Red Wednesday's Widsom - Son and Stem

This post’s teaching is going to help you learn how to declutter, heal and rebuild your life with new thinking and behaviors so that you can experience the Simplicity, Order and Nurturance that can only come through God’s Son, Jesus. The story and life of Jesus, as found in the Bible, serves as the example that we can follow so we can experience His:
Simplicity
Order &
Nurturance

When I looked back at my own life, I came to realize how this SON had been a three step process, but it happened in this order:
Step 1 - The Nurturance came out of my desire to be a nurse and to care for the hurting.
Step 2 - The Order came out of my vision to start my own business and see it evolve into an organizing business.
Step 3 - The Simplicity came out of my spiritual brokenness and need for God.

In my teaching I speak a lot about symbolism. Jesus was always using symbolism in his teaching and in His parables. In my Home Touched business and ministry, the rose is my logo. Originally it symbolized the personal touches that I brought to my clients, but as the years went by, I came to realize that the rose represented much more:
♥ It is a reflection of God’s love for me (for you).
♥ It symbolizes the fruit that He wants to produce in me (in you).
♥ It reflects the personal touch that He gives to me (to you) as I continue to grow in lessening the clutter in my own life.

The stem of the rose has also become very significant in my teaching as it reflects the fruit that will result in you conserving your own STEM:
Space
Time
Energy &
Money

In the weeks that follow, you will be introduced to “The Twelve Clutter Healing Guidelines.” They are the practical tools for bringing Simplicity, Order and Nurturance into your life so you can have more Space, Time, Energy, and Money. It is a process that I have learned to appreciate as being gradual, purposeful, watchful, and waitful.

Are you familiar with what is called a PDR? It stands for Physician’s Desk Reference. It is THE medical reference to drugs. It provides product information as it relates to drug usage, actions, effect, dosage, administration, warnings, side effects, and precautions.

The Bible is our spiritual PDR. It has the same kind of information as the medical PDR but, it gives you the preventative approach to avoiding and minimizing the use of chemical drugs. The Bible has been personally handed down to us by God, who is the Almighty Physician and Healer. It is our PDR for recovery, because it is God’s Word. And because God’s Word is alive, it breathes life and love into each and every one of us who seek true healing, hope, love, and truth. God’s Word provides us with an answer to every problem and need that has ever existed, and a plan of action to deal with it. I continue to be in awe and thanksgiving for the way God uses His Word to heal us of the messes that are the result of our cluttered way of thinking and living.

If you want a Bible that really touches the heart and is easy to read and understand, I encourage you to purchase The Life Recovery Bible (New Living Translation). This is the Bible that the Holy Spirit led me to use as I developed the Clutter Healing Curriculum and its model for healing.

All of my scripture quotes are from this Bible unless otherwise noted. Next week we are going to start addressing how to declutter our communication with one another.

Red Wednesday's Widsom - Healing the Clutter

When I started Home Touched in 1987, I saw myself as a traditional nurse taking on a very nontraditional nursing role. My focus was to bring preventative health into the home and/or work setting.

For more than 25 years, families and individuals have been welcoming me into their very personal and private lives. I have been blessed with the awesome opportunity and responsibility to be actively and intimately involved with the day to day challenges that people face at home and at work. My job is to help people examine their habits and behaviors, as well as their thoughts and feelings. This is an important part of the assessment process that helps us in developing and implementing a practical plan to live with less clutter and more simplicity.

The needs in families and businesses are numerous. And in my business, those needs get manifested over a period of many years and pretty much in this order:

Is there a need related to physical, mental, or emotional challenges? I serve as a nurse.
Is there a need for food? I serve as a caterer or dietician.
Is there a need for entertainment? I serve as a party planner.
Is there a need for home accenting? I serve as a decorator.
Is there a need for cleaning? I serve as a maidservant.
Is there disorder within the family, home or business? I serve as an organizer and manager.
Is there an upcoming move? I provide the team from start to finish.
Are there relational issues? I serve as a coach.
Are there spiritual issues? I serve as a touch from God.

