be more life you. Help us face and conquer our deepest fears. Help us to be completely guided by you as we work this week on renewing the way we think and see things. In Jesus’ Name, we pray. Amen.

Weekly Challenge

This week I challenge you to seek the areas in which you feel fear is paralyzing you and not letting you walk in the perfect peace of God. Seek to identify where fear is creeping in, and where it’s dwelt for years. Afterward, let’s meditate on God’s truth and search for it with passion. Let’s focus on these scriptures which tell us more about love and less about fear! Learning how to walk in that perfect love God speaks to us on.

I would like you to read Philippians 4:8, challenge yourself on the things that are consuming your thoughts.  Replace them with these things.  Then read 2 Corinthians 4:16-18.  This scripture is to challenge you to see what are you fixing your eyes on.  Are you looking at what is temporary or what is eternal?

If you need help, please email us or start a conversation by commenting below.  Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook @throughthewinters.com

The power of fear can drive us right into the arms of the very thing we are trying to avoid.  So many loving parents try really hard to protect their children from the pains of life and in doing so, they sometimes neglect to address the bigger issues.   They teach the “do’s and don’ts” of how to behave and act, but life lessons are sometimes left out.  We all want to do it right. We want to nurture our children and do everything we can to give them the life we dreamed up for them.  But what happens when children aren’t taught about “True Love” and about the worth they have in God?   What happens when they decide to let someone toxic into their heart because they fear that they won’t ever be loved, so they allow that toxic person in? 

This blog is a little longer than normal so get some coffee and let’s read about my friend of over 20 years, Alana Martinez’s,  powerful testimony of survival.

The Unexpected Enemy

I can still hear the sounds of fear and anxiety in my mother’s voice as she gave me the same lecture every time we were going to be around others.

“Alana, I want you close to me where I can see you.  Don’t you dare play around with any ‘machos’ (males) or sit on any man’s lap.”

She told me this at every family gathering and every time someone came over.  The only exceptions were my father and my brother.  I made sure not to be caught near any men, so to spare myself the embarrassment of being reprimanded in public.

Sadly her fearful, anxiety ridden, lectures failed to educate me about the dangers of girls as well.  She tried so hard to protect me from being molested by men that it never occurred to her it could happen at hands of a female as well.  I was scarred when I was violated by a female at a very young age.  After hearing so many lectures I was afraid that what happened to me was my fault so I stayed quiet and never asked to sleep over anyone’s house or vice versa again.  I chose to keep the deep dark secret hidden and eventually blocked it out.

It didn’t matter how much my mother tried to protect me or even how hard I tried to shield myself from other people who would try to take and take advantage of me, I found myself in situations that quickly spiraled out of my control.  There were many factors through the years that led to me choosing to be in an abusive relationship.  They all began with me suppressing that first sexual encounter at five and no matter how hard I tried I allowed fear to push me towards the life my mother tried to shield me from.

When You Thought It Couldn’t Get Any Worse

I married at a very young age to the first person that showed me affection; for fear that I would not find another that would ever love me.  Shortly after one month of being married the abuse started.  First, it began with being grabbed by my shirt which later escalated.  With each encounter, it intensified.   It started with just pushing, throwing, and then it went to getting kicked, then slapped, then grabbed.  Eventually, my husband started to punch me and then choking me.  As years passed the abuse got worse.  He became so violent that he broke my finger and gave me a herniated disc in my back. It got even worse when he started burning my two very young children, as punishment.  He wanted to instill more fear so one day in one of our arguments he shoved a gun in my mouth; though the physical part of the abuse was bad, the verbal and non-verbal abuse was far worse.

The physical abuse was so much easier to deal with than the psychological, mental, and emotional abuse.  It was a humbling and breaking of the spirit that was irreparable.  Him abusing me and my children physically and emotionally was bad, but it wasn’t over yet.  He soon started to sexually abuse me.   I was sexually exploited in different ways.  He started forcing me to participate in pornographic film-making and practice degrading sexual activity.

He was changing my entire way of thinking; creating a victim’s mentality.  Just a look from him paralyzed me; even a change in the tone of his voice brought fear.  His goal was to break my relationships and isolate me from anyone who was a threat to “open” my eyes to the truth.

So wrapped in fear, I failed to see that my very own children were being sexually abused as well and when I did suspect, I did not have the solid proof to back up my “assumptions”.  Fear did not allow me to see clearly.  There were many days and moments, that thoughts flooded my mind on ways to get out, to get back at him for all that he had done and continued to do.  But as my hatred grew, my fear grew even greater.   I knew that I was definitely on a road straight to the grave.  But if I died, I was not going to go alone; there would be a great chance that my kids were headed to the grave with me.

Train Up a Child

Although the voice of fear rang loud in my ears every day, if it had not been for the Lord in one moment of stillness, I would not be here today.  In that one moment, Jesus showed me that He loved me and that this was not the life He had intended for me to have at all.   It says in Proverbs 22:6,

“Train up a child the way that he should go, and it will not depart from him.”

In my mess of fear and pain, it only took a moment to sincerely cry out to the Lord for him to help me and ask him to show me that this was not in His plan.  I grabbed my Bible (called the CARE Bible) and opened to a commentary the author wrote.  It said exactly this: “God is not a God of confusion, [He] cares for you.  If you are in a situation of abuse, you must call authorities to get you out of that situation.  And you must understand this is not His plan for your life.”  The message could not have been any clearer.

My road has definitely not been an easy one.  As a former victim of domestic violence, I can tell you now, I am a victor.  I am not exempt from the struggles, challenges, trials and tribulations of this life, but I understand now that faith can be the opposite of fear.  Fear paralyzes you, but faith can move mountains.  That is why the enemy is so determined to attack your faith.  Without it, it is impossible to please God.

