Writing this posting about marriage is not easy for me, but I also know that when I am being called to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, I will receive the help and strength that I need from Christ. There are so many thoughts and emotions that get stirred up inside of me as I share what this word has meant to me. When I got married in 1975, I saw marriage as a life long commitment between my husband and me. I believed in the vow that we proclaimed; for better for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, 'til death do us part. And despite the fact that I had very serious concerns about entering into this marital relationship, just 4 weeks prior to the wedding, I was too scared to say anything to anyone. So I remained silent with a secret that kept me in denial and turmoil for more than 20 years. Though I constantly reminded myself of the vow I had made, and my commitment to that vow, I still ended up being divorced.
Marriage took on an entirely new perspective for me as I now associated it with the word divorce, and for me that meant failure, shame, guilt, and brokenness – broken vows, broken dreams, broken family, and broken hearts. It was also about betrayal, anger and confusion. It was the confusion of not knowing what love truly was, and therefore, not knowing who I was, or who my husband was. As I said, marriage is not easy for me to talk about.
In those early stages of going through my divorce, I remember the one common response that well intentioned friends often expressed to me, “Things will get better, Colleen. Just follow your heart!” Little did my friends know that those words were not at all comforting to me. In fact, they were a piercing arrow to my heart. That’s because there was this one big question that kept lurking inside of me: How can I follow my heart when it is my heart that has deceived me? Well gradually, I eventually began to comprehend the answer to that question.
It actually started with a day that I will never forget. It was the first time that I experienced God’s Word speaking directly to me and my circumstances. I had been sitting at the kitchen table, and I was wrestling with who I was in terms of my own sexual identity and how that had been influenced by my husband and what he struggled with. It was so hard to understand who I was separate from him, and consequently, I felt very lost and alone. As I sadly fixed my gaze at that kitchen table, I caught sight of my Bible. It was staring at me and calling out my name. So I picked it up and I “randomly” opened it. The words I saw became God’s hand print on my life as He taught me about who I was and what He intended marriage to be for me. It was in Genesis 2:18,23-24, “And the Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a companion who will help him. She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken out of a man. This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united as one.”
Of all the verses I could have read, God spoke the words I most needed to hear regarding my identity and my marriage. God was simply saying to me,
“Colleen, I created you to be your husband’s companion. I created you to help him and compliment him. I realize those plans have gone astray, but you can not change him. You can only change yourself, and even then, you can only do it with My guidance. I realize that you are confused about who you are. But be clear on this - you are who you are because of Me. You are the woman that I created you to be. You are not man’s creation or what man tells you to be. You are who I say you are! My ideal for both you and your husband was for you to be his woman and for him to be your man. Your husband was designed by me to leave his father and mother and be joined to you so that the two of you would become one. I am sorry Precious One, that your free wills did not line up with my will for you. I know you are having difficulty separating who you are from him, for you have learned to become one, and now you need my help to become separate. I know you feel lost and alone. But I will not abandon you. I am with you, I will not betray you, and I will not forsake you. I am with you always. I will be your husband! I love you!”
No one can really appreciate the comfort I felt when I read God’s Word and heard His Holy Spirit speaking so intimately and loving to me. It was healing!
Today, I can tell you that my friends were right. Things did get better and I have been able to follow my heart once again. But this time it is with confidence and trust, and it is because of the decision that I made many years ago when I asked Jesus to come into my heart. Until that relationship with the Lord was established, I could not follow my heart without it being deceived. A heart without Christ is a heart with a hole in it. It is a heart that will always feel a void. We try to fill it with anyone or anything, but the only one who can ever fill it is Christ!
There is no subject matter that is more near and dear to my heart than this theme of marriage, and as a society, we have become a cluttered and confused mess because of the thinking that we are buying into! The order of our relationships is based on a model that puts man, Hollywood, the entertainment industry, and politics first, instead of God. Our concept of marriage has become based on a media model of Desperate Housewives and the endless reality TV shows, such as The Bachelor, that focus on choosing our sexual orientation and life styles that center on lusting, cheating, drinking, cussing and fighting. I realize that all of these shows may seem very entertaining and appeal to our fleshly desires, but ask yourself - Do you really want to live with the bondage, pain and hurt that these situations will bring if you choose to imitate their suggested life-style? My children and I have lived through the reality of our own “Desperate Housewife” show and “Modern Family”, and I can tell you that our lives have been drastically altered by the cluttered lies that we have had to confront.
Here is the bottom line and question that I always have to ask myself, whose plan do I want to follow? Is it the plan of man or the plan of God? Whose plan will you choose?