Regardless of a client’s needs, I help them to lessen the clutter that can lead to illness, accidents, and breakups.

Because of Red Wednesday’s Wisdom, you have heard bits and pieces of my own cluttered story. In the earlier years of my business, it was a very shocking revelation when I realized that the closets needing to be cleaned out and organized belonged to me and not one of my client’s! Those closets had been so well hidden that I didn’t even know about them! They were buried deep within the chambers of my mind and heart and I had stuffed them with a lifetime of messed up relationships. In my head I thought I needed to be perfect and in control. In my heart I felt unloved, unworthy, and betrayed. I was a cluttered mess!

WARNING: Perfectionism looks like order on the outside but it is a symptom of being very cluttered up on the inside.

When I questioned who was going to nurture and care for me, as I did for my clients, I made the only turn I knew to make. I turned to the God who I had learned about all of my life - The Great Organizer and Healer Himself!

Red Wednesday’s Wisdom is about the fire and power of God’s Holy Spirit being at work in our lives. So I want to share with you what the Holy Spirit has taught me as He has guided me, worked with me, and healed me through the clutter of my own life. He wants to do in your life what He has done for me. My prayer is that you will stretch yourself and remain open to His guidance and direction. He wants to bless you every day for the rest of your life as you tackle any problem or issue on a day to day basis. I refer to those problems and issues as clutter.

Clutter is something we can all visualize and relate to as we think about or see the daily pile up or build up of papers, mail, homework, laundry, dishes toys, etc.

It was through my organizational part of my business that I learned how to broaden the concept of clutter so that it encompassed every aspect of our lives. By defining clutter as anything that piles up or builds up, I hope you will begin to see the simplicity of approaching life with this whole new perspective and understanding, so you can better care for yourself and others.

I have learned that we are all in need of healing and recovery from something, and I call that something clutter. We will all need that healing until the day that we die. How much healing we want is totally up to us, but I can tell you that God the Father wants to give us way more than we ask Him for. God wants to use Red Wednesday’s Wisdom to bring you the healing that you don’t even know you need. He wants to draw you into a deeper and more personal relationship with Him through His Son Jesus, and His Holy Spirit. God desires to connect with you on a very personal level so you can experience His healing touch and be equipped with the power of His Holy Spirit. Jesus says in John 14:26 “But when the Father sends the Counselor, as my representative – and by the Counselor I mean the Holy Spirit – he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I myself have told you.”

This coming week, make the investment to believe in the promise of this Scripture and see the return it personally brings into you life!

The lyrics to this song called Welcome Home, by Shaun Groves reflects the clutter that is inside all of us. See how its words touch you and speak to you.

Take, me, make me
All You want me to be
That's all I'm asking, all I'm asking

Welcome to this heart of mine
I've buried under prideful vines
Grown to hide the mess I've made
Inside of me
Come decorate, Lord

Open up the creaking door
And walk upon the dusty floor
Scrape away the guilty stains
Until no sin or shame remain
Spread Your love upon the walls
And occupy the empty halls
Until the man I am has faded
No more doors are barricaded

Come inside this heart of mine
It's not my own
Make it home
Come and take this heart and make it
All Your own
Welcome home

Take a seat, pull up a chair
Forgive me for the disrepair
And the souvenirs from floor to ceiling
Gathered on my search for meaning
Every closet's filled with clutter
Messes yet to be discovered
I'm overwhelmed, I understand
I can't make this place all that You can

I took the space that You placed in me
Redecorated in shades of greed
And I made sure every door stayed locked
Every window blocked, and still You knocked

Take me, make me
All You want me to be
That's all I'm asking, all I'm asking

Red Wednesday's Wisdom - Clutter

Through the prompting of the Holy Spirit, I launched the Home Touched blog site called Red Wednesday’s Wisdom in August 2011, and over the next 8 months I shared my very personal, intimate and humbling stories of the clutter in my own life. I hope that by sharing those stories, it has helped you to recognize some of the clutter in your own life.

