God’s Property – Why Zero is More than Enough

November 3, 2015July 22, 2018 Jana GreeneLeave a comment

By: Jana Greene

If I were privy to the secret of living forever (and given coping mechanisms to live this life to the fullest) but withheld that secret from other people, I would be a pretty sh*tty individual.

But that’s all ministry is.

I once asked a very candid question to a pastor who I respect a great deal.

“Okay,” I said. “To live victoriously, what percent of my sh*t do I have to have together? Ten percent? Fifty? Ninety-nine?”

“Zero,” he replied. “Exactly zero percent.”

“Yeah, but...” I continued.

But I swear some. I think unkind thoughts at times. I yell at people who drive slow in the passing lane. I get frustrated with people on ‘the wrong side’ of political debate. I struggle with food mightily, and a plethora of other issues….

The pastor remained adamant. It’s GRACE, he said. It is finished.

Jesus never once said that in order to serve, we have to have it all together. His disciples were quite a mess, and He CHOSE them. He could have chosen the “holy men” of the day, but he steered clear of those others deemed pious and righteous.

He can use me. He can use you, right where you are. Most days, I AM the ‘one percent’ at having it together…..yet sitting on all the wealth of Christ.

I’m done telling myself I cannot be in “ministry” until I get a certain percent of my sh*t together. Because just when I gain a percentage point for NOT going on a cookie bender, I lose a point for swearing. It’s exhausting, that theology…and the numbers don’t ever crunch just the right way.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, people are desperate for a God who loves them beyond imagination.

A God who isn’t into percentage math.

A God who isn’t looking to cut me a commission, but who considers we messy ones THE Great Commission.

A God so big that human rules cannot contain Him.

It isn’t being perfect or trying to deceive people. It isn’t about striving to “get it right” or about judging others.

It’s being given the key to overcome even death and being willing to make copies of that precious unlocking device so others can get in on what God desires for them.

And being willing to show the property to people who don’t even desire a key. Ministry is showing the property, so to speak.

How else will folks know there is a venue for a love so full?

The Kingdom of God is within us. Literally.

He is CHOOSING you right now.

And you don’t have to have one single iota of your sh*t together before following Him.

I’m grateful for that.

12 Steps · Devotional · Recovery · sobriety · Spirituality

12 Step booklet to be released in November

October 29, 2015 Jana GreeneLeave a comment

Hello, readers!

I’m working on releasing a collection of essays exploring how the 12 Steps have played out in my own life and how to apply them to life in a practical manner.

It will be a very informal booklet – easy to read one bite at a time – and includes the biblical comparison for each step, a study verse for each, and a simple prayer at the conclusion of each essay. Just something simple to bless you on your own recovery journey…whether you are recovering from alcohol or substance abuse, co-dependency, or any other hurt, habit or hang-up (I think that’s just about ALL of us!)

“Practical to Tactical – Lessons from a 12 Step Life” will release on Amazon and for Kindle in November.

I will post more details when it is published.

A thousand thank-yous to each of you for your readership.

God bless us, every one.

Christianity · Devotional · Jesus · Spiritual

The Jesus Pledge

September 16, 2015September 16, 2015 Jana Greene1 Comment

By: Jana Greene

A few weeks ago, our pastor suggested that we congregants try something new.
“When you wake up each morning, just say the word ‘Jesus,’ and it will change the trajectory of your whole day.”
Jesus.

The following Monday morning I remembered to do it. I couldn’t WAIT to say His name. There is power in that name, and when it is said with your first breath of the day, it changes things. Vibes, for lack of a better term.

Sound combines with human breath, and puts forth priorities.

The next day, I said His name again with my waking breath, and let it hang in the air. I swear to you that I felt His Spirit brush my heart, in Good Morning greeting.

Wednesday, I woke up and thought about saying “Jesus” out loud, but a myriad of worries rudely cut in line. After a few minutes of self-flagellation for some of my behaviors the night before, I remembered to say it. “Jesus,” I said. But it wasn’t whole-hearted.

Thursday morning, I had a headache. Grrrr. I don’t even want to get out of bed. I felt the downward stirrings of depression seep in the cracks of my being. I completely forgot to call on God in any capacity, and part of it was purposeful forgetting.

Lord, I’ve been calling on your name first thing in the morning for THREE WHOLE DAYS NOW, and I still can’t (fill in the blank with favorite short-coming) or have a solution for (fill in the blank with worry of choice.)

I didn’t feel like it. I felt like worrying in justification of my depressed feelings, and the name of Jesus would certainly bust up my pity party.

Friday morning, I think my first words were “I am so OVER everything!” (sick/fat/tired/lousy at being self-disciplined.) I grumped into the kitchen and said “Jesus,” but with a mouthful of salt and vinegar chips for breakfast, which is really great for the blood sugar and also feeling inadequate. An overflowing mouthful.

I also said a quick, internal prayer to God that went like this, “Sorry, but I’m just not feeling it this morning. Look how fat and out of control I am. Surely you understand.”

And He does understand. But He still wants first place in our lives.

He doesn’t expect us to be in a good mood all the time.

He doesn’t expect us to be perfect.

That set of criteria you have formulated that must be met before calling on Jesus? It is a list unto hell. Our Abba is eternal and eternally ruling, and all of my worries (no matter how looming or large) are just passing through.

There really is power in the spoken word. That’s not new-age rhetoric, but truth. What we form in our minds often makes it out of our mouths, and we know not to use our tongues as swords to inflict mean words on others. But do we extend ourselves the same courtesy?

Mean words are mean words, and when we tell ourselves nasty things, it hurts the same.

I cannot BE that Christian that ‘has it all together.’ That woman who dismisses her worries automatically and trusts God immediately ALL the time (I’m working on it…) THAT woman – the one who never uses potty language and always radiates the Shalom of God, the Sound combines with human breath, and puts forth all the right priorities all the time. She always acts and reacts to SENSIBLY, the quintessential “Proverbs 31” Woman, shining as a beacon of virtue and perfection. She torments me, that lady.

“A good woman is hard to find,
and worth far more than diamonds….
She shops around for the best yarns and cottons,
and enjoys knitting and sewing.
She’s like a trading ship that sails to faraway places
and brings back exotic surprises.
She’s up before dawn, preparing breakfast
for her family and organizing her day.
First thing in the morning, she dresses for work,
rolls up her sleeves, eager to get started.
She’s quick to assist anyone in need,
reaches out to help the poor.
She doesn’t worry about her family when it snows;
their winter clothes are all mended and ready to wear….”

(You get the picture.)

I have strived my whole life to be her, and fallen miserably short. A Proverbs 31 woman would not sully her robes with the grease of potato chips. She would not slip up and screw up like I do. (Bingeing on potato chips are the very LEAST of my foibles!)

I’m not the Proverbs 31 woman. But I don’t have to be. I am valued far more than diamonds NOT because of my good deeds, but because…..
Jesus.

I CAN CALL ON JESUS.

This is my pledge, and I would love it if you would join me. Not as an experiment in which we don’t know the outcome until the data is processed, but as a pure act of faith. We say His name in making priorities, first thing. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that He will show up. He will bless that effort.

Let “Jesus” be the first word on my lips each and every day. That’s all. The whole pledge.