February 29, 2012
February 22, 2012
Red Wednesday's Wisdom - Denial
When I am challenged and frustrated by the denial that I consistently see in others, and especially when it has to do with my family, and the friends that I am closest to, I want to shout, “Wake up! The world you are living in is not real!” But through the years, I have come to realize that my shouting and demanding words of exclamation rarely bring someone out of their denial. What I have learned is that it takes tons of love, empathy, patience and understanding to penetrate those walls of denial. It means that I too must come to grips with the denial that has been in my own life so that I can then share and expose the denial that has been so strong in me. Isaiah 53:6 is a constant reminder to me that I am just like you; “We are all lost sheep that have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own.”
When I span the past 59 years of my life, I see the role that denial has so clearly assumed, and it has been way more prevalent than I would want to admit. I have vivid memories of dressing myself in the attire of denial. The first memory was as a little girl in the third grade! It started by taking what did not belong to me; money from my mother’s wallet, and then going on a shopping spree at the corner 5 and 10 Cent Store. By the time I became a preteen the taking had escalated. No! The more accurate word for taking, would be stealing! OK, yes, I stole a dress that I did not pay for. In the middle of my teen years, the denial was around eating issues, and by the time I turned 16, the denial had to do with my cigarette smoking and being involved with unhealthy relationships. All of this denial got carried with me into my late 30’s and early 40’s. I found myself living in a false reality where I:
Hid from myself and others.
Withdrew from life and chose to live in the darkness.
Lied to myself and others.
Refused to be honest about who I was, what I had done, and what I believed.
Manipulated people and circumstances to make things look “OK.”
Rejected or completely omitted the Truth.
Experienced opposition as a result of maintaining the facade.
Implemented numerous cover ups to “rescue” myself and others.
Felt shame and guilt that came from the continuous masquerade.
When I no longer could put on the show that this role required, I accepted the truth - these different outfits of denial that I had chosen to wear were actually wearing me out. Talk about a build up of clutter within one’s self, and all because of denial! I can honestly say, that regardless of how young or old I have been, denial will always cause me to do what I know not to do, and it will convince me to believe what I know not to believe.
In the last chapter of Ecclesiastes, the author makes a final conclusion about a life that is not centered on God. I think it is a very appropriate verse in respect to denial. It is Ecclesiastes 12:13-14, “Fear God and obey his commands, for this is everyone’s duty. God will judge us for everything we do, including every secret thing, whether good or bad.” I know this Scripture to be true because as God became the center of my life, and I made a conscience choice to follow his commands, the hidden parts of me became exposed to the light, and the darkness faded as the denial lost its power over me.
No one can ever see clearly through the lens of denial. I’d much rather walk through life looking like this......
than like this.......
When I span the past 59 years of my life, I see the role that denial has so clearly assumed, and it has been way more prevalent than I would want to admit. I have vivid memories of dressing myself in the attire of denial. The first memory was as a little girl in the third grade! It started by taking what did not belong to me; money from my mother’s wallet, and then going on a shopping spree at the corner 5 and 10 Cent Store. By the time I became a preteen the taking had escalated. No! The more accurate word for taking, would be stealing! OK, yes, I stole a dress that I did not pay for. In the middle of my teen years, the denial was around eating issues, and by the time I turned 16, the denial had to do with my cigarette smoking and being involved with unhealthy relationships. All of this denial got carried with me into my late 30’s and early 40’s. I found myself living in a false reality where I:
Hid from myself and others.
Withdrew from life and chose to live in the darkness.
Lied to myself and others.
Refused to be honest about who I was, what I had done, and what I believed.
Manipulated people and circumstances to make things look “OK.”
Rejected or completely omitted the Truth.
Experienced opposition as a result of maintaining the facade.
Implemented numerous cover ups to “rescue” myself and others.
Felt shame and guilt that came from the continuous masquerade.
When I no longer could put on the show that this role required, I accepted the truth - these different outfits of denial that I had chosen to wear were actually wearing me out. Talk about a build up of clutter within one’s self, and all because of denial! I can honestly say, that regardless of how young or old I have been, denial will always cause me to do what I know not to do, and it will convince me to believe what I know not to believe.
In the last chapter of Ecclesiastes, the author makes a final conclusion about a life that is not centered on God. I think it is a very appropriate verse in respect to denial. It is Ecclesiastes 12:13-14, “Fear God and obey his commands, for this is everyone’s duty. God will judge us for everything we do, including every secret thing, whether good or bad.” I know this Scripture to be true because as God became the center of my life, and I made a conscience choice to follow his commands, the hidden parts of me became exposed to the light, and the darkness faded as the denial lost its power over me.