So in these next upcoming months, I am going to do some gear shifting. The focus will be more on teaching, in addition to some of the story telling. I will share what I have learned through my stories so that the clutter in your life can also be revealed and healed as it was in mine through God’s Son, Jesus and His:

Simplicity,
Order, &
Nurturance

Here is the key to experiencing less clutter in your life, and it all starts with your mind!
TAKE THE CHALLENGE:
♥ stretch yourself
♥ step out of your comfort zone
♥ examine your belief system as it relates to truth or lies
♥ replace your old thinking with a clean slate of new thinking
♥ base your new thinking on God’s Word

I challenge you to stretch yourself by going to one Scripture in God’s Word every morning. This means that you let go of the comfort of your daily routine for just 1 minute! Here is the Scripture that I encourage you to say every morning that will give you discernment about truth and lies so that you can replace your old thinking with the new thinking that is based on God’s Word. It’s from Romans 12:2, “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.”

I hope you will make the decision to take on this challenge. You will be amazed at how your life is going to become less cluttered.

I close with the following prayer. You may want to use it before going to bed at night. Prayer is simply communication with God, so it will always draw us nearer to Him.

In the name of You, Father God, Your Son Jesus, and through Your Holy Spirit, I ask that You open my ears to what You need me to hear. Open my mind to what You want me to think and open my heart to what You want me to feel. Open my eyes to what You need me to see, open my mouth to what are Your words and Your tone of voice. Use my hands to be Your hands and use my feet to take me where You want me to go.

Thank you Father for the new seeds that we are about to plant as we learn to share who we are with one another and experience Your simplicity, order, and nurturance through Your SON, who always brings healing to our sometimes cluttered and messy ways of living.

Red Wednesdsay's Wisdom - Shielded

As I go through the course of my every day life, there are times when I just simply need to retreat. So, when I heard a number of clear messages telling me to step back from writing last week’s posting, I retreated. There are times when we just need to be renewed and strengthened, and especially for the unforeseen battles that lie ahead. This is also an important and necessary strategy in war. It can be the shield that keeps me from entering into a dangerous position or coming under enemy attack, and ultimately, it affords me the opportunity to experience God’s peace, quiet, and solitude.

After going through my own war of physical and spiritual breaking, I took an entire year to retreat, and I learned how to be shielded against future enemy attacks. Every day was filled with praying, meditating, journaling, studying, and absorbing the Word of God.

Ephesians 6:13-18 has taught me and motivated me to be prepared for the wars that I have had to face. This scripture says, "Use every piece of God's armor to resist the enemy in the time of evil, so that after the battle you will stand firm. Stand your ground, putting on the sturdy belt of truth and the body armor of God's righteousness. For shoes put on the peace that comes from the Good News, so that you will be fully prepared. In every battle you will need faith as your shield to stop the fiery arrows aimed at you by Satan. Put on salvation as our helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray at all times and on every occasion in the power of the Holy Spirit." These verses from Ephesians became so important and powerful to me that I wrote them out, and then I made them my morning battle cry of protection in my own personal prayer, it can be yours too.

Shielded By Faith in Jesus

Father God, I thank You for Your Son Jesus, who is my Godly armor. Every piece of armor that I put on points me in the direction of Your Son . I put on Your armor to resist the enemy in times of evil, so that after the battle I will be standing firm. I stand my ground by putting on the sturdy belt of truth, the truth that can only be found in Your Word. I put on the body armor, the breastplate of righteousness, not my righteousness, but the righteousness of Jesus Christ. I walk in the shoes of peace and the preparation that comes from the Good News, not the news that I am bombarded with from the TV or internet. In every battle (and they can be daily), I take up my shield of faith in You to stop the fiery arrows that are aimed at me by Satan. I put on the helmet of salvation that constantly reminds me of You being my Savior. I take the sword of the Spirit, which is Your Word, knowing that it cuts through any deception, falsehood, or lie! And I pray at all times in the power of Your Holy Spirit.