If I knew then what I know now, I most definitely would not have worried as much about how my life would have gone, nor would I have allowed myself to make such rash decisions based on fear.  Fear and worrying never got me anywhere but into more mess.  If it were not for the Lord, I would not be here today.  No matter how much I feared or worried, God still accomplished His will and continues to show Himself to be faithful.  He has NEVER failed me before and He most definitely won’t start now.

-Alana

Alana’s story is powerful and it should make every parent stop for a minute. When we parent our children in fear we unknowingly plant a seed that follows them through life.  Sometimes the very thing we are trying to protect them from is the very thing that entraps them.  We must fight for our children but we have to stop fighting under the umbrella of fear. 

Alana has rededicated her life to Jesus and returned to church over 6 years ago.  Today she is the lead worship leader in her church.  All of her children are serving the Lord including her daughter who will be pursuing full-time ministry and her son who is currently playing the drums on the worship team.  God is not just in the business of healing us but forging us into the Devil’s worst nightmare.  

Make sure to check us out in April where Alejandra will be taking the whole month to talk about fear.  

Weekly Challenge:

Take some to read Psalms 34 carefully.  This Psalm was written by King David who was in a situation where he allowed his fear to get the best of him.  He was in the face of his enemies and he decided to act like he was insane.  Think about a time in your life when you made a decision out of fear.  Write out these fears in your devotion time with God and pick one to work on and when you think you’ve got a handle on it. Then move to the next one.  Get an accountability partner or pastor involve if your fear is consuming.

Before I leave, I would also love you to check out my friend, Dorsey Ross and his new autobiography, Overcomer.  We talked about him last week.  The book details the challenges Dorsey faced, as well as those of his family, when he was diagnosed with Apert Syndrome; a genetic disorder that causes abnormal shaping of the skull and face, as well as other birth defects. Despite pressure from the doctors to place Dorsey in an institution, with a belief he would be brain-dead soon, his parents decided to take Dorsey home and do what they could to help his life thrive, even if it meant having to endure sixty-eight surgeries for his face, head, and hands.  Dorsey is a walking miracle and you will have the opportunity to purchase his book when you look on the sidebar of our website. You can also go to his website to see more about him and his ministry – Dorsey Ross Ministries.

We would love to hear from you whether it’s in the comments below or by email. If you haven’t yet, Like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram.  See you next week!!

Meet Carlee – My First Survivor

For the last few months, I have been sharing my story of my abuse and hurt.  The hardest part of growing up is realizing that you lost your childhood.  In different blogs and in my book, I share the struggles but I talk about how I have been able to live as a survivor of abuse.  There are others that have survived some very painful things but they are not just surviving they are thriving.  March is our, “Survivor Series.”  You are going read some amazing stories over the next month.  Due to the sensitivity of the stories, we are going to change the names of everyone. The first story we are going to read is of my friend Carlee.  I pray you will be inspired.

My name is Carlee Michaels, and I am a survivor. My mother and father divorced when I was a small child. Because of this, I needed to stay at my dad’s house half the time and at my mom’s house the other half. My mom was a very strong faith-filled Christian from when I was young. I went to church every Sunday and was taught all about God. The only problem was my dad was an angry, bitter, atheist. Every time I went to my father’s house, he would do things that caused me to doubt the existence of a “good father.”  From 3 to 9 years old I was sexually, physically, and verbally abused by my father. It was like Marsha said in the blog Father’s Love, I put this invisible being to the test.  There were times that I was in my father’s house at 6 years old, curled in my bed, praying that the God my mother spoke about would come to my rescue.  Sometimes the abuse would happen, but sometimes my father would be too drunk or too tired and I would not be touched.  Still, I wondered how could people preach to me about a loving God who is supposed to be my Heavenly Father when my earthly father was the epitome of evil?

I started struggling with the idea of this God.   I didn’t understand why such a loving God would give me such a brutal life. My father’s abuse was not the only thing I had to endure.  My mother had a problem with men, going from man to man was her downfall and, unfortunately, I paid for it. I was being abused by my father when I went to his home and at the age of 8, her boyfriend molested me. He didn’t stick around too long.  Not too long after that, she got involved with another man and that man became her husband.  He did not put his hands on me but he started to verbally abuse me until I was about 17 years old. So for 14 years, I did not have the best depiction of how a man should treat a young girl.

Where Would I be Without God ?

God continued to chase me even though I wanted nothing to do with him.  At about 13 I was pressured–in the best way–to attend the youth group at my church. I was so angry and bitter inside but I was really good at putting on a mask and pretending to be happy, so I went.  I could pretend to be happy all I wanted but not long after that I was diagnosed with several mental illnesses and hospitalized and placed in the psych wards more times than I was out and home.  During this crazy period of life, I met my spiritual father and his wife.  This man helped heal my broken spirit as he loved me as a father loves a daughter.  His role in my life helped restore my view of men.  This is when God truly got a hold of me and I said, “Okay, now it’s time for your heavenly father to make some changes.”  So at about 17 years old I became really saved.

I decided that I wanted to study psychology in school.  In my classes, I am bombarded with the information about the harmful effects of abuse on a child and how that child should end up in their teens and into adulthood. Without God where would I be?  From my studies, it is clear I should have been addicted to drugs or alcohol or both, in constant sexual relations with men, possibly a teenage mother, or as a result of the depression that I do suffer from, I should be dead.  Even though I wish he did, God did not erase my past.  I must admit that there were suicide attempts but God really got a hold of my heart and showed me who I was in Him. My life without God would have gone a completely different way.

If I knew back then what I know now about God I would have told myself this:

“You were created for more than abuse and maltreatment Carlee Michaels. You were made to be a light in this world of darkness. Not every man is like the three that you have encountered. God is going to use your story to help many girls that are going through the same thing. Even though life looks hopeless now, there is a God who is by your side through the whole thing. He never promised you wouldn’t face trials, but He does promise to hold your hand the whole way through if you’ll let him.”