Say His name first thing every day, and then listen for His Spirit to answer back.
Let Holy Spirit inhabit the sound that combines with human breath, and puts forth priorities.

I love The Message translation of the Bible; it makes plain speak of text I otherwise might not understand. These words laid bare the prayer I could not put into words today. I pray it blesses you, too.

“I hate all this silly religion,
but you, GOD, I trust.
I’m leaping and singing in the circle of your love;
you saw my pain,
you disarmed my tormentors,
You didn’t leave me in their clutches
but gave me room to breathe.
Be kind to me, GOD—
I’m in deep, deep trouble again.
I’ve cried my eyes out;
I feel hollow inside.
My life leaks away, groan by groan;
my years fade out in sighs.
My troubles have worn me out,
turned my bones to powder.
To my enemies I’m a monster;
I’m ridiculed by the neighbors.
My friends are horrified;
they cross the street to avoid me.
They want to blot me from memory,
forget me like a corpse in a grave,
discard me like a broken dish in the trash.
The street-talk gossip has me
“criminally insane”!
Behind locked doors they plot
how to ruin me for good.
Desperate, I throw myself on you:
you are my God!
Hour by hour I place my days in your hand,
safe from the hands out to get me.
Warm me, your servant, with a smile;
save me because you love me.
Don’t embarrass me by not showing up;
I’ve given you plenty of notice.”

PSALM 31:6-18 (MSG)

12 Steps · AA · Addiction · alcoholism · Brokenness · Celebrate Recovery · Christianity · fellowship · Grace · Hitting the bottom · Holy Spirit · Inspirational · Jesus · Recovery · Serenity · sobriety · Spiritual · Spirituality

Recovery Option “B” – Have Faith Anyway

September 8, 2015September 8, 2015 Jana GreeneLeave a comment

By: Jana Greene

Very recently, I came across the prayer journal that I kept before I got sober on January 3, 2001. That is my D.O.S. (date of sobriety) which has become far more meaningful to me than my birthday or any other anniversary.

In this particular journal, the entries began about a month before my D.O.S. (the date in which my sobriety ‘stuck’) and continues only through about six months into recovery. There are about ten entries, total. It would not seem to be a very in-depth journaling exercise if, say, I were being graded on it. But I wasn’t being graded on it, of course. The number one key to keeping a journal, in my humble opinion, is remembering that nobody is going to grade you on it. It is for the benefit of you own tender spirit, and no one else.

I sat down with a cup of coffee to read my old, cringe-worthy journal just the other day.

On an entry dated December 11, 2000 – about three weeks before I came to the end of myself in my addiction – I am hopeful at the top of the page:

Reflections/notes: “I am saving this space to write in tonight when I am tempted to drink.”

And then scrawled in the center of the page many hours later …

Drank anyway.

Even today, nearly 15 years later, I can feel the collapse of my heart as if it just happened. Oh how vividly I remember that sensation of disappointment. I hope I always remember it, it helps keep me sober today.

In between those two writings, a full-on war was going on inside of me. Picking up a drink was, for me, setting down a portion of my faith that God was in control and could handle my problems. Drinking was my way of sitting out the game. Not only did I relinquish my part in saving my own ass, but I was shaking my fist at God for not helping me save it. By continuing to pick up, I was in essence tying the hands of God. He is a gentleman, you see, and will coerce by force. There must be surrender.

I don’t know why it took so long for my sobriety to become ‘sticky,’ I only know that it took what it took. And I know that I had to do the work to put my disease in its place. Meetings. Prayers. Surrender every minute of the day. Strategy. Every war requires expert strategists or it is doomed to fail.

Part of the strategy in very early sobriety was to give myself only two choices. Any more than two were completely overwhelming.

Today will be challenging in the same old ways. It will also be challenging in some brand-new ways. You have a choice. You can …

A) Drink/use anyway.

B) Have faith anyway.

The latter is so much more difficult than the former. But choosing the second option saved my life.

“Having faith anyway” looks messy! It means believing that which seems completely impossible. It means accepting THIS, one day at a time, one hour at a time, one SECOND at a time, if need be.

“Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.” Romans 8:28 (MSG)

It’s interesting to read the journal entries that followed. They were desperate. Here is the entry from five days sober:

“I cannot drink today, not today. Maybe not ever again. Nobody knows the extent of my disease. My hands are trembling, holding this pen. I feel toxic, inside and out. The alcohol is bad for my body but worse for my soul. It’s like acid and sweet nectar of oblivion, all in one. I cannot serve two gods anymore. I can feel the hand of Jesus reaching to me, I know He is with me, even now. I used to boast that Jesus was my crutch. I used to be embittered by all that happens in life, and talked to him every day. Over the years, the wine instead became my crutch….just a ‘little something’ to relax me, and then a few more, and then I don’t even remember, until an empty bottle or box. And so here I am on this cool January morning, trembling and calling out the demon. I want God back at the helm, and it’s not because I ‘deserve’ it, but because of this amazing, impossible-to-comprehend gift of Grace. I don’t want to feel the constant shame, the uneasy and bewildering guilt anymore. I’m ready to change, with His help.”

Lots of other notes in the journal follow.

“Okay, God….what is the DEAL with my LIFE?”

and …

“Help me, God, I cannot do this!”

But I COULD choose option B…Have faith that if I surrender to the will of God, I will survive it – and thrive, even.

And so I chose Recovery Option B, no matter what.

Is everything falling apart and you can see no possible resolution? Choose faith anyway. He’s Got this, if you only surrender your will to His.

Are you hurting – mind, body, and soul?

Choose faith anyway. NOTHING has ever been healed by drinking / using the toxins.

Angry, bitter, fed-up?

Don’t pick up and HAVE FAITH ANYWAY. Have faith that your D.O.S. – that glorious, meaningful GIFT of a date – is yours to keep, but you’ve got to work to keep it.

And surround yourself in a healthy recovery community. Journal, if it helps, and remember nobody is grading you! Don’t sit out the game of your own life. Don’t tie the hands of God. He has SUCH good plans for you. He knows you far better than you know yourself. And He is madly in love with YOU. When you get tired, ask for His Spirit to help you along. It’s a messy thing, recovery. But oh how your tender spirit will rejoice on the journey, one single day at a time.

It can save your life.

It saved mine.

Hope · Spiritual

Rock-Hard Hope for the Soft Desires of our Hearts

September 4, 2015September 4, 2015 Jana GreeneLeave a comment

By: Jana Greene

This morning, I wake up, grab coffee, and read my email. My Beloved had taken the time to send a wonderful Rick Warren devotional gem to me this morning. My husband shares scripture with me, and that in and of itself just stuns me every time it happens.

Click here to read the message and share in the hope for yourself!

Sometimes, when I get really overwhelmed by STUFF, it’s easy to forget how far God has brought me and how generous He is with me. Prior to nine years ago, I would never in a million years thought I’d ever have a Godly man as my husband. A husband who is your best friend and who loves God? That stuff happened to other people, not to me!

But I’m here to tell you that your Heavenly Father is a GOOD God who loves to give you the desires of your heart. It may not FEEL like it, it may not LOOK like it. It certainly wasn’t in MY timing when he blessed me with a happy marriage In MY timing I would have appreciated a good husband LONG before he came my way.