This week we celebrate the holiest of weeks in the calendar year. As we enter into Passover and Resurrection Sunday, I want to share some verses from the Old Testament. They confirm that God and His Word are always our shield.

Psalm 3:2-3 “But you O Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, and the one who lifts my head high. I cried out to the Lord and he answered me from his holy mountain.”

Psalm 28:7 “The Lord is my strength, my shield from every danger.”

Psalm 33:20 “We depend on the Lord alone to save us. Only he can help us, protecting us like a shield.”

Psalm 91:4 “He will shield you with his wings. He will shelter you with his feathers. His faithful promises are your armor and protection.”

Psalm 119:114 “You are my refuge and my shield: your word is my only source of hope.”

Proverbs 30:5 (NIV) “Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.”

This past Sunday, Palm Sunday, I heard the song “Amazing Grace” on three different occasions. The Holy Spirit was obviously using this song to get my attention, because as often as I have heard this song, I did not realize that the word shield was in the second stanza: “The Lord has promised good to me. His word my hope secures. He will my shield and portion be as long as life endures.” So I want to bless you with these lyrics and the song, “Amazing Grace” by Chris Tomlin. May you be shielded and protected by dressing your self in the whole armor of God and not just some of it.

Have a blessed Passover and Resurrection Sunday!

Red Wednesday's Wisdom - Broken, Part Two

Growing up as a child, I knew who Jesus was. I was blessed with the opportunity to learn about Him every day during my 12 years of Christian schooling. But, I did not truly know Him until I was 40. There is a huge difference in knowing about someone and intimately knowing them and spending time with them.

When I came into my relationship with Jesus, I did not know that I would find myself in the middle of a tug of war, or should I say, wars. But I have come to realize that these wars were all about the “old” me and how I would be broken in order to be made “new.” You can not rebuild without tearing down, and you can not heal without letting go. You can not have true freedom and eternal life without dying to your self.

So when I went through my breaking down process, I did feel like I was dying, but it wasn’t a physical death. It was most certainly a spiritual one:

I had to die to what I wanted, so I could receive what God wanted.
I had to die to my fleshly desires, so I could be lead by the Holy Spirit.
I had to die to the power and hold that Satan wanted over me, so I could be held and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

The original first tug of war, was a spiritual one that took place in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. They knew God, they had an intimate relationship with Him, BUT, they were also influenced by Satan’s trickery. They had the free will to choose who they would follow, but just like me, they wanted what God did not want them to have. Their wrong thinking caused their flesh to desire what God did not want for them. So in one moment, they chose the power of Satan to rule over the power of God. Their relationship with God was broken, and they immediately came to realize what God meant when He said that they would know good and evil, as well as death. Talk about the extreme choices and the extreme consequences that we make for ourselves!

The spirit world is not fantasy or make believe. It is as real and as extreme today as it was in the Garden, but here is what we know today - Jesus has come to the rescue! We are blessed beyond human comprehension, for we are loved and valued by a very extreme God who sent his Son, Jesus, to die for our sins so that we could be free of that death hold that started back in the Garden!

Every day I am bombarded with all kinds of extreme choices, and I have to ask my self; how will I think, how will I feel, and how will I act? Jesus’ life here on earth was a living testimony to how He walked out the Scriptures in both the Old and New Testaments.

Last week I made reference to Ephesians 6:10–12. Every day I want to be an imitator of how Jesus walked out this Scripture. I want to be strong in God’s power and not my own. Jesus was the Son of God, and yet He knew He had to draw His power from the Father. I want to consciously dress myself in the armor of God so that I can resist the strategies and tricks of the Devil.

Consider this, Jesus was no sooner baptized and Satan tempted Him in the desert. He went there to fast for forty days and have alone time with the Father. Jesus knew the armor He had to put on to defend Himself from Satan’s schemes. The closer Jesus drew to the Father, and the more He spent time with Him, the more intensely Satan went after Him. Satan did this to Jesus, and he certainly does it to us!