Carlee is a powerful woman not because she was never weak, but that she refused to let her weakest moments of her life to dictate her future.  Carlee is a worship leader in her church and for the first time, she has been given a small group of teenagers of her own to mentor.  The young people she oversees are just as broken as she used to be.  Carlee has had many opportunities to use her story to set others free.  Are you like Carlee?  Are you angry that God did not erase your past?  Well, I want you to reread what she would have said to herself and pretend she is talking directly to you, “You were created for more than abuse and maltreatment beloved. You were made to be a light in this world of darkness. Not everyone will hurt you like the ones you encountered. God is going to use your story to help many people that are going through the same thing. Even though life looks hopeless now, there is a God who is by your side through the whole thing. He never promised you wouldn’t face trials, but He does promise to hold your hand the whole way through if you’ll let him.”

Weekly Challenge:

Do you relate to Carlee’s story?  Does your view of God suffer from the crimes others have committed against you?  God wants to restore your relationship with him.  He wants to show you how much he loves you.  I want to challenge you to read Matt 18:1-14 as one story.  In the Bible, it is broken up, but when you read it. put them all together.  Pretend that you are one of the little children and also the lost sheep.  Pay close attention to how Jesus views the one that has caused you to stumble.

Before I leave I would also love you to check out my friend, Dorsey Ross and his new autobiography, Overcomer.  The book details the challenges Dorsey faced, as well as those of his family, when he was diagnosed with Apert Syndrome: a genetic disorder that causes abnormal shaping of the skull and face, as well as other birth defects. Despite pressure by the doctors to place Dorsey into an institution, with a belief he would be brain-dead soon, his parents decided to take Dorsey home and do what they could to help his life thrive: even if it meant having to endure sixty-eight surgeries for his face, head, and hands. 

I grew up with Dorsey.  His father was actually the van driver that would pick me up on Sunday mornings and take me to church.  Dorsey and I were both a handful on these rides home but his father was so loving and patient.   I grew to admire my friend as he never allowed anything from coming to church.  His spirit and his determination are contagious and inspiring.   Dorsey is a walking miracle and you will have the opportunity to purchase his book when you look on the sidebar of our website.   You can also go to his website to see more about him and his ministry, Dorsey Ross Ministries.

We would love to hear from you whether it’s through comments or email.  If you haven’t yet, Like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram.

Trusting God like the Titanic

Last month we had the pleasure of hearing Alejandra’s journey of loving herself and at the end of the month, you met my friend Faith.  Faith is a friend of mine whose low self-esteem landed her in a very abusive relationship at the age of 15.  Faith’s story showed how not caring for oneself can lead to a snowball of issues.  After this 30 day challenge and reading Faith’s story, something came to my mind. Can we really love ourselves if we don’t learn how to “let” God love us?  Can we really have a breakthrough in our self-image if we are too scared to show God our ugliness?  Let’s be real now…do we trust God to love us?  This month I wanted us to think about the ways we can learn to let God love us.

Why do you think people find it hard to let God love them?  What is it that makes one not fully able to trust Him?  Okay, follow me on this…  What if I said to you, “My friendship with you is as unsinkable as the Titanic”,  or  “You can relax, I’m as reliable as the plane in the T.V. series Lost.”  Would you feel comforted?   If I compared myself to any of these things would you find me to be reliable or dependable?  The answer most likely is “no”.  Would you be afraid to trust me, I think so. You may not say it to me upfront but as life started getting rough and the iceberg of struggle can be seen, would you fear for our friendship?  It would be then that one may put their guard up.

A Heavenly Father in an Almost Fatherless World

Scripture wants us to see God as our Heavenly “FATHER”.  For so many this title is not a good one.  So how do we trust God when he compares himself to something we have found over the years to be unstable, inconsistent, flaky and faithless?  How can I feel comfortable with God when the example He uses to define Himself, I define, as weak and lacks the ability to stand up tall when the pressure is on?

In Luke 11:11-13 Jesus was reassuring us that when we ask anything from God, he promises to answer.  He also wanted us to know that anytime we sought him we would find him.  Whenever we knocked on the door, the door would be opened.  Jesus wants to drive this point home so he asks this question,

¹¹ “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?  ¹² Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?”

It’s interesting because in [1] 2005, according to National Center for Fathering, 75% of children were living in fatherless homes.  This statistic went on to say that every one of those children was 10 times as likely to experience extreme poverty.  Read that again, not some poverty but extreme poverty.  So look at the question God asks again.  Which of you would do that?  Well, apparently almost 3 quarters of the nation’s fathers chose to give their sons and daughters snakes and scorpions.  Jesus refers to God as his Father 65 times in the gospels alone.  So the question lies, how do we teach a generation to let God love them as a father when close to 75% of them are fatherless?

In the 18 years of ministering to young people, I can count on two hands the number of active fathers who were in the lives of the hundreds of kids we mentored.  Let me be clear, a handful of active biological fathers.  Many of my kids had fathers that abandoned them, beat them and showed them first hand what a life driven by substance abuse was like.  Because of that, many of my teens grasped God as Lord, King of kings, Master, Creator but very few of my kids could receive Him as Father.

Do you share their hesitation?  Do you struggle with God’s Fatherly love because your understanding of this parental figure is one that was abusive and fickle?  If you were like me you did not have a father sitting at the edge of your bed reading bedtime stories.  You didn’t have a father scooping you up when you fell and promising that it would be all better.  You were not fortunate to have a strong figure reassuring you that you were loved unconditionally.  Sadly if you were like me you missed out on the chance of being told that you were like fine expensive China, never to allow anyone to treat you like cheap 11.99 disposable plates.