But in MY timing, it would not have been My Beloved. All kinds of crazy (and painful) things had to happen in order for our roads to converge as they did. Of this I am absolutely convinced:

The absolute crappiest things you are going through right now, the situations you cannot imagine resolving at all, much less resolving to glorify God one day? Oooooo, our God just LOVES to use those to show the world hope!

The circumstance that you are in that the devil orchestrated for your destruction? It’s pretty elaborate, the trouble he went to in order to set you up like this.

That VERY thing that has been set up for your destruction? It’s going to CRUMBLE, I tell you. It’s built on sand – it doesn’t stand a chance.

And out of the rubble, the same God who created the universe will make concrete ROCK from that sand, solid and fortified. You will build your life on that rock and all the little pieces of garbage that satan tried to bring you down with? God will use them in the fortification of your solid foundation. They will shimmer like stars in the rock itself, attracting others who are in similar pain to the beautiful TEMPLE God has made from your prior disaster. My life is living proof of this.
My addiction to alcohol nearly killed me nearly 15 years ago, but dang if God hasn’t used that crappiest of crappy situations to His glory!

What the devil meant for destruction, God used for GOOD. That ‘good’ is not just meant for other people, it’s meant for YOU.

You are broken, yes, maybe. But there is HOPE.

God loves to give you the desires of your heart. That doesn’t mean that we don’t experience loss, or that we receive each thing we ask for. I’m not even going to try to pretend to understand why bad things happen. I only know that as they do, our Father does not abandon us, but uses every experience to bring us closer to Him.

Ask Him for the desires of your heart. And then tell Him you trust Him no matter what.

He will draw us nearer to Him at times at the expense of something we think we badly ‘need.’ He wants to hold us close.

He is not a Pez-dispenser god, doling out blessings on demand.

He is not a genie in a bottle, granting our wishes.

No…He is SO MUCH GREATER THAN THAT, and His timing is PERFECT. All kinds of crazy (and painful) things might have to happen in order for the roads to converge at the right place. It may not FEEL like it. It may not LOOK like it. But your life is built on the Rock, you are solid.

Our God is SUPERNATURAL, and He has GOT THIS.

PRAYER: “Holy Spirit, breathe new hope into us as we trust in Abba to make ALL things right in His timing. We surrender to You and Your perfect and pleasing will, and ask you to take every molecule of hurt, loss, worry, and doubt captive, so that even the gates of hell cannot prevail against us! In the name of Jesus. Amen.

“These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock. But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don’t work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards.” – Jesus (Matthew 7:24-28, MSG)

Faith

Little Humans, Big Faith

August 23, 2015August 23, 2015 Jana Greene4 Comments

By: Jana Greene

One of the simplest arguments for believing in a Supreme Being is this:

If you – an atheist – are correct that there is no God and I – being a Christian – am wrong about it….I have lost nothing by believing.

But if you are wrong and I am right? You have lost everything, eternally.

Recently, I have noticed advertisements on the Internet geared toward dissuading children from believing in God. With catchy dot-com names and colorful logos, these sites implore kids to wonder, “Aren’t you getting a little old to believe in imaginary friends?”

Again…if you as the humanist are leading a child to this conclusion correctly – it seems harmless enough.

But if you are wrong, your pursuit in sharing the un-gospel with little ones is downright diabolical. Rather than nurturing that child’s natural belief in having been created for a purpose, you are attempting to cauterize his or her spiritual DNA. Jesus makes no bones about the seriousness of leading children away from him.

Children have a natural proclivity to believe in what we adults forget how to know. Not because the supernatural ceases to be true as we get older, but because we become jaded and self-important. We’ve been lied to and what we know to be true, we have all figured out. Telling a child not to believe in God to appease adults who think they know better…adults who have forgotten that believing is so much better than simply knowing.

I wouldn’t want to believe in a God small enough for human science to explain. That’s the bottom line.

To the purveyors of atheism (junior edition) I ask: would you ask a child to ponder outgrowing love or forgiveness? Of course not. The manifestations of those forces keep mankind from imploding – so destructive are our impulses at the opposite end of the spectrum.

Rather than trying to convince the children to be closed-minded adults, let them do what comes naturally to them – believe with simple faith. Child-like faith.

You might even want to try it on for size.

^“…For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, “I’m telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you’re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom. What’s more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it’s the same as receiving me.” Matthew 18:25 (MSG)

12 Steps · AA · Addiction · alcoholism · Brokenness · Celebrate Recovery · Devotional · Healing · Hitting the bottom · Inspirational · Recovery · rehab · sobriety · Spiritual · Spirituality · substance abuse · The Big Book

Step Five – The Exact Nature of our Wrongs

May 25, 2015May 25, 2015 Jana GreeneLeave a comment

STEP FIVE

We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” – James 5:16

“There are some secrets I will take to my grave.”

Have you ever said the statement above? I have. It is a sentiment that keeps sickness active and recovery stunted. Step Four helped us form an inventory and delve into the wrongs done to us and done by us to others. What to do with the indiscretions laid bare by the hardscrabble work of the fourth step?

Step Five is clear about taking action.

Words have power. What you speak from your mouth can change the trajectory of your healthy recovery, even change the world around you. Speak light and life over people, and their lives change. Speak darkness and it attracts darkness. Let’s not confuse admitting the exact nature of our wrongs to another human being as speaking darkness. To the contrary, as our searching and fearless moral inventories, they can be cleanly dealt with. It’s hard to see in the dark. But whatever the light touches is seen. And can be grasped to be fully put behind you.

Some items on our inventories might be harder to admit than others. Some may seem impossible to own before God, much less a sponsor or accountability partner. But our wrongs – our sins – stay powerful unless confessed to those we trust. Confessing them deflates them so that we can step over them and move forward.

The exact nature of our wrongs, taking responsibility for those things so shameful we vowed never to admit them on this side of the dirt. You really are only as sick as your secrets.

The problem with taking secrets to your grave is that it requires you to lead a grave-tender’s life to some degree. It forces you to spend your lifetime keeping something destructive underground, making sure it stays covered up. Part of you is always tending to that, protecting it. Digging it back up to make sure it is still there so that you can flog yourself with it’s shame, reburying it twice as deep. It’s a lot of work to keep secrets.

“You don’t know what I’ve done,” you might be saying.

And you’re right, I don’t. But I do know that – in order to live victoriously in recovery – you must not keep it to yourself. All the things you’ve done in active disease and otherwise are covered under the blood of Christ Jesus if you accept Him and His love.

You see, God already knows what you’ve done, and is crazy in love with you anyway. If you are in a 12 Step program, you already know people who are equipped to help you admit the exact nature of your wrongs.

“I’ve done bad things” doesn’t cut it when working Step Five. Share your heart with someone who is trustworthy and then burn or bury your past indiscretions in the place of the secrets that have required you to tend to your grave as you are in the living.

So that you can say “Grave? What grave?”

So that you can get on with this big, juicy life you’ve been given and ask “What’s next, Papa?”

