R E C O V E R Y

At my church (The Life Connection) Co-Pastor Brent Sharpe and his wife Janis have been doing a series on the steps to recovery (recovery from whatever....be it addictions, failures or painful experiences). They came up with the acrostic below and elaborated on each point, with each point inspired from the listed verse. If you really meditate on these and do them, they are powerful! You can even do a study on each one and find more verses to go along with it. Let me know if you do any of that and what verses you find.

Realize that I am not God; I admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and my life is unmanageable on my own - Matthew 5:3

Earnestly believe that God exists, that I matter to Him and that He has the power to help me recover - Matthew 5:4

Consciously choose to commit all my life and will to Christ's care and control - Matthew 5:5

Openly examine and confess my faults to God, to myself and to someone I trust - Matthew 5:8

Voluntarily submit to every change God wants to make in my life and humbly ask Him to remove my character defects - Matthew 5:6

Evaluate all relationships, offer forgiveness to those that have hurt me and make amends for harm I've done (except when to do so would harm them or others) - Matthew 5:9

Reserve daily time with God for self-examination, Bible reading and prayer in order to know God and His Will for my life and gain power to do it - Mark 14:38

Yield myself to God to be used to bring good news to others by both my example and my words - 1 John 3:16

Seattle

I realize that I haven't posted in awhile. Shame on me! I've been unusually busy at work (no time for personal emails!....I've even been working late here and there) and I just haven't had much time at home to sit down and post or email (gotta cook, eat, clean and stuff like that). Also, I went out of town for a bit. I flew to Seattle for my good friend Sheryl's wedding. I've known her since elementary school! Anyway, we spent most of our time together doing wedding preparations, rather than seeing the sights or just hanging out. That was fine though because I really just enjoy being with her no matter what we're doing. She's so fun and energetic!!

The wedding was sooo elegant yet simple. The bridesmaids wore long black dresses with spaghetti straps and carried bouquets of pink roses with some of the leaves still on them. Gorgeous color combo! I was a candle carrier and I wore a black dress of my choosing with a boutonniere (just a pink rose) pinned by my left breast. There were 15 candle carrier girls (Sheryl's close friends) and we walked in 2 separate lines on opposite sides of the church singing the short song "Sanctuary" (Lord prepare me / to be a sanctuary / pure and holy / tried and true / and with thanksgiving / I'll be a living / sanctuary for You) 3 times while carrying a lit candle in small glass holder. We ended up walking down the middle aisle (towards the audience) 2 by 2 and each of us stopped at the end of one of the 1st 8 rows and turned to face each other. The wedding party then walked up the aisle between us and when Sheryl & her dad walked out, her friend/roommate sang "Alleluia" while her other friend/roommate played the piano. It was really really beautiful!! Sheryl's bouquet had pink roses surrounded by white roses. Anyway, we all thought it was a neat idea to have the candle carriers "lighting the way"...something I've never heard of before.

After the wedding, the large wedding party (bride, groom, 12 bridesmaids & groomsmen, 15 candle carriers, 2 flower boys, etc) and the immediate families loaded back into the 2 limbusines (buses that are like nice limos inside) to head to the reception which was being held at the 4-story mansion that Sheryl and about 8 other girls have been living in (splitting the rent). Earlier that day, we girls had put up cocktail tables with white linens on them in the ballroom and decorated the tables, window sills and fireplace area with many candles and pink roses. The whole room smelled like roses (even before the rose scented tea lights were lit) and it was wonderful!

Seattle is very pretty because of all the flowers, plants, trees and bodies of water everywhere. Everything is so green and there are trees literally EVERYWHERE. I love it! The streets were pretty crazy (multiple branching and lots of steep hills and curves). The weather was perfect when I was there...it's been hard to be back in humid and scorching hot Oklahoma. I definitely want to go back to Seattle again soon and really check the place out! The last (and first) time I went was in 1998 to visit Sheryl....so long ago, back in my early days of college.

I'll post pictures after I scan them onto the computer. First I have to get our scanner working again! Ugh.