So, no I didn’t ask for fish but I did ask for love, acceptance, compassion, understanding, and tenderness but in return, I received abuse, neglect, and rejection.  How do I allow myself to be vulnerable to my Heavenly Father when my earthly father left me licking my wounds?

Finally, A Giving Father

Let’s look at the next verse…

¹³ If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Okay so God asked me to read this verse again and again because I was still questioning why we would look at our earthly fathers as an example of him.  But I saw three words that help bring clarity to those who have painful memories of their father.   Jesus says if we who are evil KNOW HOW…see we are in a time when we are victims of our father’s inability to do right by us.  They know the right thing to do but they don’t do it.  It doesn’t say at all that they know how to give good gifts…and actually give it.  The only one that actually gives anything in these verses is God the Father in this verse.

Look at Matt 24:10-12…

We live in a world where good fathers will stand by their kids, provide for them, and do what is needed to make sure their kids thrive, are rare commodities. We are living in an age when good fathers will be just as extinct as the saber-tooth tiger.

Is that suppose to discourage us from trusting our Heavenly Father though?  No way!  Guess what, this is not the first time that God has called himself something that we find to be unpredictable and weak.    Are we not living in an age where we have put other gods in our lives that have failed, but God says he is the one true God?  Have we not had physicians that have failed their patients, but he calls himself the great Physician.  You see those that have let us down should not be proof that God would do the same, but it should develop a desperation for God–who will never fail us.  This desperation will turn to pure trust as we give God a chance to love us the way we need to be loved.

Unfortunately, I can’t get into all the steps, but what are the first steps in experiencing the Father’s love?

Hebrews 13:5, 6 says,

⁵ Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,

“Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you.”^[a]

⁶ So we say with confidence,

“The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.
What can mere mortals do to me?”^[b]

Psalms 103:13-14

As a father has compassion on his children,
    so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
¹⁴ for he knows how we are formed,
    he remembers that we are dust.

Fathers are built to provide and protect the family.  God wants to do that for us but we have to be willing to let him.  We must learn to trust God to provide for us and take care of us.  He will never leave us, no matter what state we are in and he will take care of our needs and give us even things we want.

Weekly Challenge

Read John 5:19-47.  Look at how Jesus talks about God as a Father.  What are some things you can pick out from their relationship?  Then take the time to see how this verse mirrors your lack of parental relationship with God.  It would be good to journal things that you need to change and some goals you have to set for your relationship with God.

Also if you would like to hear more about my testimony read my book, “The Threshing: A Weapon Forged by Fire.” Sign up here to read the first three chapters for free!  You can also buy the full book on Amazon! If you need additional help feel free to email us or comment below. We love hearing from our readers. You can also follow us @throughthewinters on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

[1] Clinton, T., Hart, A., Ohlschager, G. (2005). Caring For People God’s Way. Nashville: Thomas
Nelson

This month we have been blessed by Alejandra’s eye-opening 30-day challenge of loving ourselves.  She shared with us about her abusive relationship and the dangers of surrounding yourself with those that don’t love you the way Jesus loves you.  That resonated with me so much.  How many times do we continue to snowball into sin, hurt and pain because of those around us?  At times we make certain people so important in our lives but yet those same people don’t think as highly of us as we do of them and half of the time we find that they really don’t love us.  You are going to meet another friend of mine.  Her name is Faith and she is 18 years old.  She agreed to share her story with the hopes of helping someone out there see the dangers of not loving themselves enough and the importance of having the right people around them.

Faith:

At the age of 15, I remember my mom would say, “Faith, you don’t need to search for a guy because you will know when that Godly man shows up. He will be running alongside you.” My mom was telling me this after I had just gotten out of an abusive relationship with my ex-boyfriend. Let me take you back to that painful season of my life where I realized my mother’s words really were a warning from God.

I had gone through a lot in my life and at this time I was just getting back into the ways of the Lord.  I was in 9^th grade and as my life was getting back on track, I met a kid from my Journalism Class.  We started becoming friends and I began to develop feelings for him. As our friendship grew deeper, we both expressed our feelings towards one another.  I felt within me that he was “the one” —  the one God had intended to run alongside me.  We ended up dating and as the school year ended he would come and hang out with my family and me almost all the time.

One night at youth group, my pastor shared his testimony with the group.  He also had me share my testimony.  After it was all done, three teens gave their lives to Christ.  It was then that I thought my relationship with the Lord was good.  He used me in such a great way, everything had to be okay, right?

A week after sharing my testimony at youth group, I lost my virginity to my boyfriend because I loved him so much.  I wholeheartedly thought that by doing this it would show him that I loved him.   My mother had no idea of what had happened, but she came to her own conclusions.  Another week later she expressed that she didn’t feel my boyfriend was good for me.  I became very defensive.  I thought that she was crazy and I refused to believe her.  She didn’t know him the way I knew him, so I thought.  So I kept my relationship going without her approval.

As our relationship continued, my boyfriend and I were now experiencing some difficulties. We were always arguing and he began to publicly disrespect me.  He touched other girls sexually in front of me and didn’t care at all about my feelings.  Not too long after that, he began to isolate me from anyone I was close with.  I know now that it was a form of control.  Everything started getting very unhealthy very quickly.  I would tell my mom about what he would say or do and she saw all the red flags, but I didn’t. I continued to make excuses of why I deserved what he was giving me.  Sadly, I really thought that this behavior was true love.

We would continue to fight over the same things, but it just got worse as time passed on.  It eventually reached the point where he began threatening me. He grabbed me by my shirt and tripped me. He started demanding sex from me every time and I didn’t want to.  My mom’s words would echo in my mind, “Faith, you need to stop being around this boy because he is no good.” She knew I was getting hurt but had no idea of the extent to which it was happening.  I hid everything from her because I knew that if she knew, everything would be over and I would lose him.