^“This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!” – Romans 8:15-17 (MSG)

12 Steps · AA · alcoholism · Celebrate Recovery · Hitting the bottom · Inspirational · Recovery · rehab · sobriety · Spiritual · Spirituality · substance abuse

Step Four – Sh*t Just Got Real

May 23, 2015May 23, 2015 Jana GreeneLeave a comment

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By: Jana Greene

STEP FOUR

We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Biblical Comparison: “Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.” – Lamentations 3:40

If Step Four had a tagline in the current vernacular, it would be: “Shit Just Got Real.” Apologies for the profanity, but really….there is no other way to say it to get my point across.

No longer are we just admitting that there are issues, but we are exploring what led to our active disease in a “searching” and “fearless” (and MORAL!) way.

This one takes time, deliberate work, and a “letting it all hang out” with your sponsor or someone you trust in the program who you can be real with.

Left to my own devices, my Step Four work might be a light inventory such as one might engage in when counting boxes of cereal at the grocery store. But no, that will never do for a true Step Four experience.

Step Four calls for searching my heart and asking my spirit the really hard questions.

It requires fearlessly moving forward in taking that inventory, no matter what that looks like.

And not being intimidated by taking such moral inventory of ourselves.

There is nothing to lose but the secrets that keep us sick, after all.

Here are 7 practical tips to working on Step Four:

1) Write your Fourth Step Inventory. There are many ways to go about this. You can use columns or spreadsheets (If you are really savvy,) but I use the journaling approach, and I do so old-school with a pen and paper. When I free-style write, it flows more easily. There are no hard-and-fast-rules to tracking Step Four progress. The idea is to write a record of who has wronged you, and whom you have wronged, and to make amends to those people you have harmed, except when doing so is destructive to you or others.

2) The Big Book in AA instructs participants to inventory three “common manifestations” of self-will that often precede inventory items: Resentments, fears, and harm done to others. Working within the parameters of these categories has helped me many times. Sometimes there is an over-lap, and that’s okay too. Life is a messy endeavor, and recovery is certainly a fertile ground for that messy factor.

3) Don’t forget to list yourself as part of your inventory. You need addressing and forgiving, too. Are you your own worst enemy? Yeah, me too. Include the self-destructive habits you engage or engaged in, and explore deep enough to expose the root cause for that behavior. Self-harm is a slippery serpent, and you must chop it off at the head. Sometimes the same harm that you inflict on others, you regularly inflict on yourself and without realizing it.

4) Pray throughout the process. Talk to the Almighty like He is your best friend. Because He is.Ask God to reveal people to your heart whom you need to make amends with. Sometimes, the Father reminds us gently, and other times people who sincerely traumatized us are brought to mind. In those times, remember that the past has no power over you when you are working the fourth step. The idea is not to dredge up pain, but to bring it to the surface enough to be dealt with.

5) Remember to list all others who have hurt you – physically, mentally, spiritually, sexually, or emotionally. Do not confuse this with taking THEIR inventory. Remember, you can only handle taking your own.

6) Remember to list all those whom you have hurt – physically, mentally, spiritually, sexually, or emotionally. Ask them for forgiveness if you can. Write a letter, if need be. You are responsible for your efforts to make amends. The OTHER person is responsible for how they respond to you. You cannot control another person’s reaction.

7) Think of your Step Four work as attending the birth of a new baby, and not a funeral. The old ways (the ones that never worked for you anyway) are being addressed so that NEW ways can be instated. And with new ways comes new life. YOUR new life.

You are probably realizing by now that Step Four is not a “quickie” step. At all. Seek through prayer and meditation the most honest inventory you can take. And then camp out there for a while. Step Four cannot be rushed.

Examine your ways honestly and return to the Lord.
He is waiting for you with open arms!

12 Steps · Addiction · alcoholism · blogging · Spiritual

STEP THREE – A Time to Turn

May 22, 2015May 22, 2015 Jana GreeneLeave a comment

STEP THREE

We made a decision to turn our lives and our wills over to the care of God.
Biblical Comparison: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.” – Romans 12:1

Standing at the counter of the DMV among the throng of other vehicle owners at the License Plate Tag Office, I was feeling more than a little stressed out. I’d formed an emotional attachment to the car whose tags I would be turning in today. In turning in the license plates, I was essentially saying, “She’d been a good little car, I’ve had lots of good memories with her. But she isn’t safe anymore. The car was no longer getting the job of getting me where I need to be reliably anymore. It was time to turn in the tags.

How do you know it’s time to turn in your way of living? Is your life unmanageable? Turning can be hard, but a life driven by peace and love under the care of God is so much better than one driven by our own devices.

Step Three assures us that God is worthy to turn to. In much the same way you would turn license plates in to the DMV after a car has stopped working for you, you can turn your life and will over to the care of a loving and redeeming God if it isn’t working.

We often form emotional attachments to things, making “letting go” difficult.

“Well, my situation may suck, but at least it’s familiar to me.”

“How do I know sobriety will ‘stick’ this time? I’ve turned my will over to God Before, and I am using again. (Answer: Put that thing down and don’t pick it up again no matter what happens…and trust Him to help you!)

Turning away from the hurts, habits, and hangups that have put you in this despondent place? Well, they just aren’t worth going back to look for and picking back up.

God is a gentleman. He will allow you to choose what you hang on to, and what you lose. He will not keep you from turning back around and resurrecting the addiction or pain you are trying to overcome. It’s your choice to turn your life over to His care.

If you desire a lifetime driven by peace and love, make the conscious decision to turn your will and life over to the care of God is yours and yours alone. Turn in those tags! The vehicle isn’t keeping you safe; in fact, it is causing you harm.

And don’t look back, my friend.

Musicians The Byrds had a great song, pulled from the book of Ecclesiastics about this very thing:

To Everything Turn Turn Turn

To everything – turn, turn, turn
There is a season – turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under Heaven.

A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones
A time to gather stones together.

A time to turn.

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, you know the innermost parts of our spirits, and you long for us to be free of our hurts, habits, and hangups. We cannot do this alone. We ask humbly for your help to take our character defects, and give us beauty for ashes for each one of our issues. Thank you for always being accessible. We love you. We trust you.

Amen.

12 Steps · AA · Addiction · alcoholism · Brokenness · Celebrate Recovery · Creation · Devotional · Faith · God · Grace · Healing · Health · Hitting the bottom · Holy Spirit · Inspirational · Jesus · Recovery · rehab · sobriety · Spiritual · Spirituality · substance abuse

STEP TWO – Taking off the God Pants

May 20, 2015May 20, 2015 Jana GreeneLeave a comment

STEP TWO

We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Biblical comparison: “For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” – Philippians 2:13

There is a God out there. And I am not Him.

Seems a reasonable enough, right? I’m pretty sure YOU know that I am not God, that I didn’t mastermind the universe and place the heavenly bodies in orbit.

But at one point in my life as an active alcoholic – on some really deeply corroded level – I behaved as if I were perhaps God.

No, I didn’t create the universe, but I believed I was able to control my consumption from a liquid in a bottle.

Yet, over and over again, I made hollow promises to myself that tomorrow I would not drink. Period. After a period of thousands of ‘tomorrows’ and repeating the same behavior, I began to question my sanity. Isn’t the definition of ‘insanity’ doing the same thing the very same way over and over, expecting a different result?”

