New Deadbolt, Bethany Hamilton, and Compassion International

5-17-11

Hooray!!! I came home yesterday to find a shiny new deadbolt on the door! That was fast! I’ve noticed a marked difference in my sleep and ability to relax. It’s great knowing that you’re protected. Even more awesome than knowing I’m protected is the fact that my dad wants to protect me. That does wonders for my self esteem. Every time I see that new deadbolt on the door it reminds me that I’m worth protecting.

In other news, yesterday I finally got to town again and was able to publish the blog posts I’ve been writing at home. I got to check my email too. Funny, we take being able to get on the internet and check email and facebook for granted when we have internet regularly. However, when we find ourselves in a place with no internet signal for a prolonged amount of time that time on the internet becomes more precious. I did get an update on Bethany Hamilton. I signed up for her monthly newsletter (the coconut wire) on her website. She’s stoked about Soul Surfer’s release in theaters. She also competed in a surf competition lately but didn’t do as well as she had wanted to. She expressed a little bit of discouragement because she’s surfing the best she’s ever surfed in her life but it didn’t show in that competition. I guess that just goes to show that even the best of us get discouraged at times. I do hope that she is encouraged to keep doing her best. She surfs more beautifully than I’ve ever seen anyone surf before. It takes real talent, dedication, and heart to do what she does.

I got an email from Compassion International about my Compassion child, Watson. I sponsor a little boy in Haiti. The sponsor money pays for his food, clothing, education, and medical care. It’s an awesome organization. His birthday is coming up soon and Compassion gave me the option of sending him a birthday gift! The way this works is I give a certain amount of money and the organization buys him an age appropriate gift. Though that email made me happy that I was able to do something for Watson’s birthday it also showed me how little I actually do for the poor in the world. I sponsor one child living in poverty. I decided to sponsor Watson when I had less money than I do now and less of an opportunity to make any more money. I’m blessed to have more money now. I don’t go from paycheck to paycheck anymore and I’ve been working on my savings account. I just feel like there’s so much more I could be doing to help others than what I’m currently doing. Right now I’m blessed with more time and money than I need myself. I don’t know what to do but I just have a strong desire to minister to the needs of others and share God’s love. God blesses us so that we can share those blessings with others. So, I’ve been asking God what he wants me to do. I don’t want to just run off in any random direction to serve others. When I’m blessed with the time to bless others I’m sure God has something in mind. I want to be where he wants me to be, doing what he wants me to do. The most fulfilling thing I can do with my life is to follow God’s path for me. He’s got it all figured out and planned. I just have to trust him. I’m in good hands. J

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Great Reading Material

5-8-11

I finished Bethany Hamilton’s book, Soul Surfer, today!!! It is an amazing book! The book showed me how she struggled with healing emotionally from the attack. She’s the strongest woman I know and reading her own words about how she struggled is really encouraging to me. When I first watched the movie I felt that she barely struggled at all, especially compared to me struggling to heal from abuse. It kinda made me feel somehow weak, but I knew that wasn’t the message the movie was meant to tell. There was more to it and reading her honest thoughts on the subject of her attack and healing, I got a better picture of it. Yes, she did struggle, but she trusted God and that’s what got her to where she is today. I’ve been actively trusting God in my healing for 4 ½ years and God has done amazing things in my life. I never thought I could smile, relax, breath, dance, or open up to people the way I do now. Now, I truly live.

Today I was reading my Bible and I came across the story of the sinful woman who washed and anointed Jesus’ feet (Luke 7:36-50). Jesus was dining at the house of a Pharisee. This woman washed his feet with her tears, wiped them dry with her hair, anointed them with expensive oil from an alabaster jar, and never ceased to kiss his feet. Can you imagine kissing the feet of the Lord of the Universe? That thought blew my mind. She had so much faith in God that she abandoned herself to her Lord and worshiped him openly before all the guests at the Pharisee’s house. The Pharisee looked down upon this woman and couldn’t believe that Jesus allowed her to touch him, but Jesus pronounced this woman’s sins to be forgiven. I think this is one of the most beautiful stories in the Bible.

