God created us with cravings, and part of these cravings are for people, places, things, and ideas. When our cravings turn into lost, we have crossed the line from normality to addiction, opening the soul-tie door.
The only way to reverse the soul tie door is to partner up with the Holy Spirit and severing ties with anything that places worldly comfort over Godly comfort. The Godly comfort that we receive is the gift of the personhood of the Holy Spirit. The enemy’s entire goal is to make us forget that we have everything that we need inside of us.
Like the Pharisees, we are tempted to believe that the answer is on the outside of the dish. Looking at things in this manner gives us tunnel vision. We see the trees right in front of us. Yet, we miss the beauty of the entire forest.
Along with partnering up with the Holy Spirit, the second must-do is allowing your body to go through the withdrawal symptoms that is associated with addiction. This will be very uncomfortable initially. It also requires you to build up resiliency and tolerance for containment.
Knowing that we are not alone, that we are partnering up with the Holy Spirit, our support groups, our inner circle, and our church community will help us exemplify what the true Body of Christ is meant to be: one on which all of its members work together for the common good.
When we think of cravings, we often think of food, and not relationship. Cravings are normal. As a matter of fact, they are nothing more than evidence that we are human. Sometimes we can get so holy that we think relationship cravings are wrong. God created Eve so that she could satisfy Adam’s craving for human relationships, even though he already had a relationship with God. God created us to crave relationships.
We get into trouble when our cravings lead to lust, or we place our craving for human relationship above our craving for relationship with God. Our cravings for relationship enables us to know that we were made for community.
Creating an empowered new chapter of life involves healing from past hurts. Healing from past hurts gives us perspective and the ability to see that our whole reason for existence is based upon the concept of relationships.
If we were to dissect the healthy and unhealthy cycle of any relationship, we would notice that both cycles begin with craving. It is what happens next that often gets us in trouble. We will dig deep into the next phase of the relationship cycle in my next post.
And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.
Burnout is becoming more and more common in our everyday life. Hearing the word itself makes you think that perhaps it’s just an overused, over-personified thing. But it isn’t. People suffer from burnout, with its effects lasting for years. The sooner that we put boundaries into place to avoid it, the more that our minds, bodies, and souls will thank us.
In my conversation with Chris, he expressed the fact that people resist change after burnout, or any other type of brokenness because they get comfortable in what they are in, feeling that it is easier to stay the same, than to do the work.
But, we all know that healing from past hurts brings resilience and perspective. Perspective is what is needed in order to embrace the act of creating an empowered new chapter of life. I pray that this episode will empower you in creating your new chapter. Click here to check out Chris Archuleta’s site and podcast. Be blessed.
A couple of weeks ago, I had a chance to do an interview with Jiselle Alleyne-Clement. We got a chance to learn about each other, and more importantly, we saw how God moved in the midst of that interview. In case you missed the last podcast episode, you can catch up here. Here is Jiselle’s bio:
Jiselle Alleyne-Clement
Part 1
Jiselle Alleyne-Clement is a professional of many hats. She is an Academic Librarian, Educator and Researcher. She received her MLIS in Library Science from Dalhousie University, Canada. She also holds an MA in Leadership Studies from the University of Guelph, Canada and is currently reading for her PhD in Gender Studies at the University of the West Indies with focus on Female Leadership Development in Caribbean Organizations.
Part 2
Jiselle is the lead Empowerment Speaker, Vision Coach and Mentor, through her consultancy, ‘Pearls of Great Price Empowerment Services’; a consultancy developed for women.
The empowerment programmes offered through her consultancy are geared to help women manage the transitions in their lives and will treat with topics such as, but not limited to:
Transition Management
Moving from Potential to Success
Tools for Reinventing yourself in the Marketplace
Establishing Healthy and Productive (She)Team Cultures
Continuous Learning
(She) Leadership Development
Jiselle believes that every woman must be given access to this type of development where they can in turn LEAD within her sphere of influence. This can be done through:
Providing women with access to female leaders and mentors
Creating leadership opportunities for the women within the society
Helping women transition seamlessly and envision and create social change
At Valley of Grace, we believe in thriving. In order to thrive, we have to begin grounding ourselves in our identity. The first step in making this happen, is dealing with the effects of our childhood wounds. Click here to get started in Online Therapy today.****This is an amazon affiliate link where a commission is paid to offsite the cost of providing this information to you.