Time, Higher Power, and that pesky Sanity

Step Two is an action step, in that it takes movement and time on your part.

It doesn’t say “We believe that a power grater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

It states “We came to believe a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

Another way of saying “I came to believe” is that I have faith. How do you ‘get’ faith? We have long heard that you either have faith or you don’t, that you can exercise your ‘faith muscle’, and even that faith is ‘blind.’ I believe none of those things, actually. Because each and every one of those misconceptions places the glory of your faith squarely on you. Faith is not earned, it is a gift that our Father wants us all to know we have. Ask God to help you trust in the faith he has already planted in you – trusting Him to do what you cannot do for yourself – and your faith will grow.

He is a good father. If you ask for bread, He will not give you a stone.

“Don’t bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need. This is not a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we’re in. If your little boy asks for a serving of fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? If your little girl asks for an egg, do you trick her with a spider? As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing—you’re at least decent to your own children. And don’t you think the Father who conceived you in love will give the Holy Spirit when you ask him?” – Luke 11:11 (MSG)

In Luke 17, the apostles came up and said to the Master, “Give us more faith.” But the Master said, “You don’t need more faith. There is no ‘more’ or ‘less’ in faith. If you have a bare kernel of faith, say the size of a poppy-seed, you could say to this sycamore tree, ‘Go jump in the lake,’ and it would do it.”

Wouldn’t you like to tell your addiction to go jump in a lake?

Understanding that and really embracing it is a process. It’s a faith thing, not a ‘knowing’ thing, so I cannot open a text book and show you it’s true. It takes time to allow what you are wrapping around your mind to melt down into your heart and get gooey love into the deepest crevices of your spirit and what you believe.

What is the catalyst for making that happen in Step Two? Higher Power, of course. My Highest Power (and personal friend, and counselor, and Creator who masterminded the universe and placed the Heavenly bodies in orbit…yeah, that one) is Jesus Christ. I know that in many 12 Step programs, many different applications of a Higher Power are utilized – and in some, none is recognized at all. All I can tell you is what works for me, and Jesus is the ONLY way I’ve maintained sobriety for over fourteen years now (still, one day at a time.)

He is as real as can be – even more so than you or I. Ask Him for help every single day, and he will never forsake you. He loves the brokenhearted, the addicted, the desperate. And He is a Restoration Specialist, especially when it comes to Sanity. We are all a little crazy, right? I think that’s fair to say.

The sanity referred to in Step Two is not addressing our quirks and individual weirdness. It is speaking to rebuke the insane behaviors that we engage in as active alcoholics and addicts.

The insanity that spurs you to place your drug of choice above your children and family.

The insanity that manifests when you tell yourself, “never again” (and really MEAN it each time,) only to drink and use the next chance you get.

The insanity that keeps you down, telling you that you will NEVER be well. You will NEVER get clean.

The insanity that makes you a person that you detest, who does things you know are wrong and destructive.

There is a better way, and Step Two puts it at your fingertips. Take off the God Pants (they are an awful fit, anyway) and ask your Higher Power to restore you to sanity, to really living. Ask Him to take that poppy-seed sized grain of faith you have and activate it so that it can expand and you can apply it to your recovery. He is the Restoration Specialist, and He loves you more than you can ever understand.

Prayer: Father God, fill us with Holy Spirit in all the spaces chemicals used to reside. Don’t let our faith lie dormant, but help us understand the power we carry that makes all things – sobriety among them – possible through you! We’ve done it our way….Jesus, do it your way now, and help us to trust you through every step. – Amen

12 Steps · AA · Addiction · Brokenness · Celebrate Recovery · Christianity · Devotional · Health · Hitting the bottom · Inspirational · Recovery · rehab · sobriety · Spiritual · Spirituality · substance abuse

From Practical to Tactical – Making the 12 Steps Matter in Your Life

May 16, 2015May 16, 2015 Jana GreeneLeave a comment

Everyone (even pop culture) seems to know that “admitting you have a problem” is the First Step proper. But does that admittance look like? And what about after Step One? And what does “Step Work” look like in practical living?

This series has been on my mind and in my heart for quite some time, because I know how confusing step work can be. The following blog entries will explore the traditional life-changing and oft-intimidating 12 Steps through observations made along the way. Each day will invite you to ponder a different step. It is only sharing my own experience, strength and hope, nothing more. Take what you need and leave the rest, as they say in the rooms. If the 12 Steps can help me, they can help anyone. I promise.

“A Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – Lao Tzu

The first time I darkened the door of an AA meeting, I was a 20 year-old. I wanted recovery, but I wanted it yesterday, and my understanding of the program reflected my impatience. These are actual thoughts I experienced when I first walked into my first 12 Step meeting:

“Well, Step One…..check! I admitted I have a problem, so that one is done. On to Step Two.”

“And I believe that a Power Greater than Myself can restore me to sanity, on account of I’m clearly not in charge here. So, worked that step already. Next!”

“Turning my will and life over to the care of God? Okay, I’m down with that. ‘God, I turn my will over.’ This isn’t so hard…..”

“Step Four: Making a fearless and moral inventory of myself……yikes.”

And with this one, I was stuck. Trust me when I tell you that Step Four cannot be done in one afternoon, even if you have the whole day off. Truly. You can take an inventory haphazardly, but not a searching and fearless one. This is where the rubber meets the road, right here on Step Four. (And sadly, yes … I actually believed that I had ‘worked’ Steps 1-3 in the course of a one-hour meeting. Ta daaaaa! Of course I only believed that because of, um….denial reasons.)

It would be many years before I would get serious enough about working the 12-Steps to truly explore what they look like in ‘real time,’ how they play out as workable ways to live life on life’s terms. Now, in my fourteenth year of continuous sobriety, I am just starting to get it. Here are some of the stones that I picked up on my ongoing walks with God. With them, I am building a future; and a good future at that!

Musing on 12 Step programs:

You will work the steps more than once. If you had a flow chart that depicted each of your issues and where you are Step-wise on each, well, there wouldn’t be enough ink or paper on the planet to print it out. Seriously, there wouldn’t. It is an overused analogy, but recovery really is peeling an onion. One layer gets addressed and another is exposed. I’ve employed the steps in a number of situations in my life and will continue to do so, and personally, I think they are applicable for anyone – addict or not – to apply. Unless your life is perfect, in which case you can go ahead and stop reading now, because you will not be able to relate to me at all.

Our addictions may look differently, but the root causes that trigger them are almost always similar. Alcohol was my drug of choice, heroin might be yours. I really don’t care because it matters little what you drink, smoke, or shoot, because I would venture to bet that the core issues that drove you to do so are pretty identical to mine. The answer is the same for all of these problems, as well. Without my Highest Power Jesus Christ, I wouldn’t have survived my addiction to tell the tale. One of the things I love most about the Celebrate Recovery program is that it is for anyone to experience the overcoming of any hurt, habit, or hang-up. In my estimation, if an issue or addiction is coming between me and God, it’s a problem worthy of applying the 12-Steps to. Alcohol, drugs, food, porn, gambling….you can learn a new way to live as an Over-comer with any struggle.