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Freedom in God's Will

Yesterday I started to grasp what freedom and God's will really mean. A lot of people debate over this, saying that God's will conflicts with personal freedom and the two can't truly coexist. Well, I was thinking today about how God's will plays out in each person's life. I'm not saying I completely understand it, but I think I may be beginning to get a better picture of how it works. Looking back on my life I can see God working towards where I am today. The big thing was thinking about how different people's lives intersect and influence one another. I believe God definately works through that. Why bad things happen also comes into play in these ideas running through my head. I'm thinking God's will works in people's lives in a complicated way. God has wonderful plans for his children but Satan wants to wreck those plans of a future and a hope. I don't think Satan is in the know when it comes to God's plan for each person. Therefore, Satan tries to generally wreck our lives. This explains stuff like shark attacks, tsunamis, and sexual violence. But God is always one step ahead of Satan. Just like in the Genesis story of Joseph and his jealous brothers, what mankind meant for evil, God meant for good. Basically I'm thinking that when Satan hurts us through the horrible things in life, whatever they may be, God takes what Satan meant for evil, and if the person is open and willing, God turns the intentioned evil into something amazing in our lives. A good example is Bethany Hamilton. Satan wanted to immobilize her walk with God and impact on the world. He thought having a shark bite off her left arm would do the trick. That makes sense because, for a lot of people, getting your arm bit off would turn you completely off God and send you into despair and hopelessness. Instead, Bethany was willing to trust God in his plan. God's plan was to turn what Satan tried to use to ruin her life into a HUGE blessing and inspiration to others. Bethany's encounter with that shark not only led to tremendous personal growth and growth in her relationship with God. It led to millions of people being touched by her story, people that wouldn't have been impacted if the attack had not happened. I'm one of those people impacted by her story. Satan tried to wreck my life with sexual abuse and rape. I've been trusting God in my healing and he's been turning what my brother meant for evil into more good than I can presently imagine. I've made progress through the years trying to heal, but I hit a huge breakthrough when I heard Bethany's story. When I watched the movie Soul Surfer it was like someone turned the light switch on in my head. It makes me wonder where I would be, and where a million other people would be, if Bethany hadn't shared her story or even been attacked by a shark in the first place. Satan tries to wreck individual lives but God can bless millions through one life. Sorry if this is hard to follow, but it's where I am and the thoughts in my head. Knowing that God's will is at work in my life frees me from anxiety and fear because I know that whatever God wills for me, he will give me the strength to go through it. No matter what happens, I'm secure in my faith in God's will and his ability to carry me through all things. I can do all things through Him who gives me strength. In God's will, I have true freedom because I don't have to worry about not being able to do it. His strength is made perfect in my weakness. This is freedom from fear, shame, anxiety, pressure to excel and succeed. In God's will, I'm free to be my true self and not be ashamed of it or hide it. Once we stop trying to be excellent for God using only our own strength and start relying on him for strength and direction we are enabled to do truly great things. It reminds me of the song Firework. If we "succeed" using our own strength we might result in one firework in the night sky. If we trust God and, in his strength, follow his plan for us we'll light up the night sky with a grand finale.

By the way, my best friend also has a blog. You should read it, it is awesome! Find it at http://www.nerdycollegekid.blogspot.com/  Go Jancee!!!

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Blessings in Abundance

So, I've been looking at my life differently lately and it has changed my perspective. I tend to focus on what I do wrong. My failings are ever before my eyes. You know how it feels when you can't see the good in you for all the bad? Well, I saw a movie two Thursdays ago that has had a huge impact on me. It's called Soul Surfer (based on a true story). It's about a female surfer in Hawaii, named Bethany Hamilton, who was attacked by a shark at the age of thirteen. The shark bit off her entire left arm. Despite this she trusted God in her struggles, didn't give up on her dream of becoming a pro surfer, and in the end learned that God enabled her to reach millions of people through her injury and courage. Bethany Hamilton is now 21 and a pro surfer. She is continuing to inspire others around the world who have suffered trauma. The message that this movie shared helped me to see with new eyes. Bad things happen to people, but God makes the bad into a good and uses our wounds and struggles to strengthen us and others. He turns bad things into opportunies to share his truth, life, and gospel. I knew this already, but seeing the story of someone who lives it out today really opened my eyes to this truth. Bethany's faith in God is amazing. I think the most amazing thing about her faith in God is that it isn't passive. She acted on her faith, though she couldn't see the big picture. She didn't just wait around, she worked towards her dream and took her walk with God one day at a time.

Having suffered from trauma in the past, Bethany's story really hit home for me. I am a survivor of incest. My older brother sexually abused me for many years and raped me more than once when I was around 13-14. I developed delayed onset chronic post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) my freshman year of college. Within just the past year, I can now say that I no longer meet the diagnostic criteria for PTSD. I still struggle with some issues of self esteem, confidence, body image, anger, and anxiety, but I have come so far in my healing. Bethany's story helped me to look beyond simply healing from the trauma to looking to how I can use what happened to me to share God with others. I decided years ago that I want to be a counselor and help fellow survivors of sexual trauma, however, I wasn't getting the big picture. Yes, it's great that I want to help other survivors like me, but God can work through my experience to reach more than just one specific subgroup of trauma survivors. Just as Bethany's story spoke to me, my story can speak to others who don't necessarily share my experience. Being sexually abused and/or raped can seriously damage self image, confidence, relationships, and especially future marriage and having children. Working through the pain and struggling to heal is a huge job. There is nothing easy about it. So I guess, in a way, my story is similar to Bethany's. I haven't given up and I never lost faith in God. Instead I work actively, every day, to heal from the trauma. I am also reaching for my dream: to be confident, to look at myself and see beauty, to meet and marry my future husband and trust him, to have children and be close and nurturing to them, to have deep, enduring, loving relationships with others, to be myself and not be ashamed, to share God's love with the world.

Looking at my life differently also led me to see the good things in me and in my life. I am surrounded by so much of God's blessings, grace, hope, peace, love, and mercy. I have gone from being a hurting, heartbroken girl with PTSD in a dysfunctional family to a healing woman with a healing family. God has blessed me in so many ways, I don't know if I can even scratch the surface in this blog post. Every day I see more of God's love for me and every day I love God a little more. I see my family healing from past dysfunctional ways of acting; I see my connection to and communication with my family growing stronger. God is so good and I know that it was in his plan for a young girl attacked by a shark in Hawaii to, years later, reach a woman healing from sexual trauma. God is just awesome like that.

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May God bless you abundantly, as he has blessed me.

-Faith_inpresentdarkness