the lion and the lamb: 1/6/08

Sunday, January 06, 2008

God restores

What follows is a beautiful testimony of one woman's restoration after a life filled with hurt,hardship and betrayal:

It's said that a picture is worth a thousand words. But what kind of story does a scar tell?
Vicki Duffy's scars tell quite a story. Her story begins after she was raped by her mother's boyfriend.

"He came into my room," Duffy says. "I was scared. I remember crying, and he raped me."

Vicki was only 5 years old.

"He followed it up with, 'You tell anyone, I'm going to kill your mother. I'm going to kill your dog, and your brother.' So he went for all three," Duffy says.

Months went by before Vicki ever said a word.

"I felt I must have done something to cause him to do this," Vicki says. "I thought, 'I need to be nicer or kinder.' I had all those feelings at that moment."

But no matter how "good" Vicki tried to be, her life just got worse. Her older brother, who was once her best friend, suddenly turned into her arch enemy. He threw words like weapons and punches laced with hate.

'You're stupid. You're ugly. You're an idiot,' her brother would tell her.

"After hearing that for weeks, months, and days on end, getting the brunt of someone's anger, you start to believe it," Vicki says.

Then the verbal and physical abuse from her brother turned into something else.

"Just one night out of the blue he raped me," Vicki says. "It happened. He raped me, and I didn't even see it coming."

Vicki was 11-years old, her brother was 13.

"The themes of, 'You're never going to amount to anything.' 'It's your fault.' 'If you tell, it's your fault anyway.' I started believing that so much so that when he actually raped me, he kept to his threats," Vicki says.

'I felt like I was this atrocity," she says. "I felt like I didn't look good. I felt like I was huge and fat. I was incredibly insecure with massively low self-esteem. "

And Vicki felt confused. She began to fantasize about being a boy, even dressing like one. By her early 20's she was actively living a gay lifestyle, and was, in her words, "promiscuous. "

By the age of 24, she had been in half a dozen mental hospitals for a litany of mental illnesses: depression, anorexia, bulimia, and drug and alcohol addiction. But one compulsion consumed her.

"It was like doing something that you like so much, whatever it is," she says. "Fill in the blank: sex, a great chocolate cake, gambling, this was it for me. I could taste it. I couldn't wait for the next moment."

Vicki is talking about 'cutting,' an act where someone uses sharp objects like knives, scissors, and razors to cut their bodies. What made her do it?

"It was something that I could control and nobody else could," she says.

Vicki still has the scars. On one arm there are over 200 cuts. On both forearms she required a skin graph from self inflicted cigarette and lighter burns.

"I needed the scar on the outside of me to match the horrible scars on the inside that no one could see," she says. "And the pain and turmoil I wanted to come out on my own body."

"I was cutting and burning with anything I could get my hands on. I was an alcoholic. I dabbled in drugs. I was in promiscuous relationships. I was on 17 pills a day, on psychiatric medication," she says.

Then one day something happened.

"Nothing could compare to the day that I was in the presence of God," Vicki remembers.

"As soon as I walked in there was such peace. I really don't know how to explain it other than a 'who' feeling."

"The urges and desires for a few hours left. And that might sound like nothing," she says, "but it's something, because the fact that they weren't there was enough for me to go hmmm, maybe there is something to this God thing."

So she went back to church, and after a couple of visits someone gave her a Bible.

"I picked it up and it opened right up to the book of Mark, chapter 5, and I started reading it. I read about how this man was tormented night and day and cut his body with stones and how he wasn't in his right mind. The short and the long of it was how Jesus healed him," Vicki says.

"I was so angry and so agitated. I felt like, 'How dare you? You did it for this guy, but you can't do it for me?' So I just start going into this fit."

In her desperation, Vicki gave God an ultimatum.

"I said to God, 'I'm going to give you 30 days to prove yourself real,'" Vicki says. "I gave him 30 days and proceeded to really plead with Him. I said, 'If you did it for that guy, do it for me.' I didn't know how to pray. I didn't realize, I was praying right then. I was swearing. I was yelling. But I was having a conversation, and I believe God met me where I was at."