There is no schedule for working the 12 Steps. Oh how I wished for a timetable for the 12-Steps when I first got into recovery! Someone to say, “Okay, you will do A, B, and C, and then you will never want to drink again.” It does not work that way, at all. You will, if you are honest, become ‘stuck’ on a step. This used to frustrate me to no end, until I learned to think of the phenomenon as “marinating” in step work. “Working the steps” alludes to putting in time and energy and waiting for the quittin’ time whistle to blow. Marinating in a step brings to mind a soaking-up, a “take-your-time because it’s gonna be worth the wait” mindset. A good marinade cannot be rushed. For it to become part of the meat, it needs time. But you don’t want to spend your entire life in a bowl of marinade either.

If you can find a Step Study Group, by all means, please explore it! It is not for the faint of heart, it is for the determined to survive. But under guidance from a Step Study Leader and some very fine workshop materials, an in-depth study of each of the steps can be a game changer. No longer floating about in the Program of Your Understanding, but in a group in which everyone has Experience, Strength and Hope, and everyone brings it to the table in order to get well. You will bring ESH to your group that only you can bring. The value of having people delving into the steps one-by-one alongside you cannot be overstated. Find a group in your area and ask if Step Studies are being done. They are a separate animal altogether from the meetings, but incredibly worth your time.

There are no two recoveries alike. They are the snowflakes of the wellness world – each and every one is different. One of the slipperiest slopes out there is to see someone else’s recovery journey and decide they are not doing it right. Trust me when I say that your own side of the street is enough to keep clean. Don’t be passing judgement on someone else’s sidewalk, just stay on yours, keep it clean, and lead by example. I have had people tell me that I’m not really sober because I don’t have a sponsor. I’ve been told a plethora of things by a myriad of people; people who are – just like me – learning to live life on life’s terms. You just do you, and I’m going to do me.

Put one foot in front of the other and ask God to bless your footfalls. And marinate in this new way of living.

Celebrate Recovery 12 Steps and Biblical Comparisons

1) We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and compulsive behaviors, that our lives had become unmanageable.

“I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.” – Romans 7:18

2) We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

“For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” – Philippians 2:13

3) We made a decision to turn our lives and our wills over to the care of God.

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.” – Romans 12:1

4) We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

“Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.” – Lamentations 3:40

5) We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” – James 5:16

6) We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

“Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” – James 4:10

7) We humbly asked Him to remove all our shortcomings.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness,” – 1 John 1:9

8) We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

“Do to others as you would have them do to you.” – Luke 6:31

9) We made direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” – Matthew 5:23-24

10) We continue to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

“So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” – 1 Corinthians 10:12

11) We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for us, and power to carry that out.

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” – Colossians 3:16

12) Having had a spiritual experience as the result of these steps, we try to carry this message to others and practice these principles in all our affairs.

“Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore them gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.” – Galatians 6:1

Serenity · Spiritual

Reasonable Happiness

April 24, 2015April 24, 2015 Jana Greene1 Comment

By: Jana Greene

God grant me the serenity…

Last week was an almost magical week for me, having had the opportunity to connect with some family members and friends, with whom I needed connecting. For a few days I was back in my state of origin, geographically. But my spirit was in it’s element…happy. There were times that I felt my heart would burst from the pure enjoyment of living one moment at a time, just as my belt would burst from so much Texas barbecue. My face was sore from smiling. There was healing and forgiveness bestowed and accepted, and the kind of camaraderie that only dear childhood friends can resurrect.

Visiting rivers and singing along to songs in the car to Pandora’s “’80’s Radio Hits.”

Seeing how much my hands are like those of my father, who I’ve only ever seen a handful of times in my 46 years.

Coming to know my half-sister and her family.

Remembering that I do have people.

Happiness is to serenity, as serenity is to joy – the ultimate goal, the place where we are in God’s presence with no distractions. We long for supreme happiness, but have only delicious, fleeting tastes of it.

What made me happy last week – Texas – might be different than what makes me feel happy next week. We are fickle creatures.

I suppose I have kind of an emotional hangover. Today, I’m weepy and sentimental, and have this crazy urgent want to make all things right. But that’s a problem in this world, because setting all things right is not my job. Trying to make it my job leads straight to unhappiness. I know enough to know that.

It makes me think that maybe perfect happiness is too much…just too much to ask for. I can’t wait around for everything to get it’s collective act together before I allow myself a slice of ‘happy.’

Oh, how I love the Serenity Prayer – such a simple thing! Most people know the first refrains of it, but it is the last half of the famous prayer that really speak to my heart.

God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.

– Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)

It’s hard to take this world as it is, not as I would have it. Expecting supreme happiness in this life being unreasonable and all.

The state of my origin can also be melancholy, and sometimes I get my wheels stuck in the muck of melancholy. It helps if I just go ahead and feel what I’m feeling already, instead of attempting to stuff, manipulate, or eat my feelings.

Feel the bittersweet. Feel the melancholy. Really let it squish around between my toes like Texas mud. And then step out of it to walk into the courage to change the things that I can. Because I can’t experience the pure joy of living one day at a time any other way than to surrender to His will.

Accept that hardships – those stumbling blocks to happiness (a feeling) – are nothing but paving stones for the pathway of peace.

God,

Grant me reasonable happiness and help me to trust YOU to make all things right.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen

Christianity · God · Spiritual · Weariness

Rising to Vulnerability

April 7, 2015May 26, 2018 Jana GreeneLeave a comment

By: Jana Greene

Rising.

When I was a young mother and my children very small, I carried them on my right hip. This went on long after they were able to walk by themselves, and so often that now – all these many years later – that hip has a tendency to jut out a bit when I am standing still. The youngest child in particular, I carried for a long time.

“Hold me up?” she would say in a tiny rasp, her small arms stretched upward. In times of particular urgency, she would stand tiptoe for extra height and open and close her tiny hands rapidly, like the motions to the nursery rhyme about all the little stars, twinkling. Of course I would pick her up…what else is a mother to do? Her gesture acknowledged that she was small…that she wanted a better view of her world.

Fast forward a dozen years or so. This little girl is in her teens, nearly grown –and trying to figure out who she is meant to be. And I, as her mother, am on a similar journey to find purpose, I suppose you could say. Of particular fascination on this leg of the trip is the fairly recent tendency I’ve developed to be more open during worship at church. Demonstrative, actually. With the lights dimmed during service, praise music hammering with invitation to God to be present with us, in us…first come the tears. And then the hands.

I did not grow up a “hands-raiser”, or a “tongue-talker”. I was raised swaddled in a quilt of various Bible-belt denominations, Baptist and Methodist chief amongst. Shouting was for cheering at football games, “amen” was for saying grace at dinner, and hand-raising for students who had a question for the school teacher. To shout in church was to call yourself out as a “Penty-costal”, to clap out of time was to call attention to yourself, and calling attention to yourself made you that thing which to was to be avoided in order to self-preserve: vulnerability.

But now, not caring who was witness to my worship, I wonder why? Why when falling to my emotional knees, did I try to stifle raising my arms? Why did I question my own motives for worshiping in such a manner?