So I continued to refuse her advice and continued my relationship with him.  One day, my argument with him got really out of hand.  We got into this huge fight at the end of the school day.  It was the same argument we kept having about his behavior with other girls.  My friends were witnessing everything and made things worse as they started encouraging me to slap him in the face.  I didn’t want to do that.  Before I could finish talking I felt a blow to my own face.  My boyfriend had struck me.  He struck me a second time and I quickly ran to the door to try and escape.  He pulled me into a tiny hallway and slammed me against the window.  When he did that it brought back my memories of when my father use to slam me into different things.  The fear I had at that moment triggered memories in me I had suppressed and just like that, I was reliving my father’s abuse all over again.

After that, I told my mom what had happened and she told me that he was being abusive.  She told me that she wanted me to stay away from him but I didn’t want to face the truth so I buried it.  My mother placed a restraining order against him and pulled me out of that school as soon as possible.  I’m here now telling you that I don’t know where I would be without Jesus.  I know for certain that if I didn’t have Christ I would either be dead or going to jail.  I had to come to grips with where I was mentally and that if my ex-boyfriend didn’t kill me then someone else would have.

Did you ever wish you could go back and tell your younger self, “DON’T DO IT!”  If I only knew then, what I know now I would’ve focused on my Lord and Savior more.  God had his hand upon my life from the time my father was abusing me to the moment I entered that abusive relationship.  I know that the enemy meant something worse to result from my decision, but God turned it around for good.  The Lord had better plans for me than I had for myself.  I know that he only wants the best for his children.

God showed me so much love and the verse that makes my heart melt every time is 1 John 4:18 where it says,

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”

I now know the true meaning of love, especially Gods love for me. Nothing will ever change his love for all of us. Nothing!

-Faith

Thank you so much for sharing Faith.  As I was reading your story I saw everything that we have been learning about these last few weeks.  You could see that Faith lacked self-esteem that she felt she deserved what she was getting.  She felt the abuse she received from her ex-boyfriend was as good as her love was going to get from anyone.  How many times have we settled for second or third or even fourth best because we didn’t love who we are?  We have a distorted view of ourselves and for that, we seek out distorted things to fit in our dysfunctional world.

There is so much more to loving ourselves than just loving ourselves the way God loves us.  What if we don’t have the right view of God’s love for us?  So Faith’s story is the bridge to our next topic “Letting God Love Us.”

We are continuing our 30-day challenge on loving yourself.  Alejandra is our guest blogger for the month of January and she is going to share with us the next level to loving ourselves

“The Company You Keep”

Psalm 1: “Blessed is the one who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked.”

Man oh, man!  This has been quite the journey discovering the meaning of God’s love to me in the form of a biblical mirror.  The first week we spoke about the “mirror.” I shared with you that if the people in your life are toxic, then the words they speak soon become the mirror in which you begin to see yourself through. The second week we spoke on “loving me like He loved me.”  God found you valuable enough to die for! He doesn’t just like you, He loves you! Sacrifice the need to be liked, die to the need of belonging.  You need to understand that the anointing over your life is great so you will NEVER belong, EVER!  You aren’t the missing piece of the puzzle, with God you are whole, and you don’t belong with all those other broken pieces.  Because he loved me so much I needed to love me enough to die too, die to my sin.  It is important to have people in your life who are patient and whom you can share the vision and work that God is doing with you.  It can be hard to let go of toxic relationship but it is important to your own well being and the calling that God has for you to let go of them and press forward.  Lastly, if you are like me, you might have found the third challenge the most difficult.  We talked about being patient with ourselves even when we fail or don’t get it.  I also talked about being kind to ourselves as we are asked to be kind to others.

Let’s dive into this week’s topic, “The Company You Keep.”

As I write for the final week of this journey, I’m wondering where God is taking me. I realize how much I covered in such a short period of time.  The funny thing is there is so much more. For years I struggled with self-defeat and I discovered that many of the people I associated with felt the same way about me.  When you believe the worst in you, you attract the ones who believe what you believe. It wasn’t until about four years ago that I decided to do some purging. My friends changed.  Those who I allowed to mentor me changed.  I found that surrounding myself with people who loved me would be a lot healthier for my self-confidence.

Once I got married, I noticed that my husband was my number one fan.  Being around him and the positive energy he threw my way helped me to recognize what God had given me and it was the best thing I’ve ever experienced. I realized that, for a long time, God has been preparing me.  As I allowed Him to change my surroundings, my surroundings changed me!

We changed churches not too long after getting married.  Our new church was such a blessing to me. It was a place where I am surrounded by love — this was so important.  In addition, God put an “angel” in life named Milca Plaud, she was my Pastor.  I remember constantly asking her, “Why do you love me?” “What do you see in me?”  She believed in me, she trusted me with things within the church and gave me opportunities that I never dreamed of having. She only spoke to my attributes and, with love, rebuked me (LOL) when I needed it.  Her love for me was so transparent and amazing.  Though she passed to be with the Lord, she will remain forever one of those world-changers in my life.  Do you know why I express these thoughts to you guys?  Because, it is so important to surround yourself with those who love you and will lift you up.

Blessed is The One Who Does Not Walk in the Counsel of the Wicked

Who you allow to be in your inner circle matters.  For years I allowed myself to be around people who brought out the very worst in me.  I worked extremely hard to get my degree but those around me called me stupid right to my face!  The ones in my inner circle believed that I would never amount to anything.