Now consider this. Jesus is in the desert. The nights are cold, dark, lonely, and scary. The daytime is sunny, hot, dry, lonely, and scary. No one is there with Jesus in the flesh and blood – no human. He is the only one. But in the spirit world there is Jesus, who is also God, there is God the Father, His Holy Spirit, and Satan. There is a spiritual war going on in that desert and it is not against flesh and blood. Just like Jesus, I am not called to wrestle with flesh and blood. I am called to go against the unseen principalities, powers, rulers of darkness, and wicked spirits in the heavenly realms, meaning the skies and the air.

I am so thankful for what I have learned through my brokenness. It taught me to seek Truth and Truth that can only be found in God’s Word. You can not find it anywhere else because Truth is only what God says it is! If you are searching for power and healing in your own life, as I was in mine, then I want you to know that you do not have to go through the extreme breaking that I went through. Here is what I want to share with you that I experienced before I ever gained understanding of it in God’s Word. Satan is a false imitator of God’s light and His Word. So even though I spent quiet time with the Lord in prayer, meditated on His Word, and went to church, Satan came after me with a vengeance. He knew that he was loosing his grip on me. So he used every occult scheme that he could come up with to lure me into believing that this was the way to experience more of God, more of His power, and more of His healing. You see, at that time, I did know that mediums, numerology, palm reading, horoscopes, etc. were part of the occult. God can not be found in the occult. You will have a spiritual experience but it will be with Satan. The occult is Satan’s way of imitating God’s use of numbers, God’s revelation, and God’s prophecy. I did not know the Truth about all of this until I studied God’s Word.

In being broken, I also learned how to better care for my physical body. Through God’s Word, The Lord showed me how to love and accept my body rather than rejecting it, abusing it, or sinning against it. True power and true healing can only come through God the Father, His Son Jesus, His Holy Spirit, and being firmly grounded in His Holy Word.

Next week we will talk about how to daily dress yourself in the armor of God so that you are better equipped to shield and protect yourself from what is not the Truth of God.

Red Wednesday's Wisdom - Broken, Part One

It was like being a rubber band. I had been pulled so hard from both ends, that when there was no more to be stretched, I broke. That’s what happened to me 16 years ago. I was in a tug of war where I struggled with just about everything:
You and me
Right and wrong
Light and dark
Good and evil
Truth and lies
Needs and wants

I was scattered, lost, and out of control, and my balance was being threatened as I lived my life in extremes:
High or low
Fast or slow
Love or hate
All or nothing
Too much or too little
Too early or too late

It was not until I felt and saw the aftermath of this polarized force, that I recognized the need to confront the physical and spiritual choices that had brought me to this breaking point. I was facing the first year anniversary of my divorce, and I was still trying to figure out how to mend my broken heart. Unfortunately, that mending that I was looking for was not going to be found in the way that I was caring for myself. It is an example of one of those extremes where I was eating too little, and consuming too much - the coffee, the champagne, and the cigarettes. And then, in the midst of all the emotional loss I was going through, and the load of responsibility that was sometimes just too heavy to carry, I found myself on a very intense spiritual journey. I was reading my Bible, going to church, and praying, but I wanted more! I wanted and needed God’s healing and power so I went searching for Him in palm readers, psychics, numerology, horoscopes, tarot cards, healing touch, Eastern religion, and the array of New Age charm and attraction - but things did not get any better. In fact, they only got worse. I actually manifested the symptoms of a stroke in response to my anxiety, fear, and confusion – mouth paralysis and slurred speech. I had broken down, mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually, and in all honesty, felt like I even was in the process of dying. But, keep in mind I had not been taking very good care of myself.

In the aftermath of this breaking, I gained an understanding of what is meant by the term spiritual warfare. In response to this, I clung to my Bible like I had never done before and Ephesians 6:10-12 became my battle cry. It says, “A final word; be strong with the Lord’s mighty power. Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies and tricks of the Devil. For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against the evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against those might powers of darkness who rule this world, against wicked spirits in the heavenly realms.”