Choking with tears, I remembered my baby daughter’s pleas with outstretched arms. And the urgency, in times she felt the most overwhelmed. Or restless. Or too weary to walk. Was she raising her hands up to me in order to receive? Surely, yes. But also because I was so much taller than she, my vantage point offering an entirely different view. The action of lifting her tiny arms to me made her vulnerable.

The first time I raised my hands to God, I was vulnerable, too. But there is wild, unexpected abandon in vulnerability.

“Pick me up so I can see, Daddy!” is what my spirit says, in the most raw and relinquishing of times – when I feel smallest with no need to self-preserve. “Carry me”. Certainly, a request made to receive his lifting-out, but also in the purest form of worship….the kind in which my spirit calls the shots, and my body must obey.

And He always, always picks me up.

What else is a Father to do?

Brokenness · Falling

Found in the Falling

April 2, 2015April 2, 2015 Jana Greene3 Comments

By: Jana Greene

^“Overwhelmed, Abram fell flat on his face…” Genesis 17:3-5 (MSG)

Falling.

Throughout the ages, humankind has created a billion “little g” gods in their likenesses. Often, these faux deities required perfection or sacrifice of that was deemed ‘perfect.’ Spotless animals. Virgins. Those in the highest priesthoods chose who was worthy to be sacrificed – any living being who was considered ‘fallen’ was a sub-par sacrifice. What worth is someone who has fallen flat on his face?

What kind of God rewards the art of collapsing?

The whole world seems on the verge of collapse nowadays, and if you didn’t look any further than the circumstance, you might become despondent. You might look around and say, “Where are you, God? Where are you in this fallen world?” You might ask that. And in your despondency, you might plunge to the ground, face-first.

And there, in that moment – not that circumstance – is God. He is found in the not knowing what else to do. He is found in the falling.

Falling is nothing new. Adam and Eve wasted no time falling away from God in the Garden of Eden, when everything was pristine and perfect. We fall away in good times and in bad.

I’m thinking a lot about this at Easter time, when we believers greet one another with “He is Risen;” and “He is Risen, indeed.” Being risen is the opposite of being fallen, isn’t it? Unless the rising of Jesus from the dead makes us transcend our circumstance by bringing us first to our knees.

As with Abram, who received a whole new identity after falling face-first.

“Overwhelmed, Abram fell flat on his face. This is my covenant with you: You’ll be the father of many nations. Your name will no longer be Abram, but Abraham, meaning that ‘I’m making you the father of many nations.’ I’ll make you a father of fathers—I’ll make nations from you, kings will issue from you. I’m establishing my covenant between me and you, a covenant that includes your descendants, a covenant that goes on and on and on, a covenant that commits me to be your God and the God of your descendants. And I’m giving you and your descendants this land where you’re now just camping, this whole country of Canaan, to own forever. And I’ll be their God.” Genesis 17:5-8 (MSG)

What kind of God rewards the art of collapsing…the majesty of falling? The kind who made us in His own likeness. The kind whose love for us manifested in the death and resurrection of perfection, so that we could serve in the highest priesthood.

Our Big “G” God. The Covenant Giver.

You fall away from your own will and might, and embrace Him. In doing so, you gain your inheritance – your new name. His.

And all the trouble in this fallen world cannot take that truth away.

Christianity · Devotional · Spiritual

The “Seven Little Action Words” Blog Series

March 31, 2015March 31, 2015 Jana Greene6 Comments

By: Jana Greene

Leaning.
Falling.
Listening.
Risking.
Trusting.
Rising.
Living.

The last few weeks have been pretty squirrely for me and my family. We had been prayerful about a number of things, hoping they would just change already. And for a long time, nothing changed. It was if God were purposefully being silent, and it seemed a little spiteful. I forget sometimes that He works ALL things to the good, not just the things on my “Honey Do” God list.

While divine appointments were happening behind the scenes, I made a regular appointment to meet with some divine people in my church. Depression was creeping in like unholy Kudzu, and I know these believers, so strong in faith that they seem tethered to this world only by a cleat of love, would machete that shit right out. I am not being profane – that’s what depression feels like. It’s gotta go.

We met, and they listened. Words that began with a sputter started flowing, as did the tears. I know that in that brief time where two or more of us were gathered in Jesus’ name, powers of darkness were bound, joy was released, and trust was installed. I am ever so grateful that I have a place to go where I am embraced not for my potential as a Christian, but for the person whom Abba truly sees me as. I don’t really have to try so hard. But sometimes I still do. I am learning.

The silence – what I had interpreted as God’s silence – was His quiet machinery doused in the oil of Holy Spirit (that’s why there wasn’t a ruckus going on where I could sense it.) As cogs and wheels turn in a direction that is favorable to us – His most beloved creation – I started thinking about writing again.

When will I learn? He is always forever working things for my good. He is not out to punish me or remind me where I fall short. He is never, ever spiteful. His ways, so much higher than my own, are not subject to human limitation.

In the past few weeks, I have blogged nary a word, but all the while God was instilling words into my spirit. Seven, to be precise.

Leaning. Falling. Listening. Risking. Trusting. Rising. Living. One word for each day of the week; one word for each action I’m currently being asked to undertake. I’ve no idea what ideas it will manifest. I only know I am supposed to write a series about each of the words over the next week.

What will the Creator of the Universe reveal to my puny little brain? More than it can hold, as it pours over into the spirit. And hopefully, into your spirit, too. I have much more use for spiritual truth these days than nuggets of academic matter.

In your squirreliest hour, He is working all things for your good, behind the scenes. Quietly.

Devotional · Health · Holy Spirit · Inspirational · Jesus · Love · Mental Illness · Recovery · Spiritual

No Pain, No Gain – Chronic Illness and the Christian Church

February 21, 2015February 25, 2015 Jana Greene12 Comments

“Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,

My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.

Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.”

2 Corinthians 12:7 (The Message)

As I write this, I have the flu. I think I am on day six of it. Every once in a while, I get up to get water or crackers and notice that the sun has made an entire rotation around the earth since the last trip to get water and crackers. And one week prior to getting sick with the flu, I had a freak allergic reaction and infection from a spider bite. And three times previous to that in the past month, I have had debilitating migraines. I have a lot of horrible migraines, for which there are harbingers of auras, sensitivity to sound, and numbness of my face (always disconcerting, that one.)

I get sick a lot. My immune system is not terribly strong, and I have a lot of pain and inflammation issues. If you saw me, you might see a healthy middle-aged person, a little fluffy and dented, but well. Illnesses don’t always show on the outside. Oftentimes, the erosion is on the inside, where you cannot see.

Some of my dear friends also suffer from ‘invisible illnesses’ – ranging from bi-polar to nerve diseases, diabetes to chronic fatigue. They are health issues that are chronic – meaning more or less constant. Many of them are followers of Jesus Christ, such as myself. Chronic illness reminds me of alcoholism, in that I seemed to serendipitously end up as a member of a club I didn’t choose to join.

I do, however, get to choose my membership in the body of Christ, which needs to better deal with some of the realities on this planet – chronic illness being one. I am not the only Christian who has felt awkward about her health problems in the Church proper (not my particular church, which kind of ‘gets it’ on the level … but the church in general.)

Many in the Christian community don’t really know what to do with chronic illness – of that I am convinced.

