I felt invincible, immortal, immune to hunger and thirst and the incessant demands to slow down, to sleep, to recharge. My mind was a colony of secrets and schemes. That night in Hawaii, blind with tears, I started ransacking the bathroom medicine cabinet and rifling through drawers.
I decided it was time to quiet that steady hum once and for all. I wanted the shadows to disappear and the voices to stop, and I believed that death was the only way.
My hand shook as I picked up the flimsy disposable razor. I held it over my skin, trying to build up the courage to make the deep cut. I had flirted with death before, but just enough to blow my hair back, just enough to make me feel the tiniest bit alive. In that moment of desperation, I cried out to God: I never asked to be born!
I never asked for any of this! Never did I imagine that God would answer me. But he did. I found myself silenced, barefoot and open palmed, splayed like an offering across the floor. I was ready to take my own life and instead found myself laid out by God—physically knocked to the floor and flooded with a peace that to this day, I cannot fully describe.
I felt the resuscitation of grace. After that night, however, I began to make excuses. I have loved you with an everlasting love. You are mine. I wanted something to explain away the very real and terrible possibility that God existed and that he wanted something from me. I felt God. My parents had given me a Bible I never used and instead wedged under a tiny garage-sale table in my room to make the legs even.
I pulled it out and began to read it at night behind my locked door. My bed was a rolled-out length of eggshell foam—the kind you put on a real mattress should you actually have a mattress —and not thick enough to keep my hips from falling asleep and aching through the night.
As I read my Bible, I was confronted with questions and fears. It may sound like my only friends were party animals like me, but I also had friends who were heading in the right direction. They were planning for the future, going to college, or doing what it took to be successful. However, I had drifted so far that I was simply lost. On graduation night, there was a positive vibe in the air on the football field.
We all whooped and hollered, clapping buddies on the shoulder and getting phone numbers, with promises that were seriously intended to keep in touch. But when it was all over, and everyone had drifted away, I cried as I made my way slowly through the parking lot toward my car. I knew deep down, where I did not like to venture, that the best carefree days of my life were over.
I was terrified because it was time to grow up, and, above all. This easy to read book will give you the hope and inspiration you need as you begin the process of recovery from addiction. As you take this journey from hell to recovery with George, you will discover insights that will motivate and encourage you to seek the road to recovery.
There is no complex scientific data here, just straightforward information that will give you the best chance for recovery. The importance of the step programs already in existence which are based on Biblical principles are also discussed, but the author adds a spiritual dimension to recovery by emphasizing the miraculous power and love available through Jesus Christ. Even though the author felt hopeless at times and thought about giving up, deep down he knew that God was working in his life and saving him for a reason.
That reason is revealed in this book as he encourages you to believe that life can be a wonderful experience. You have nothing to lose and your life to gain. George Snodgrass understands addiction because he has been there. He has inspired thousands of people with his Amazing Grace Recovery Program. George dedicates his life to helping those who suffer from addiction. In addition, he is a resource for families and friends who struggle with understanding the addictions of their loved ones.
Formats Softcover. Do you have a mission statement for your life? You need to get one. We are so caught up in living moment by moment, we lose sight of the big picture! I wrote an entire but very short eBook to help you do this.
Live for Him is a grace-filled look at planning that will walk you through the steps of creating a mission statement for your life. In order to start living the Gospel at home, you have to know your purpose. You have to know your role within your family unit. Today, create a mission statement for your life. Discover your God-given purpose. Write it down. Share it with your family. This post is part of a 31 Day Series teaching you how to live the Gospel at home.
You can see see all the posts in this series here. Leigh Ann Dutton is the wife to the man of her prayers, Mark, and mama to four loveable little cherubs. What is behind God's predestinating grace or his election? Some say that God foresees the choices of people. I think that takes the very heart out of the biblical teaching.
When the Scripture speaks about God's electing people, God speaks of electing people in Christ; our salvation is rooted and grounded in Jesus. What that makes me think is this: You and I are saved not only because of God's concern for us but chiefly and ultimately for God's total determination to honor his obedient Son. We are the love gifts that the Father gives to the Son so that the Son, who lived a life of perfect obedience and died on the cross, will see the travail of his soul and be satisfied.
That's the main reason I think God has saved you: to honor Jesus. And when the Bible speaks about the time frame in which God's decision is made in respect to our eternal life, it generally puts the decision at the foundation of the world; that is, from all eternity God has chosen us to be among the redeemed. I think Paul emphasizes that very clearly, particularly in the first chapter of his letter to the Ephesians. We were chosen in Christ from the foundation of the world to be conformed to Christ and to be brought into a state of redemption.
This, of course, touches immediately on the very difficult and controversial doctrine of predestination. I will say in passing, as we skate over the surface of it, that every church has some doctrine of predestination.
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