Daily Archives: October 6, 2011

Confessions of a Christian Wife, Uncategorized

>Volunteers Anonymous

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>This post is going back to the journal. Today we are traveling back in time to April 17, 2003…

Father,
Thank You for Your faithfulness. I love You Lord and I love my husband. Thank You for the assurance that me and Patrick were meant to be together. Thank You Father for humbling me and opening my eyes to the fact that I was neglecting my family in Your name. In trying to grow closer to You and being a light to the world, I was starting to keep my family, especially Patrick, in the dark. And my family is where Your light in me should shine the brightest. Thank You Father for Your discipline. I love You Lord.
In Jesus Name,
Amen  

Oh how I wish I could say that on April 17th, 2003 I conquered this struggle, but I can’t. It is a constant battle for me. Just this week we attended our Shelby’s basketball team meeting and the coach asked for volunteers to help assistants coach and keep book, automatically my hand is compelled to go up and I look at my husband and I know that even though I was an all-county player, even though I love coaching, even though I hate sitting on the sidelines for anything, even though I want to make the memories with my girls as “coach” I physically just cannot do this and most importantly God did not call me to do it.

As soon as we got in the truck to leave my girls were going but “Momma why didn’t you coach?” And my husband looks at me and says something like, “I saw you, I saw that hand trying to go up at the word “volunteer”, somebody says something about volunteering and automatically you think you have to be the one to do it.” 

It’s the truth. I am a hands on person. I never liked sitting the bench. I never want to just sit on the sidelines. I want to get my hands dirty. I want to be involved. I jump in either headfirst or with both feet, rarely do I cautiously test the waters with a little toe or contemplate the pros and cons. All I can see around me are the things that need done and the things I could help with and sometimes I forget to check with God and my husband first before I say “YES!”     

I used to honestly believe that if an opportunity presented itself it was because God had sent it and I was just to accept it and rejoice. I just wanted to serve Him and be used by Him to do anything! I never wanted to say no to God ever again and I did not ever want to live for myself again, only Him, to do His will, not mine.

I have come to realize that I am addicted to the validation that comes from serving. As a stay-at-home mom and housewife I do not receive awards or promotions. Rarely does anyone walk by and peek in and say,

“Mrs Vaughn, you did a wonderful job folding that laundry and getting that bathroom scrubbed to perfection. I think we will give you a raise”
or 
“Mrs Vaughn, you handled yourself so well today as you managed to balance that budget and meet all our monthly commitments and still manage to pull in a profit to stick in the savings for future investments, how about a promotion and a raise!” 
or
“Mrs Vaughn I understand that you’ve been on call 24/7 for the last 7 days as you nursed this child through this illness I think it’s time for some paid vacation”

And I suppose my worst frustration is the fact that the job is never really accomplished. The dishes will never all be done, the laundry will never all be clean, the bills will never all be paid… the sense of accomplishment comes in spurts and never lasts long because it’s not like you ever get to close the book on a task and stamp it with done. You are continuously cleaning up the same messes. And it seems no one appreciates the mess you clean up because within an hour all your hard-work is destroyed as though you never even did it.

But the truth is, I wouldn’t change it for the world. Not the frustrations, not the lack of awards and recognition, not the lack of a paycheck, because I do what I do because I love my God and I love my family. One mother’s day card, one hug, one thank you, one I love… makes it all worth it.

So as for the volunteering. I am going to serve. I have been called to serve. I am a missionary for Christ. I love ministry. I love helping others. I am called to ministry just as every believer is called to ministry. But I have learned that I cannot be all things to all people all the time. I cannot be a part of everything, no matter how much my heart longs to just get involved. It took me a while to understand the difference between serving God and doing church. Church is not something I do, it is who I am. If my marriage and children are missing the best of me under the guise of serving God, then something is off. I am overextended and am doing something that God did not call me to do.

Please know that I am far from victorious in this area of my life. I can even justify myself in my addiction by blaming my husband for not being understanding or too demanding or blaming my children for not respecting “my time”, yet this is what an addict does isn’t it?