"I said, 'Change me. Help. Take anything that is not of you from me, in Jesus name, amen.' That was my prayer."

"Within the next few weeks, the desire to cut and burn started to go," Vicki says. "By June of 1995 I took all my medication and flushed it down the toilet. I started going to church on Wednesdays to mid-week service."

"Within a year and a half I hadn't cut. I hadn't burned. I hadn't had any kind of thoughts. I was getting control on the eating," Vicki says. "The thing is during that year and a half, I forgave. I made the choice, 'I'm going to move on and move forward in my life.'"

"It's all about making choices," she says. "We can't make a choice in what happens to us, whether we're harmed or raped, but we can choose how we deal and how we react to it, and I was making the wrong choice."

Once I forgave. I was just like, 'Wow, life is good. I can change me, and I can change how I act and react to them.' It's a choice, and I chose to spend those two years seeking God and getting healed and set free completely."

Today, over a decade later, Vicki is happily married with a beautiful son. She's even written a book, No More Pain.

She has a message for people who see themselves as bad and beyond God's love. What does she want to tell them?

"There's hope. As long as there's breath in their life, there's hope," Vicki says. "It doesn't matter whether you believe in God, He believes in you. And He can make it work. You give everything else a chance, the cutting, the burning, the alcohol, the drugs, the gambling, and the sex. We give that a chance, let's give God a chance."
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~DO LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS~

Fw: December 2007 Been Thinking About Column

Greetings from RBC Ministries

BEEN THINKING ABOUT: ENLIGHTENMENT

What does it take to be wise?

In a television commercial for online yellow pages, actor David Carradine plays a guru to a young seeker. When the student asks, "How do I find enlightenment?" the master says, "Yellowbook.com . . . . Everyone is searching for something. . . . After all, it is a material world, and with yellowbook.com, you just type in what and where."

The ad is insightful. Wisdom does involve the practical use of knowledge to get what we are looking for. The commercial is also right in suggesting that wisdom is more accessible than many of us might have thought.

Could it be that easy? A New Testament writer by the name of James says followers of Christ can have wisdom for the asking. With a promise that sounds too good to be true, he writes, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him" (James 1:5).

James adds only one condition. He says we need to want to know how to trust God in the middle of our problems (vv.6-8).

Why would we need it? James wrote to people who were struggling with problems that tested their faith (James 1:2-3). As first-century followers of Christ, they probably had counted the cost of religious and social persecution. But they might not have foreseen all of the ways they would disappoint and disillusion one another.

From the beginning, Jesus had taught His disciples to love one another (John 15:17). Yet, just a few years later, His followers were at war with one another (James 4:1-2). With prejudice, hurtful words, and outright hypocrisy, family and friends were acting like enemies.

It is in this conflict-filled setting that James assures his readers that wisdom is closer than they might have thought. But he does more than tell them how to find it. He also shows them how to recognize a wisdom that comes from "above" rather than from "below."

What does it look like? James writes that the wisdom from "above" is first:

Pure—James shows that the wisdom from "above" doesn't mix faith in Christ with the motives of greed, envy, and selfish ambition (James 3:14-17; 4:1-3). This can be an eye-opener for those of us who are inclined to blame one another for our problems without looking at our own hearts.

When good relationships go bad, thoughtful people often ask one another, "What do you want me to do?" James, however, gives us reason to first ask ourselves, "Why am I so upset? Where is my heart? What motives am I bringing to this conflict? Is my intent really to show the presence of Christ in me?"

Only when we honestly want to be in line with the pure intent and heart of God can we respond to conflict in a way that is genuinely:

Peaceable—When our hearts resonate with the heart of God, we long for peace rather than conflict. Even when circumstances can never be the same again, "the wisdom that is from above" helps us to see the foolishness of a bitter or vengeful spirit. Enlightenment that enables us to value peace over conflict (James 1:5) is a gift from God. It is a new goal that gives birth to:

Gentleness—In the ancient world, this word was used of kings who wore their power with dignity, forbearance, and appropriate leniency toward their subjects.