Are you saying to yourself, “I’m sick and tired of being stuck in one unhealthy relationship after the next. Life should be better than this. This does not look like the abundant life that Christ promised us!” Then this course is for you. It walks you through the process step by step to getting out of the revolving door of stuckness, and into the door of abundant living. But when are you going to open the door? Are you waiting for your friend or someone else to open it for you? That’s what the Course Broken Pieces is all about. It walks you through with personalized videos, getting you to the heart of the matter. ****This is an amazon affiliate link where a commission is paid to offsite the cost of providing this information to you.
Hello all, and happy Thursday! Two weeks ago, I did an interview with Alison Simmons. And for those of you who are unfamiliar with her, Alison is a mother, Woman of God, Blogger, and the podcast host of Grace Over Perfection.
By the time we finished talking, I felt like I’d had a three-in-one session of therapy, support group, and sisterly fellowship. God is like that, giving us what we need when we need it. I hope that you re as blessed as I was when you tune into this interview.
An Interview with Alison Simmons Topics
Podcasting
Roadblocks
Podcasting vs. Writing
Inspiration
Unique Knowlege/Expertise
Life Story
What Brokenness Means
Effects of Healed and UnHealed Brokenness on Podcasting
Community Help
Home
Requirements for Podcasting
Marriage
Divorce
Podcasting Genres
Fun Questions
And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threestrand cord is not quickly broken.
At Valley of Grace, we believe in thriving. In order to thrive, we have to begin grounding ourselves in our identity. The first step in making this happen, is dealing with the effects of our childhood wounds. Click here to get started in Online Therapy today.****This is an amazon affiliate link where a commission is paid to offsite the cost of providing this information to you.
Are you involved in your community? If so, what do you do? Are you living in community? It sounds like the same thing, but it isn’t. Today’s podcast episode deals with the gift of community. Maybe in our everyday world, we might not think of community as a gift. However, it is. Let’s tune in to the episode and take a listen.
There are a lot of things involved in integration. The main thing required is taking the bits and pieces of our lives and allowing the pieces of our quilts from our story to be sown together. The poem, “Integration” is my own reflection of the pieces of the quilt that I loss when I either changed churches or loss contact with friends along the way.
Community is important. The effects of having community is so important when you are going through. How do you respond with support when your friends have things that are going on in their lives? Or, do you respond at all? Is your responding more of staying away so that their situation doesn’t become contagious?
This poem “Community” reflects just that. It makes you contemplate responding in support to our dear friends, as well as brothers and sisters in Christ during their time of need.
Community
How do you become his hands and his feet,
When others are crying and grieving knee-deep.
Do you give them a call, a prayer, a word?
Or tell them “hold on” like they never have heard?
I have been reading a variety of books lately. Along with this fact, I’ve also been listening to a lot of sermons. Sometimes, I have listened to so many sermons, and read so many books at one time, that I start to second guess myself as to which book or preacher said what. At this point, I usually have to go back and double check that I am giving the right author credit.
In this season of my life, I have been hearing God’s small voice repeatedly encouraging me along the way. I can picture myself taking off at the starting point with my number on, and God on the sidelines with his flag shouting, “Keep running! You can do it! ”
Earlier today, I was reading more of the book on leadership by Brene Brown. The chapter that I am now focusing on is dealing with empathy. Later this evening, I listened to a sermon by Joyce Meyer. As God would have it, she was also preaching on empathy. The key points that were stated from both is the following:
Empathy means being able to connect through the emotion that someone else is feeling.
Empathy doesn’t mean giving advice.
Having empathy shouldn’t lead to a comparison game of who has had the worst suffering.
A few nights ago, I decided to make what I call Simple Chicken Burgers. They turned out super moist and required very few ingredients.
Here is the recipe:
Activity: Making Simple Chicken Burgers
Total Prepping and Cooking Time: 25 minutes
Servings: 6
Ingredients:
1/3 cup of oatmeal
cumin (1 tb)
onion powder (1 tb)
garlic powder (1 tb)
1 16 oz. pack of ground chicken
2 tablespoons of flax seed meal
3 tablespoons of water
Directions:
Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a skillet.
Dump all of the above ingredients into a bowl.
Make burger patty shapes with your hands.
Place the six patties into a skillet, or as many as you can at once. (use 2 skillets if necessary)
Take the burgers out when they are brown on both sides.
Top with hummus and garnish with basil or spinach if you like.