Signs of volunteer addiction (adapted from signs of drug addiction)

1. Usage Increase – Over time, it is common for individuals addicted to volunteering to grow tolerant to the effects of normal volunteering. If someone you know seems to be increasing his/her volunteer time past the normal healthy allotted time within a 24 hr period, this is an indication that the are suffering from volunteer addiction
2. Change in Personality – Changes in a person’s normal behavior can be a sign of dependency. Shifts in energy, mood, and concentration may occur as every day responsibilities become secondary to the need for the validation that comes with volunteering.
3. Social Withdrawal – A person experiencing a dependency problem may withdraw from family, friends and choose the volunteer opportunity over quality time with spouse and children.
4. Ongoing Use – Continued usage after a volunteer opportunity has been accomplished will result in the person needing extensions on his/her time of service. The person might talk of how they are “still feeling needed” and need just a little longer on the task in order to get it done right. He or she might also complain frequently about those who refused to encourage and support them in their volunteering for one reason or another.
5. Time Spent on Volunteering – A dependant person will spend large amounts of time driving great distances and visiting multiple places just to volunteer. Watch for signs that he or she seems preoccupied with a quest for volunteer opportunities, demonstrating that the desire to volunteer has become their top priority.
6. Change in Daily Habits and Appearance – Personal hygiene may diminish as a result of a volunteer addiction. Sleeping and eating habits change, and a person may have a constant twitches and red, glazed eyes.
7. Neglects Responsibilities – A volunteer addict may neglect household chores and bills.
8. Increased Sensitivity – Normal sights, sounds and emotions might become overly stimulating to the person, they will become easily irritated and frustrated.
9. Blackouts and Forgetfulness – Another clear indication of volunteer addiction is when the person regularly forgets events that have taken place and appears to be suffering blackouts.
10. Defensiveness – When attempting to hide a volunteer addiction, abusers can become very defensive if they feel their secret is being discovered. They might even react to simple requests or questions by lashing out.

So

Hello, my name is Nicole. I am a Christian, a housewife, and a homeschool mom, and I am a volunteer addict. So below I have taken the 12 step program and adapted it for my addiction. May it be of help to fellow volunteer addicts.

THE TWELVE STEPS OF VOLUNTEERS ANONYMOUS
 

1. We admitted we were powerless over volunteering—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to
sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves and sought to discover our own Spirit willed and God desired spiritual gift and limit our area of ministry to the one in which the Lord called and equipped us.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs committed when we were stressed due to overextending ourselves.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character and all things in our lives we said yes to when He said no.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings and grow us in His grace and the knowledge of His will for our lives.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong in taking on a volunteer opportunity, promptly admit it, and gracefully decline.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to other volunteers, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Proven Path Ministries

Honor Follows Honor

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PPM-3.jpg

I want to share an excerpt from The Pursuit of God by AW Tozer:

Sometimes the best way to see a thing is to look at its opposite. Eli and his sons are placed in the priesthood with the stipulation that they honor God in their lives and ministrations. This they fail to do, and God sends Samuel to announce the consequences. Unknown to Eli this law of reciprocal honor has been all the while secretly working, and now the time has come for judgment to fall. Hophni and Phineas , the degenerate priest, fall in battle; the wife of Hophni dies in childbirth; Israel flees before her enemies; the ark of God is captured by the Philistines, and the old man Eli falls backward and dies of a broken neck. This stark, utter tragedy followed upon Eli’s failure to honor God.

Now over against this set almost any Biblical character who honestly tried to glorify God in his earthly walk. See how God winked at weakness and overlooked failures as He poured upon His servants grace and blessings untold. Let it be Abraham, Jacob, David, Daniel, Elijah or whom you will; honor followed honor as harvest followed seed. The man of God set his heart to exalt God above all; God accepted his intention as fact and acted accordingly. Not perfection, but holy intention made the difference.

Have you ever wondered how God could possibly still accept you and love you and keep you when you seem to constantly fail Him?

I know I have.

I look back and see how far God has brought me and I think, well you know what I’m doing all right.
Then I stand in my present, and I see how I fail miserably, and I think, I am getting nowhere, why does God even bother to put up with me.

It is these moments, these thoughts, that bring me to praise God even more because He did not hide or cover up the failures of His followers.

David was a man after God’s own heart not because he was perfect, but because he truly desired to honor God. David failed miserably. David suffered greatly for his failures, but God never forsook him, because God knew David’s heart was set to exalt Him. David’s failures never came from him trying to set himself up as his own God, they never came from a heart that purposely disregarded the honor due his Creator. His failures came from the result of his sin diseased flesh and when his failures and sin were addressed he dealt with them according to the ways of God. He accepted his consequences and sought God’s forgiveness and he moved forward in grace.