TD Jakes says, “You’re only as good as the company you keep.”  I had the notion to remove those with toxic attitudes from my life but I wasn’t bold enough.  I kept saying to myself, “but they are family”, or “that’s not being humble.”  I even tried to legitimize it by thinking, “Jesus hung out with Judas and he was no good.”   My friend, if you don’t seek to remove those who can be toxic to you, then everything you’ve done in these past weeks would have been in vain.  I speak to you as a person who once lived in it.  That environment did nothing for me except produce a person who learned how to hate herself.  It doesn’t matter who they are, if they aren’t for you, they are against you — and no one should have a seat in your VIP area if they aren’t contributing and helping positively towards your cause. We need to ask God to remove those who stand in the way of the plans He has for us and believe that we are important to Him so that you don’t abort the destiny He has for you.

I chose to listen to that voice telling me that it was time to replace those in my inner circle. Once they were removed, I began to be that “blessed one” that Psalm 1 spoke about.  By getting rid of those people I was no longer walking in the counsel of those who persecuted me or spoke negative of me.  In fact, when I made those changes, great things happened that year.  I began to love who I was more and began to believe in myself more.  By the grace of God I was able to graduate college and from there, God began to rain down blessings that my hands were literally too small to receive.  Loving yourself requires you to also seek out those who love you as well.  You need those who are going to speak life into you.

Proverbs 18:21 says that “death and life are in the power of the tongue.”   So ask yourself this: Who are you giving this power to?  Working on you is probably the best gift you can give to the world around you.  It means that we need to learn how to love ourselves better, so that we can learn how to love others better.  The word of God says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.”  Mark 12:30-31.  So that means if we continue to walk in a way that criticizes ourselves and think little of who we are, we will be of very little use to everyone else.  If you lack faith in who God created you to be, how can you encourage the faith of another?  Loving yourself as God sees you is key to fulfilling Christ’s second greatest commandment.

This Week’s Challenge:

The company you keep can determine your course of life. I challenge you to take this week and get to purging! Read Psalms 1. God speaks so clearly about what kind of blessed life we would have if we just changed the company we keep.  Ask God to remove those who seek to destroy you through words and for Him to give you the strength to remove yourself from the equation if it’s an unhealthy one.  Forgiveness is one thing, being someone’s stepping stool is a whole other story.

This week I would like you to hashtag, something plain and simple #HeLovesMeSoILoveMe. Remind yourself that God loves you and that He truly is enough.

Let’s pray,

“Father, as we draw near to the end of this “Love Yourself” journey continue to purge us from all things that forbid us from seeing your work in our lives.  Lord, we thank you that we are able to seek you through your Word. Continue to show us what’s in our hearts and remove what’s not from you. Thank you for your grace that is sufficient for us to see what we need to change. Thank you for giving us a model of how we should love ourselves, through the eyes of the cross and Jesus’ sacrifice.  Thank you that, through this journey, you will give us what we need to be patient and kind to others.  Guide us, Lord Jesus. Thank you that Your Word doesn’t come back void, but it transforms us. Thank you my God that through this journey we will become a better version of ourselves, one that we never thought we could be.  I pray that from this journey we will learn to live in the peace that comes from walking in your will. Let this devotion be a reminder of where you want us to go.  Guide our hearts and our minds back to you always.  In Jesus name we pray, Amen.”

-Alejandra

Thank you so much, Alejandra, for another awesome time reading your words.  I think it is not easy to talk about purging relationships.  The hard truth is that those who may have to be removed are those we want to hold on to.  I remember that painful season when God wanted to take me to another level, but I couldn’t bring my friends and their own baggage with me. 

I’m enjoying reading the comments and the feedback.  Please keep them coming.  If you need any help please continue to email us or comment below.  We appreciate you.  Also you can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @throughthewinters and on Twitter @thruthewinters.

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We are continuing with our 30-day Loving Yourself Challenge with Alejandra Tash.  If you haven’t been blessed by these devotions, you haven’t been reading them carefully!  Let’s see what Alejandra brings us today.

Hating Yourself Is an Ugly Job

1 Corinthians 13:4

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

Hello there again! I hope and pray all is well with you, ahhh we’ve had quite some homework in the past two weeks. We went from uncovering what dwelt in our hearts week one, to then confronting it.  Week two, we spent some time on how Jesus loves us, and how His attitude towards the cross should be the same attitude we have towards ourselves. Last week’s challenge not only challenged us to uncover how God loves us but also how to apply it towards loving ourselves. Today I wanted to touch on the biblical verse so famously recited by many on their wedding day. That’s right! Let’s get married to ourselves (Just kidding)! We have probably heard this verse many times, even in non-Christian weddings. But I want to cover the first two lines in this verse, “Love is patient, love is kind.” So let’s dive right into it! Shall we?

Patient

To begin, being patient with this journey is essential.  What does that mean?  Well even though it is a 30-day challenge I must confess it took me about three to four months to really understand the concept.  Boy! I haven’t even begun to cover half of the things God has been showing me. I know that 28 years of damage cannot be covered in three months, let alone one. I understand that if I love myself, I need to be patient with my own process in order to reap the harvest.  As I walk this path called “life,” I must not rush or be so hard on myself for not being the masterpiece society paints me to be. When I say masterpiece, I mean I cannot reach perfection – in fact, I will never reach perfection. I had my own personal goals that I hadn’t met yet and because of this, I began to be so hard on myself.  I would think of myself as too stupid to achieve certain things, so quite frankly when I got my Associates degree, I couldn’t believe I had actually done so. This standard I set for myself, closed many opportunities and kept me unaware of God’s blessings for my life. I was always on the run, and never took the time to say “man girl, you’ve come far.” I called achievement what society says it was. I would never take into account that in the school of life, God held a graduation for my milestones in Him. Now aware, I’ve begun to question so many things and He has given me answers.  I’ve allowed myself to be rerouted in what and where He wants me to be. When we are patient in our process, we allow the methods of transportation God uses called “shortcomings” to deliver us into His will.