No one can ever see clearly through the lens of denial. I’d much rather walk through life looking like this......
than like this.......
February 15, 2012
Red Wednesday's Wisdom - Celebrate
Whenever I look back into my past, I always remember celebrating my birthday with anticipation and joy. I mention this because so often I hear people say that they dread turning a particular age, or they do not like birthday celebrations - period! But from the time that I was a child, my parents always made my birthday special for me. Unlike today, where so many kids celebrate with a party every year, that was not the case for me. My first party was when I turned 10 years old, and I will never forget it. I vividly remember how I dressed for the occasion. I wore a very full, blue, pleated, chiffon dress with a black velvet bodice to match the black velvet headband that kept my long flowing banana curls from falling into my face. With all the birthdays that have come and gone since that 10th birthday, I find myself fondly reminiscing over the many get togethers and parties that were in honor of me and how I have loved dressing up for them.
As I prepared to celebrate my birthday on February 10th, 2012, I knew that this birthday was extra special, after being diagnosed with cancer this past summer. I gained a new appreciation for what it meant to celebrate the life and love that God has bestowed upon me over these past 59 years, and I am so thankful that I am still living and very healthy! So this year I wanted to celebrate and honor those who have been a part of my life and blessed me with their love. I planned two parties to celebrate and honor those relationships. In planning these two parties I heard this saying come over the radio, “There is nothing more tragic as being alive and not enjoying that life that we should be celebrating.”
When I contemplate on this word celebrate, I am also reminded about the length of days that I have on this earth to celebrate this life that God has given me. As it says in James 4:14, “How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.” None of us knows how much time we have on this earth, but one thing is for certain – our time is limited. How we are going to spend that time is a choice that each one of us makes. As I move forward in to this new birthday year, I want to make a conscious decision to live and love with an attitude of daily celebration. How do you choose to live out the days that God has ordained for you?
As I prepared to celebrate my birthday on February 10th, 2012, I knew that this birthday was extra special, after being diagnosed with cancer this past summer. I gained a new appreciation for what it meant to celebrate the life and love that God has bestowed upon me over these past 59 years, and I am so thankful that I am still living and very healthy! So this year I wanted to celebrate and honor those who have been a part of my life and blessed me with their love. I planned two parties to celebrate and honor those relationships. In planning these two parties I heard this saying come over the radio, “There is nothing more tragic as being alive and not enjoying that life that we should be celebrating.”
When I contemplate on this word celebrate, I am also reminded about the length of days that I have on this earth to celebrate this life that God has given me. As it says in James 4:14, “How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.” None of us knows how much time we have on this earth, but one thing is for certain – our time is limited. How we are going to spend that time is a choice that each one of us makes. As I move forward in to this new birthday year, I want to make a conscious decision to live and love with an attitude of daily celebration. How do you choose to live out the days that God has ordained for you?
February 8, 2012
Red Wednesday's Wisdom - Death, Part Two
Here I am, once again, facing the death that has never had any closure! My heart is heavy and filled with great sorrow and sadness. This time it is not a physical death that I grieve over. No, the death I am talking about is an ongoing spiritual death. Over many many years it will take a reprieve, but then it will resurface with a painful revenge. My first experience with this kind of “walking” death was when I went through my divorce in 1994. To this day, I have never understood the casualty that people take when entering into a divorce, especially when there are children involved. It is just one example of the death that can have no closure. And in our immediate and extended family it has been perpetuated by the cluttered build up of unresolved anger, hurt, blame, lies, sexual issues, and the addictions to alcohol and drugs. It is a type of death that will continually haunt you and your loved ones, unless you seek the healing power of Jesus!
For those of us who believe in God, I have learned that He will always take our pain and make it work for His good and ours. That is why I am so thankful for the many couples that have not gone down that road of divorce. They have heard my story and received the healing that comes out of their participation in the Clutter Healing Classes. God has used my pain, sorrow and suffering to bring not only healing to me and a closer relationship with Him, but to others as well.