Today, in the middle of mutual disappointments and hurts, this is the kind of wisdom that enables citizens of King Jesus to represent His authority with a royal spirit of kindness. A listening ear and a gentle voice can lower the temperature of a difficult moment.

Such strong and purposeful gentleness becomes a basis for wisdom that is:

Willing to yield—Because it takes two to tangle, one person who is willing to give up the urge to get even can make a difference.

Instead of repaying wrong for wrong, a willingness to return good for evil is an expression of strength rather than weakness. Surrendering to God, instead of merely focusing on the one who has hurt us, enables us to work patiently for an outcome that is:

Full of mercy and good fruit—When our heart is yielded to the wisdom of Christ, we see the value of planting seeds of undeserved kindness while waiting for the fruit of peace.

With the insight that comes from above (James 3:15-17), we are willing to give others the space they need to think for themselves. In the grace of patience, we give them time to experience the growing influence of Christ in their own lives. Rather than responding to others in a near-sighted and superficial way, we show a wisdom that is:

Without partiality—Earlier in his letter, James wrote about followers of Christ who were inclined to treat people of wealth and influence better than the poor and needy (James 2:1-10). Now he shows that responding to others without partiality is a way of showing the wisdom and heart of God. Rising above the influence of wealth, social standing, or appearance enables us to live with a wisdom that is:

Without hypocrisy—This seventh identifying mark of wisdom caps the rest. James uses it to celebrate the integrity of the enlightenment God wants to give us. He knows that in our better moments none of us wants to talk the language of faith while practicing the goals and politics of envy and ambition.

What can we expect? James is honest with us from the beginning of his letter. He wants us to know that God doesn't make wisdom easily accessible to help us get what we want and when we want it (James 1:2-5; 4:1-3). His insight is offered to enable us to develop patience and a maturity that is full of the spirit of Christ. It is this patience, the "wisdom that is from above," which is like seeds of peace that, in season, will give all of us what we really are searching for (James 3:18).

Father in heaven, thank You for promising us the enlightenment we need to patiently trust You. Help us to recognize the seeds of peace You value more than the material desires that divide us. –Mart De Haan

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The One Thing - Daily Devotional From New Creation Church

It Shall Not Come Near You!

Psalm 91:7
7A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it shall not come near you.

Your doctor or insurance agent may ask you, “Do you have a family history of cancer?” If you say “yes”, they will tell you that you will probably get some form of cancer too.

Now, if you are without God, you would probably agree with them and start worrying about your health. But you are not without God! In fact, His Word tells you, “A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it shall not come near you.” Therefore, even if you have a family history of cancer, and your family members have died of cancer, you can have the confidence to say that it will not come near you!

My mother had this attitude. After a thorough medical check-up, the doctor was surprised and told her that she did not have high blood pressure or heart disease, although these two conditions have plagued her father and siblings. You see, my mother had already firmly declared that no deadly family related disease would come near her.

Praise God for my mother’s trust in God’s Word because I am the generation after her! In fact, after my mother told me about the results of her check-up, I randomly opened my Bible only to read about Rahab the harlot who by faith, “… did not perish with those who did not believe”. (Hebrews 11:31)

Beloved, God wants you to know that even though you are in this world, you are not of this world. You belong to Him. You don’t have to get caught in dire situations along with the people of the world. Because God is on your side, “Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence”. (Psalm 91:3)

Even when it comes to generational diseases, you can boldly declare, “That disease stops here!” because you have God and His Word. And when you believe God and His Word, you will see His promises come to pass for you — “A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it shall not come near you!”

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version ®.
Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2006–2007 New Creation Church

Thursday, January 03, 2008

As you would not fail to notice, now there is a Daily Devotional on this blog. Just thought I would share with you guys what I read everyday. Do not think this is gonna be an everyday sort of thing, but will probably only post up those daily devotionals that I feel have a message that I feel a connection to.

On a similar note, a new year is upon us. And what a glorious one it has been. And I know in my heart things are only going to get better and better as the days turn into weeks and then into months.
Looking back at all that happened in 2007, it just fills my heart with pride to know that love truly overcomes and with God all things are indeed possible. 2008 presents its own challenges all of its own. But if 2007 is any indication, 2008 is going to be a great year for me and my family.