Where we are now, is a place where your own truth might be ugly. You might be in a painful place where, like me, you might think, “But if I am so special to God, why would He allow me to go through so much?” Imagine your own “before” and “after” in a photo shoot.  Today is you “before.”  But you have to know that there will be an “after!”  When this “after” photo comes you will have endured and achieved your desired end.

The uglier the place, the better the house! Have you ever watched those shows where they “flip” a house; making an UGLY place, just beautiful? This is what God is getting ready to do with you — make your ashes into beauty! He’s going to take the thing that looks like it could never be saved and make it beautiful.  Knowing this gives us hope and teaches us to love the place of change because in the end there will be a version of you. Loving you means that we are willing to work on ourselves and patience is key.

We need to enjoy the ride and appreciate EVERY part of our process even the valley.  Loving you requires such diligence and perseverance that, even as you fail over and over again, you must have faith that the end result is much better than what the middle looks like. Working on you, achieving you, requires patience. Achieving you? To elaborate, “achieving you” is a term I made up in my mind in which I dared myself to be that person I always wanted to be. Did you know that all of us have a version of ourselves in our hearts and minds that we think we will never achieve? Well, I want to achieve becoming me and that means I need make some changes.

Ready To Clean Up My Act

Love Is Kind

Loving me means to be kind to me, it means loving myself enough to not harm me, to want nothing but good for me. I struggled with this aspect, because to some this meant being vain, but it is far from being vain! Being kind to myself means, not allowing others’ opinions of me to affect me or even torture myself with their presence. For example, I had family members who would say to me, “you will never amount to anything,” “God will not bless you.”  Being kind to me requires me not joining them when they bad-mouthed me, but I did…

“I am so fat…

“I am really stupid…

“ugh, I hate myself right now…

I hate how this fits me…”

I would call myself names and around family and friends.  What’s worse is they would let me.

The question remains, what happens when I stop letting the view others have of me, even my view of me, dictate how I see myself? I soon accept the newness God is creating in me.

A huge part of changing the way you see yourself is also to change those you surround yourself with. You need those who bring out the best in you, those who love you and encourage growth. Jesus hung out with 12 disciples for most of his ministry on earth, but he had only three in His inner circle and, mind you, they weren’t even His family. In fact, He chose wisely the company He kept. We tend to believe that because “family” is blood-related we should still hang around the toxic behavior they contribute to our lives. Though I will elaborate more on the company you keep in a later blog, I have to say that I struggled so much in the area of choosing my inner circle.  Changing my surroundings allowed me to see the truth of God’s word in me. Silencing all the toxicity around me allowed me to hear the only voice that matters… God’s.  I changed the way I saw me, in order to attract those who thought the very best of me.

You may ask, “Alejandra how do I change how I see myself when the place I’m at is so ugly?” Well, admitting where you are is the first step to recovery! Cheesy I know, but you wouldn’t believe how much it took me to admit that I wasn’t happy. I was living a lie. When I heard, “You are fearfully and wonderfully made,” it didn’t mean anything to me, I didn’t believe any of the promises of God. I just couldn’t because I didn’t believe in me. I didn’t love me.

Let’s Pray

“Father today I give you all our anxieties, I give you all fears, and doubts and I thank you for giving me the honor of being here today. Father, thank you for every single day that you’ve given me on this earth and I ask that you forgive me for rejecting your truth about love and your truth about me.  Today I ask, Lord, that you enter our hearts the way only you can do, and revamp us and our attitude towards ourselves. I ask that you give us a new heart and switch out our heart of stone. Replace all contrary feelings and bring forth your truth in our life. I ask that you erase all negative feelings we may have about ourselves and that you bring to us a new mind that is patient with our process. Jesus, I ask that you also remove our own definition of love, and let us receive the accurate one. Help us, love ourselves and be patient with, kind to, enduring with, persevering with, and protective of ourselves.  In Jesus’ Name, I pray. Amen.”

This week’s challenge:

I would love if you could take the whole week to read  2 Corinthians 10.  In this passage read how Paul was defending his ministry.  Those he was ministering to judged his appearance and thought his sermons weren’t good enough.  Focus on verses  7-11.  What areas of your life do you try to adjust so you can please others?  Then look at the very last verses, 17 and 18, and set some reasonable goals for yourself.  Also uncover the areas where you might be just a little too hard on yourself, too self-critical, and/or not rooting for you enough!  On your social media pages, use the hashtag #RootingForMe, and a picture that promotes self-love, in an area you are particularly proud of. Once you change your mind about you, the areas that you aren’t so happy with will change and how you view them. Ask God to help you be patient with you and your shortcomings, and you’ll see a new found attitude in what you’ve accomplished and tenacity to accomplish even more.

-Alejandra

Thank you so much, Alejandra.  I loved the part of your devotional where you talked about loving yourself and making sure that you have the right people around you.  Sometimes we don’t think that the people around us reflect our view of ourselves but it definitely does.  Thank you.  If you need additional help or have questions you can email us or comment below.  Follow us on Instagram and on Facebook @throughthewinters and on Twitter @thruthewinters.  We love you.

We are continuing our 30-day challenge on loving yourself. Alejandra is our guest blogger for the month of January and she is going to share with us the next level to loving ourselves.

Loving Myself Enough to Obey Today for Tomorrow’s Blessings

I am back! I pray that this blog finds you all well! I’ve been going through some roller coaster issues myself. Nonetheless, I am ecstatic to share with you this week’s blog on “Loving Yourself”. Having you guys accompany me on this journey is a blessing in itself. Last week’s challenge on looking into the spiritual mirror was to help us admit our spiritual ugliness.   We need to be willing to confront it in order to change it.