Whether it is a physical death or a spiritual death, there is only one way to experience life in this world and the next. It is based on choosing the One who gives life! It comes down to these two thoughts from Scripture that the Lord has reinforced for me all week. The first is from Psalm 105:4, “Search for the Lord and for his strength, and keep on searching.” This message is such a simple answer to a powerful outcome. To search is to seek. It means each of us is on a journey to search, seek, and find the Lord. It implies that I never stop searching for Him or seeking Him. So when these death defying moments come into my life, the first thing that I need to do is to seek the Lord. He is the only One who can provide me with the strength that I so desperately need to face these deadly situations. As I seek the Lord and His strength, He will then do what Romans 12: 2 tells me. I have shared this Scripture with you before, and I will continue to reinforce because it is at the root of every healing, “Don’t copy the customs and behaviors of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.” The customs and behaviors of this world are all caught up in death – the anger, hurt, blame, lies, sexual issues, the addiction to alcohol and drugs. The only way to be set free from the death grip of this world’s customs and behaviors is to seek God and allow Him to change my thinking!
I would like to close with sharing two more things that really brought home this idea of death for me this week. First, is this quote from Tony Evans, who is one of my favorite radio pastors. “Death is simply the doorway we must pass through to transfer into the realm of eternal life!”
And second, in preparing to write this posting, I heard this song for the very first time on the radio. I could not stop listening to it on YouTube. It is such a great example of the Lord touching our hearts through music and it further illustrates the message of Him being the only answer to our physical and spiritual death.
For those of us who believe in God, I have learned that He will always take our pain and make it work for His good and ours. That is why I am so thankful for the many couples that have not gone down that road of divorce. They have heard my story and received the healing that comes out of their participation in the Clutter Healing Classes. God has used my pain, sorrow and suffering to bring not only healing to me and a closer relationship with Him, but to others as well.
Whether it is a physical death or a spiritual death, there is only one way to experience life in this world and the next. It is based on choosing the One who gives life! It comes down to these two thoughts from Scripture that the Lord has reinforced for me all week. The first is from Psalm 105:4, “Search for the Lord and for his strength, and keep on searching.” This message is such a simple answer to a powerful outcome. To search is to seek. It means each of us is on a journey to search, seek, and find the Lord. It implies that I never stop searching for Him or seeking Him. So when these death defying moments come into my life, the first thing that I need to do is to seek the Lord. He is the only One who can provide me with the strength that I so desperately need to face these deadly situations. As I seek the Lord and His strength, He will then do what Romans 12: 2 tells me. I have shared this Scripture with you before, and I will continue to reinforce because it is at the root of every healing, “Don’t copy the customs and behaviors of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.” The customs and behaviors of this world are all caught up in death – the anger, hurt, blame, lies, sexual issues, the addiction to alcohol and drugs. The only way to be set free from the death grip of this world’s customs and behaviors is to seek God and allow Him to change my thinking!
I would like to close with sharing two more things that really brought home this idea of death for me this week. First, is this quote from Tony Evans, who is one of my favorite radio pastors. “Death is simply the doorway we must pass through to transfer into the realm of eternal life!”
And second, in preparing to write this posting, I heard this song for the very first time on the radio. I could not stop listening to it on YouTube. It is such a great example of the Lord touching our hearts through music and it further illustrates the message of Him being the only answer to our physical and spiritual death.
February 1, 2012
Red Wednesday's Wisdom - Death, Part One
Last week I got the unexpected sad news of a close family friend’s death. In the days that followed, and during my quiet times with the Lord, the theme of death was consistently in my Scripture readings. The following morning, after hearing that our friend had died, I read these words in Psalm 73:25-26, “Whom have I in heaven but you? I desire you more than anything on earth. My health may fail, and my spirit grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart.” God was speaking comfort to my own heart and personally letting me know through His Word that He was fully aware of the situation we were all dealing with. By passing on what God was saying in Psalm 73 to family and friends, I hoped that they too would feel God’s comforting presence in the midst of their hurting pain and loss. Despite the fact that our friend’s physical heath did fail him, he remained spiritually strong because God sustained him. God was with Him in his fleshly earthly life and now He was escorting him into his heavenly eternal spiritual life! That right there is reason to celebrate even when we are grieving!
I no sooner got done reading the words in Psalm73:25-26, and I was lead to Psalm 90:12, “Teach us to make the most of our time, so that we may grow in wisdom.” These Home Touched postings are about God teaching us so we can grow in His wisdom, not ours. When I share the practicality of what takes place in my own life, it is my prayer that you will then see how God and His wisdom speak into my everyday life through His Holy Spirit and His Word. Having said that, I need to express the urgency there is in relationship to what God wants us to glean from Psalm 90:12. When I talked about being renewed, the posting from two weeks ago, I said that our time on this earth is short. God is reinforcing that urgent message once again in Psalm 90:12. How am I using the limited time that I have been given to be on this earth? Do I spend my time focusing on me or God? Is what I think and speak void of God’s input, or do I think and speak what God thinks and says according to the Truth of His Word? Here is the bottom line - death is a permanent ending to the human life we have here on this earth, but it is also the beginning journey to eternal life. Here is the simple truth - we are all going to live forever! Where are you choosing to live? That decision is not God’s. That decision is up to you. Will it be heaven because you chose to ask Jesus the Son of God to come into your life, or will it be hell because you chose to reject Him?