When we try to honestly glorify God in our earthly walk the way those recorded in Scripture did, then God will honor us just as He honored them. He will look over failures and wink at our weaknesses because He knows that as we seek to glorify Him and continue to grow in Him, He will be the strength in our weaknesses and He will give us success in spite of our failures. He simply says– come and follow Me, don’t run from Me in your failures and don’t try to hide your weaknesses, come to my throne of grace and I will be your help…

  Therefore, since we have a great high priest
who has passed through the heavens,
Jesus the Son of God,
let us hold fast our confession. 
For we do not have a high priest
who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses,
but One who has been tempted in all things as we are,
yet without sin. 
Therefore let us draw near with confidence
to the throne of grace,
so that we may receive mercy
and find grace to help in time of need. 
 Hebrews 4:14-16
So the question never is- are you perfect?
But the question is- do you live your life to honor God?
Because honor will follow honor.However, on the opposite end, don’t think for one minute that any of us will claim to carry the name of God and hold a position of service or ministry in His name and yet fail to honor Him with and in our daily walk and think that just because we are getting away with it thus far that judgment will not come… as we saw with the family and ministry of Eli (1 Samuel 3-4) the law of reciprocal honor is always secretly at work.
Devotional Studies Through the Bible, Uncategorized

>From Confusion To Christ

>

Now behold, I have two daughters
who have not had relations with man;
please let me bring them out to you,
and do to them whatever you like;
only do nothing to these men,
inasmuch as they have come
under the shelter of my roof.
Genesis 19:8
When I was around twenty-four, I purchased a new Bible because I was going to read through the Bible from beginning to end. When I read this verse I became angry. I was appalled that this was in the Bible. I was appalled that a man could offer his two virgin daughters to a mob to be abused. I was angry with God for this to even be recorded in His Word, and when I came to Judges 19:22–26 and read of the abuse of a man’s concubine, I put my Bible down and could read no further for days. I was hurt and confused. I didn’t understand. I had experienced rape, and the attitudes, the hearts of these men, made me nauseous.
After a while, God moved me to pick my Bible back up and continue my journey. I know now that it was the sweet whispers of the Holy Spirit drawing me with His “bonds of love” (Hosea 11:4). It was as if Jesus was standing at the door of my heart, knocking, and when I opened His Word to seek understanding from Him about what I had read, it was as if I also opened the door to my heart.
By the time I read to 1 Chronicles, I realized I was lost. I knew about God, but I did not know God. I realized that my heart had never been changed. I had never surrendered my life to Christ. He was no more my Lord than He was the Lord of the men who heartlessly abused these women. I needed Christ just as much as these men who made me nauseous needed Him.
These men were living out the effects of a diseased heart, a depraved mind, and a dead spirit. The sad thing is that all around the world there are men and women still subjected to this type of behavior. Nations without Christ place little importance on life and on innocence. Nations that suppress the truth in unrighteousness are filled with all kinds of darkness.
There is no end to the depravity of our minds without Christ. There is no limit to the evil deeds that we can commit when we turn our backs on God. We can point our fingers at others, but we must first point our fingers at ourselves.
We must stop comparing ourselves to others and compare ourselves to the standard of God’s righteousness. When we do, we see how greatly we need Him. We also see how desperately He is calling out to us, wooing us, beckoning us to him. We also can see how desperately the world needs him.
All around the globe, women are still experiencing the treatment we read about in Genesis 19:8. I wish fewer women would rally around the pro-choice agenda and more would rally around the global treatment of women, of young girls, as human beings. For “in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27).
What I have also learned through the Scriptures is that God does not enslave. God does not keep ignorant. God encourages freedom. He encourages intelligence. He created us in His image, and His desire is that we walk in Him—in His light, in His wisdom, and in His knowledge. Those who claim that believers in God are ignorant, weak, and foolish need to re-examine their history. Without the light of God, this world is a very dark place.
Oh Father,
What a privilege it is to be able to go in and share the love of Christ with women who have never known the value and worth that they hold in Your eyes; to be able to share with them that they are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). Even if the world around them does not change, if they knew the truth, the reality of the depths of Your love, if they knew their true worth, oh Father, they could rejoice, no matter their outward circumstance. Oh Father, I lift these women up to You. I know not their names, not their countries, not their exact circumstances, but you do. Oh Father, may your Holy Spirit sweetly whisper in their ears and may You draw them with your bonds of love.
My Jesus, it is in Your name I pray,
Amen.

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