It has long been my inclination to make this blog more than just an avenue to record my thoughts and situations. And recent developments have only served to validate going in that direction. So from now on this blog will feature much more of my spiritual walk and how that all ties in with my daily life. There will be awesome testimonies, daily devotionals, thoughts and prayers. Hopefully my readers, feel free to air their own opinions.If anything else, I have some of the quietest readers about. I know they are there and faithfully read all the pitiful scraps I leave here, but hardly ever opine on what they feel about what I transcribe here. So hopefully in 2008, my readers will interact more with me.

There is so much about 2007 that I feel I should do a retrospective of all that transpired during one of the most significant years of my 'young' life.
Of course there was my solemnisation to my lovely wife in June. When we look back we remember it for many of the wrong reasons. But 2008 offers us an opportunity to heal those wounds and new hope in all the things that really matter.

So rather than dwell on the past, lets look forward to some of the goodies 2008 has in store:

- we are gonna start renovating the flat pretty soon. And once it is ready, we can then start to move stuff in. And then finally move in ourselves.

- We are also planning a wedding dinner at years end.

- Gonna be an uncle again for the 3rd time!

- plans to get a new car to replace good old Sunny

- Agnes just started at her 'dream job' at HSA. And she seems to be loving every moment of it thus far. Hopefully she has a long and fruitful career there.

- and so much,much more...

As Agnes is settling into her new job, we are behooved to go out and buy new clothes and accessories for her to wear to work. Hopefully on Saturday we will get to spend some 'us' time and see to it that Agnes looks her best at work.
Have to arrange to meet up Kaili to discuss more about the flat renovations. It has been an ardous task to say the least, trying to get our schedules to meet. We have had only one face-to-face meeting since the day we appointed her. Needless to say, we are getting a bit antsy about it. If this situation continues, then maybe we would be better off looking elsewhere. Kaili's services do not come cheap yet we have been left hanging in the air regarding what is to happen next. Maybe there is a perfectly good reason for the way things have been handled thus far. Or we have misplaced our expectations. But honestly, we got much better service from Mona and perhaps in retrospect we should have gone with her in the first place,otherwise we would not find ourselves in the predicament we are in now, with hardly anything concrete down on paper after so many months.
Of course Agnes being busy with her school and all played no small part, but surely Kaili could have given a better account of herself than she has to this point. She has made no intention to actually physically go to our flat for which she is designing, and based her ideas on the floor plans we gave her. And she seems rather preoccupied to find time in her schedule to accommodate us. So it seems that to meet up with her we have to take time-off and leave to meet her during office hours.
And that is not a road we will easily go down. Agnes has only just started in her new job, and doubt time-off or leave would be so easily granted. I myself have my own issues at work that makes it somewhat inconvenient to just leave the office at the drop of a hat.

I am also entitled to a maximum of 3 days marriage leave that has to be consumed a year from the date of registration. So by June 08, I have to take my allotment or forfeit it. Agnes mentioned an overseas trip in June or July, so hopefully I can utilise it then. If not then I would have to do it earlier just for the sake of things.

~DO LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS~

The One Thing - Daily Devotional From New Creation Church

Give God's Word Priority And See Good Success

Joshua 1:8
8This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

In life there is good success and bad success. Bad success is the kind of success which robs you of time with your family, friends and church, and destroys your health and relationships. Good success, on the other hand, prospers you in every area of your life.

Now, God wants you to enjoy good success and the key to this lies in what God told Joshua when he took over the reins after the death of his leader Moses — “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success.” Spending time daily in God’s Word will give you godly wisdom which will make your way prosperous and give you good success.

“Pastor, you make it sound so simple — all I need to do is spend time in God’s Word?”

Well, just look at how Joshua’s life turned out in the end. When Joshua died, “they buried him within the border of his inheritance at Timnath Serah, which is in the mountains of Ephraim, on the north side of Mount Gaash”. (Joshua 24:30) Joshua had a whole mountain for his inheritance! He was prosperous and successful!