Whether I like it or not, God is God and I am not. God is the Creator and I am not. I am the creation of God’s hand. It is not my hand that created me. The boundaries of how this world and its people are to work is God’s doing and not my doing. God’s Word makes it very clear that heaven and hell are places that we will ultimately choose to live in for all of eternity. They are not places that come from a made up dream, a fairy tale, or whatever “spiritual” thought or explanation we humans may come up with. Here is the third and last Scripture that the Lord took me to regarding death. It is what Jesus says in John 14:1-3, 6, “Don’t be troubled. You trust God, now trust in me. There are many rooms in my Father’s home, and I am going to prepare a place for you. If this were not so, I would tell you plainly. When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will be with me where I am....I am the way, the truth and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”
We are going to live forever. It’s up to us to decide where we want to go. I have chosen to accept Jesus as my God, and these postings are reflective of the relationship that I have with Him. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my eternal life is with Him in heaven. We have no knowledge of how much time we have on this earth. But I am convinced that every one of us has gotten a taste of heaven and a taste of hell. What do you want to taste for all of eternity?
From this day forward, I am praying that you will no longer be troubled by the troubles of this life, and that you will trust in God to help you with them. God wants you to be with Him now and forever. He wants you to be in awe of the room that He has waiting for you. It has your name on it. Be ready for Him, for you do not know the day or the hour of your death. Your greatest decision in this earthly life will be your decision about Jesus, and deciding if you accept or reject that He is the way, the truth and the life for you!
I no sooner got done reading the words in Psalm73:25-26, and I was lead to Psalm 90:12, “Teach us to make the most of our time, so that we may grow in wisdom.” These Home Touched postings are about God teaching us so we can grow in His wisdom, not ours. When I share the practicality of what takes place in my own life, it is my prayer that you will then see how God and His wisdom speak into my everyday life through His Holy Spirit and His Word. Having said that, I need to express the urgency there is in relationship to what God wants us to glean from Psalm 90:12. When I talked about being renewed, the posting from two weeks ago, I said that our time on this earth is short. God is reinforcing that urgent message once again in Psalm 90:12. How am I using the limited time that I have been given to be on this earth? Do I spend my time focusing on me or God? Is what I think and speak void of God’s input, or do I think and speak what God thinks and says according to the Truth of His Word? Here is the bottom line - death is a permanent ending to the human life we have here on this earth, but it is also the beginning journey to eternal life. Here is the simple truth - we are all going to live forever! Where are you choosing to live? That decision is not God’s. That decision is up to you. Will it be heaven because you chose to ask Jesus the Son of God to come into your life, or will it be hell because you chose to reject Him?
Whether I like it or not, God is God and I am not. God is the Creator and I am not. I am the creation of God’s hand. It is not my hand that created me. The boundaries of how this world and its people are to work is God’s doing and not my doing. God’s Word makes it very clear that heaven and hell are places that we will ultimately choose to live in for all of eternity. They are not places that come from a made up dream, a fairy tale, or whatever “spiritual” thought or explanation we humans may come up with. Here is the third and last Scripture that the Lord took me to regarding death. It is what Jesus says in John 14:1-3, 6, “Don’t be troubled. You trust God, now trust in me. There are many rooms in my Father’s home, and I am going to prepare a place for you. If this were not so, I would tell you plainly. When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will be with me where I am....I am the way, the truth and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”
We are going to live forever. It’s up to us to decide where we want to go. I have chosen to accept Jesus as my God, and these postings are reflective of the relationship that I have with Him. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my eternal life is with Him in heaven. We have no knowledge of how much time we have on this earth. But I am convinced that every one of us has gotten a taste of heaven and a taste of hell. What do you want to taste for all of eternity?
From this day forward, I am praying that you will no longer be troubled by the troubles of this life, and that you will trust in God to help you with them. God wants you to be with Him now and forever. He wants you to be in awe of the room that He has waiting for you. It has your name on it. Be ready for Him, for you do not know the day or the hour of your death. Your greatest decision in this earthly life will be your decision about Jesus, and deciding if you accept or reject that He is the way, the truth and the life for you!
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