Now that we’ve embarked on this new journey we should probably look at the fruitful Word of God in order to actually reach this Promised Land. I pray that these words penetrate your hearts so you can receive all that God has promised you. This week we need to go into the wilderness, in order to continue with our “Love Yourself” journey. Wilderness defined means a desolate place, an uninhabited and deserted area.  So what can we learn in our wilderness experience while we learn to love ourselves? In order to learn how to love me, I needed to spend time alone with God; in that desolate and uninhabited place is where we often are comforted with His love. God’s love transcends throughout eternity, but I would love to focus on the New Testament. After all, Jesus is love.

God wanted us to experience the deepest form of His love. Jesus died on the cross as a sacrifice so we can receive this kind of love. This love allowed us to not just love others but also to love ourselves.  But how do I apply this love to myself?  Jesus died for me but he wants me to die for me too.   But how do “I” die for me? It’s simple or maybe not so simple. Luke 9:23 says

“If anyone wishes to come after Me he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.”

It means you love yourself enough to die to that sin that entangles you.  This also means you chose death to that sin than life in your flesh. For years, I struggled with pornography and yes I said it! I knew I needed to kill that part of me. I NEEDED TO STOP! And in Jesus name I did. This sin entangled me — it called me out, knew my name, crept into my thoughts and my dreams. I was addicted. I came to realize that true love for myself helped me to make that choice to stop, I was better than that. I had to love myself enough to stop! Many of you may be dealing with this same sin or addictions in another form.  The only thing stopping YOU from receiving God’s blessings is YOU! Will you give up your sins for the blessings? Will you obey God’s words today for tomorrow’s blessing? Will you die… for you?

Sometimes You Need To Put People In Their Place

Something else you must think about is that Jesus is very determined. I remember reading John 18:10, Jesus was being arrested and Peter, one of His disciples and a close friend, drew his sword and attacked one of the Roman soldiers by cutting off his ear. Jesus rebuked Peter and ordered him to put away his sword.  Are you willing to put the sword away, and fight the real battle? Jesus was! He knew, that letting Peter fight that battle for Him physically, or better yet He knew that fighting a senseless fight was only going to distract Jesus from the true fight, the battle for our souls.

Jesus, in some cases, was known to rebuke His own friends if He needed to. This was not the first time Peter wanted Jesus to something different.  When Peter didn’t like Jesus’ talk of going to the cross, Peter tried to put Jesus in his place but look at what his response was in Mark 8:33. He said to Peter,  “Get behind me, Satan!” What?! Talk about being intentional… Jesus wasn’t worried about Peter’s feelings. Have you had friends or loved ones like Peter that have a vision for your life that’s not God-centered but self-centered? The question is, would you love you enough to say to them, “Get behind me Satan”?

I remember I had friends who loved the idea of my ex-boyfriend and I being together but little did they know what was going on.  Had I not let go of this guy I would probably be dead by now. This guy took pleasure in abusing me physically, and emotionally. He cheated on me and beat me till he saw blood. Is that love? Forget if he loved me, did I love me? Do you think that putting up with that kind of life is self-love? I remember when I stood in front of a mirror, looking at the deformity his fist made on my face. That was not love, that was insecurity. I was a very insecure young woman who permitted this type of treatment to go too far.

Loving me is setting boundaries and being willing to push unwholesome people who do not respect these boundaries out of my life. They should not have been in my life in the first place anyway. Sometimes we ask God to remove people from our lives, but we should first question if we could be the problem, not someone else. I didn’t deserve the abuse I received from my boyfriend and, if you are in that situation, neither do you. I needed to take a closer look at how I got to that point. That question was not just for that relationship, but it applied to my friendships as well. I had many so-called friends who just served as a distraction like Peter was. We need to love ourselves so much that we are protective, proactive and intentional about being God-centered in all we do.

#LoveMeLikeHeLovedMe

This is all part of loving yourself! Did you think that this blog would be about joining a gym, and creating a better outer image of you? No, no, no! Can you love you like Jesus loved you? And sacrifice for you, be determined for you, be focused for you, and seek to die to yourself each day in order to benefit you? This week I prompt you to walk behind him with your own cross. When you are committed to doing that, all He has promised you will come to fruition.

I would love to pray for you…

“Father, we thank you for your word. Thank you for the truth and unbreakable word that whatever you say will come to pass. Lord, we thank you for giving us this week where we refocus our love in order to refocus our lives. Thank you that we have another week, by faith, to uncover the things you have in store for us. We ask today that as you have mended us and continue to mend us, that you also help us love ourselves as you loved us… Lord, that we may die to sin, die to ourselves each day in order for us to love and live for you! Guard our minds and purge us from people, things, and sins that may hinder us from bringing your word to pass. Lord, we break, in Your Name, all entanglement we may have to people or things that cannot come with us into our next level. May this next week be filled with a newfound love for you. In Jesus’ Name, we ask all of this. Amen!”

This week’s challenge:  Take the time to read Romans 8:12-13.  One of the things it says is that we are not to walk after the flesh.  Continue your journaling by taking these next few days and write down the things that you are doing because you are walking after the flesh.  How are you walking after the flesh — is it through movies, relationships, gossip, bad-mouthing others, selfish decisions?  These are just a few examples.  Be honest about what you think God wants you to do with each area.  I need you to be intentional about you, be sacrificial towards you, and die to you.  I would like you to use the hashtag #LoveMeLikeHeLovedMe on your social media pages for this week and the picture that in your heart best suits it!  Till next week.
-Alejandra

Thank you, Alejandra, I was blessed by your blog. I I never thought that dying to my flesh was an example of showing myself love.  I always looked at walking after the flesh was sinning against God, which is true, but I forgot how I’m sinning against myself as well.  I also understood from the blog that those in your life reflect how you feel about yourself.  Please share any questions or comments below or you can email me.  Follow us on Instagram and Facebook @throughthewinters, and on Twitter @thruthewinters.