It was also said that Israel served the Lord, not idols or other gods, all the days of Joshua’s life. (Joshua 24:31) This means that while Joshua was around, people were impacted for God’s glory.

And at the end of his life, a fulfilled Joshua had this to say, “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15) Having your family with you, loving God and serving Him, is the most important success and greatest prosperity that you can ever have.

Beloved, when God’s Word takes priority in your daily life, you will not only have a blessed bank account, but also a blessed ministry, family and life!

It smells like Him

Thought I would share this inspiring story of how when even all hope seems lost, love finds a way:

A cold March wind danced around the dead of night in
Dallas as the doctor walked into the small hospital room
of Diana Blessing. She was still groggy from surgery.
Her husband, David, held her hand as they braced
themselves for the latest news.

That afternoon of March 10, 1991, complications had
forced Diana, only 24-weeks pregnant, to undergo an
emergency Cesarean to deliver couple's new daughter, Dana Lu Blessing.
At 12 inches long and weighing only one pound
nine ounces, they already knew she was perilously premature.

Still, the doctor's soft words dropped like bombs.
"I don't think she's going to make it," he said, as kindly as
he could. "There's only a 10-percent chance she will live through
the night, and even then, if by some slim chance she does
make it, her future could be a very cruel one"
Numb with disbelief, David and Diana listened as the
doctor described the devastating problems Dana
would likely face if she survived. She would never walk, she
would never talk, she would probably be blind, and she
would certainly be prone to other catastrophic conditions
from cerebral palsy to complete mental retardation, and on and on.

"No! No!" was all Diana could say. She and David, with their 5-
year-old son Dustin, had long dreamed of the day they
would have a daughter to become a family of four.
Now, within a matter of hours, that dream was slipping away
But as those first days passed, a new agony set in
for David and Diana. Because Dana's underdeveloped nervous
system was essentially 'raw', the lightest kiss or caress
only intensified her discomfort, so they couldn't
even cradle their tiny baby girl against their chests to
offer the strength of their love. All they could do, as Dana
struggled alone beneath the ultraviolet light in the tangle of
tubes and wires, was to pray that God would stay close to
their precious little girl. There was never a moment
when Dana suddenly grew stronger. But as the weeks went by,
she did slowly gain an ounce of weight here and an ounce
of strength there. At last, when Dana turned two months old. her parents
were able to hold her in their arms for the very first time.
And two months later, though doctors continued to gently
but grimly warn that her chances of surviving, much less living any kind of normal
life, were next to zero, Dana went home from the hospital, just as her mother had
predicted.

Five years later, when Dana was a petite but feisty young
girl with glittering gray eyes and an unquenchable zest for
life. She showed no signs whatsoever of any mental or
physical impairment. Simply, she was everything a little girl
can be and more. But that happy ending is far from the
end of her story.

One blistering afternoon in the summer of 1996 near her
home in Irving, Texas, Dana was sitting in her mother's lap
in the bleachers of a local ball park where her brother
Dustin's baseball team was practicing. As always, Dana was
chattering nonstop with her mother and several other
adults sitting nearby when she suddenly fell silent.
Hugging her arms across her chest, little Dana asked, "Do
you smell that?" Smelling the air and detecting
the approach of a thunderstorm, Diana replied,
"Yes, it smells like rain."
Dana closed her eyes and again asked, "Do you smell that?"
Once again, her mother replied, "Yes, I think we're about to get wet. It smells like
rain."
Still caught in the moment, Dana shook her head, patted her thin shoulders with her
small hands and loudly announced, "No, it smells like Him. It smells like God when you lay your head on His chest." Tears blurred Diana's eyes as Dana happily hopped
down to play with the other children.
Before the rains came, her daughter's words confirmed what Diana and all the
members of the extended Blessing family had known, at least in their hearts, all along. During those long days and nights of her first two months
of her life, when her nerves were too sensitive for them to
touch her, God was holding Dana on His chest and it is His loving scent that she
remembers so well.