Come back next week to find out how you and I can always have healing and power over being broken.

Red Wednesday's Wisdom - Welcoming

Having entered into this season of Lent, I often reflect on how the physical spring cleaning of my home, mirrors the never ending spiritual cleansing of my mind and heart. When I made the all important decision to welcome God’s Son Jesus into my life, I became a first hand witness to how God wanted to clean me out in regards to my cluttered relationships. Through God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness, I learned how to welcome people into my life with a new and fresh approach that was in alignment with God’s boundaries and not man’s. God’s boundaries always provide me with the protection I need to be safe and healthy.

I clearly remember one defining moment when I came to understand what welcoming meant from a much broader Biblical perspective that was based on chapter 10 in the Book of Matthew. That experience, was the result of being in a church that I had attended for many years. And even though there were beliefs and lifestyles that were totally uncomfortable for me, I came to believe that I was to accept and tolerate those situations, because after all, I was in church. I was surrounded by people who I called my friends, and some were even my family. But, after being repeatedly manipulated and accused of not being accepting and tolerant of other’s beliefs and lifestyles, I learned a very valuable lesson about what it means to be welcomed.

In Matthew 10:12-14, Jesus gave His disciples very clear instructions on who they were to reach out to and how they were to be welcomed as His followers. “When you are invited into someone’s home, give it your blessing. If it turns out to be a worthy home, let your blessing stand; if it is not, take back the blessing. If a village doesn’t welcome you or listen to you, shake off the dust of that place from your feet as you leave.”

Through these Scriptures, Jesus was telling me that there was a lack of worthiness to receive me and the blessing that I wanted to give in my church. I came to understand that my confusion about love, acceptance, and tolerance was a differentiation that I needed to make between the sinner and the sin. I was being expected to accept and tolerate the blatant sin that was taking place in our church, and equate that with loving, accepting, and tolerating the sinner. But that is not God’s thinking. God calls me always to love and accept the person, but I am never called to love, accept, or tolerate sin, mine or yours! I needed to break away from a church that wanted me to welcome that kind of thinking.

Our churches are like our families, they can take on a personality that is characteristic of the people who comprise them. Church, per se, is not a building. Hopefully, it is a place that is grounded in the Word of God and it is made up of people who welcome God’s Word, take His Word to heart, and walk His Word out. Church is not based on what man says, but what God says. I had to let go of the thinking that told me that church was equated to God. Church is where we go to worship God, and hopefully we find God there, but church can most certainly be void of His presence and His Word.

Matthew 10:16 actually gives us this warning: “Look, I am sending you out as sheep among wolves. Be as wary as snakes and harmless as doves. But beware!” The warning is there for me and for you, just as it was for the disciples. I am that sheep that needs to be cautious of the wolves that can be in my family, my church, work place, or wherever, and still love. As Matthew 10:36 declares, “Your enemies will be right in your own household.” In other words, I am to be aware of the enemies that lurk in my own family, BUT, I am still commanded to love them!

Who would ever think that we would need to be instructed on how to welcome people into our lives? But that is what Matthew 10 is all about. In fact, Matthew 10:40-41 ends with this rich and powerful summary, “Anyone who welcomes you is welcoming me, and anyone who welcomes me is welcoming the Father who sent me. If you welcome a prophet as one who speaks for God, you will receive the same reward a prophet gets. And if you welcome good and godly people because of their godliness, you will be given a reward like theirs.” These closing verses have taught me that my relationship with Jesus is crucial to me knowing who I am to be in relationship with, and who I am to keep at a distance. Some of my toughest love lessons have taught me how to love people from a distance without being intimately involved in their lives. Love does not tell me to be in relationship with every person I meet.

As I go through this Lenten season, I pray that all of us will become more discerning of who the Holy Spirit is telling us to welcome into our lives and who we are to be wary of. May our hearts and homes be a welcoming invitation to all who are meant to enter. And may we be a reflection of the One who wants to be welcomed into all of our lives!