I believe in miracles all day long. I believe that signs and wonders abound every single day. Nothing is impossible for God – nothing! He can rearrange every cell in my body to work in perfect alignment. He does it for people all the time. Knowing that can make it especially frustrating to suffer.

But the reality of the matter is that some of us will not get the healing we imagine this side of the Kingdom. People suffer in innumerable ways all of the time, and die from disease every day. That’s the reality.

Our bodies are indeed the Temple of the Holy Spirit, but I don’t for a minute believe that God only takes up residence in the Taj Mahals among us. Jesus was not put off by hanging out where there was great pain and suffering – in the alleyways. In bodies like ours.

He can heal me, and one day he will. Until that day, one question usurps the pain, the fatigue.

“Do you trust me?”
Do I trust Him even in the debilitation and pain?

Either I believe that all things work to the good or I don’t. Either I know that His grace is sufficient, or I don’t. On especially painful days, it’s harder to come to terms with that. If Jesus was not spared pain, why do we imagine we deserve to be spared the experience?

Sometimes we do not get healing that the world recognizes as whole. When Christians insist that you become healed in a specific way on an ongoing basis, a number of things happen to the sufferer, the church, and most awkwardly, the world as it observes us.

And this makes us all uncomfortable. Let’s bring this thorny issue into the light where we can deal with it.

The sick believer isn’t believing/praying/wanting wellness enough

Let’s be honest. After your friends have prayed for the same healing for you over a period of months or years, you might start to believe that you are just a dud. I know I have felt like a dud many, many times. The whole “believe harder” angle is so damaging, because it places the miracle out of God the bestower, into you the believer. And nothing we do or do not do causes the heavens to release power. It is all in Christ Jesus that we receive. It is our job to receive what is released – and when you are suffering, accepting and receiving can seem a whole lot harder than turning water into wine.

The sufferer feels embarrassed/ashamed that they have not been restored in the way they’ve prayed.

It’s no fun being run down or in pain. It sucks, badly. If you are healthy on a regular basis, praise God! Please don’t tell sick people, “Wow, you are sick again?” or “I never get sick.” I think I speak for chronic illness sufferers everywhere in saying those comments are not at all helpful. Ultimately, we end up lying to those around us who ask “So how are you feeling?” with the f-word. “Fine.” After all, who wants to hear the same story over and over? It feels shameful, but it shouldn’t. If we cannot be transparent in the church, where is it safe to do so?

If I don’t get healthy, my witness is damaged

This is a pretty persuasive lie, because it makes common sense. Who wants a piece of what I’ve got, if I’m sickly? Over and over again it has been confirmed to my spirit that the world needs to see faith in imperfect lives. Because all of our lives are imperfect, and nobody can relate to perfection. You are going through what you are going through, that is your reality.

“If it hasn’t happened by now, it isn’t happening” is never true

I will never stop asking for healing. I will never stop interceding for my friends who are dealing with chronic illnesses. As chronic as these conditions are, they are ultimately temporal. And God wastes not one single hurt I go through. He can use it all, and He can take it all away. What the devil means to use for destruction, our Father can easily use as a means to love. That’s a fact.

God is not punishing us

God is love in its purest form. He is not sadistic. He hurts that you hurt. His plans are much bigger than the pain. That is the foundation of my survival, because it is truth.

You don’t need to ‘get well’ so that ‘God can use you’

What kind of propaganda is that? Stop saying that, church!

If I am supposed to do a thing, but I cannot because I am sick, then I am not supposed to do the thing. My illness is not keeping God from doing HIS thing, which is the main thing. He equips me, and He knows my innermost being and what it is capable of. That’s the thing about it.

Run the race He has set before you. You are not responsible for running the courses set for others.

Jesus is not afraid of catching my ick

Although migraines are not contagious, it is easy to fall into thinking He is staying far away. But he is present in the pain, He doesn’t run from us when we are in the valleys.

I think about the paralyzed man who was healed by Jesus in a common setting – the one who was told to pick up his mat and walk. This is so easy for God to do – to enable that! Why would he not allow us all to pick up our mats? Why are some of us barely dragging our mats behind us? I cannot begin to understand.

I’m inclined to believe it has to do with the Bigger Picture. For the sake of the whole purpose have had life breathed into these bodies – so that someone else can be blessed by hearing “I know what you are going through, you are not alone.” If suffering comes at the price of one other person knowing that God is to be trusted even through the circumstance of pain, it is somehow more tolerable.

Until I get my full healing, I’ll tell you what Jesus does for me – He gets down on the mat with me and loves me to pieces. That’s what I think the church should do. Pray, always! But also bend down to the hurting people where they are – and love them to pieces in the midst.

We don’t always get restored the way we want, but we always have comfort available to us.

We should stop selling Christianity in a slick package that promises a specific healing

Guess what? People see other people get prayed for that still suffer and die all the time. It’s the circle of life thing. Christianity is so much more than surface healing – so much deeper than tissue and brain matter and physical vitality. It is relationship with the Creator….. SO much MORE. And so much better.

Never stop praying in the Spirit. But get down on the mat and love people where they are.

I know for a fact that other people have gone through pain before me, so that they could impart that same message to me. So, in a way, I am grateful for the pain of others.I am glad I can pay that forward. When I have a finite amount of energy every day, and I can either use it to raise my fist to shake it at God – because I don’t understand this! Or, I can raise it to praise Him. I am about 50/50 with the fist shaking and worship through the pain at this point. But I’m getting better at the latter.

Love the sinner, hate the sin. Love the sufferer, hate the pain. Jesus does.

Come to me, all you chronic pain sufferers, and I will give you rest.

Come to me all you whose minds are tortured with mental illness, and I will give you a soft place to fall.

Come to me, all you exhausted souls, and I will give you my Shalom.

Not a single other human being on this planet might know how much you are hurting, what your body and mind are going through. But God does. Make room on your mat for Him until you can get up and run that marathon.

Are you weak and sick? Then you are strong!

… It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness.

God Himself inhabits our puny, struggling flesh as if it were the most beautiful temple in all the land. Because it is.

Rest in Him.

Christianity · Enough · Grace · Spiritual

The Importance of Being ENOUGH

February 8, 2015February 8, 2015 Jana Greene2 Comments

By: Jana Greene

Being enough.
If I had a self-help book for every time I didn’t feel I was enough, I’d have a library of self-help books.

Wait, I do.

I buy the books (and occasionally even read them) to convince myself that I am enough. Don’t get me wrong – I’m a big fan of actualizing self; it’s just that sometimes my ‘self’ is a bullshit artist. I know this because she constantly tells me that I’m not now – nor will I ever be – enough.

Not pretty enough.

Not healthy enough.

Not thin enough.

Not pious and thoughtful enough.

Just not good enough. And although the arguments in favor of all of these things being true are pretty concrete, it isn’t what my Creator says about me.

When you become a Christ-follower and “walk with him,” it doesn’t mean that the people-pleasing, self-flagellating, hurting person inside of you pipes down all the days of your life. I am a new creation in Christ, but the devil is still a liar and I’m still working through some pains.

I continually have to give up my frustrations, but sometimes they roll downhill at a pretty high clip and make me feel bulldozed. God knows I am not trying to minimize his awesome power, but I’m just being honest about how I feel (which all the self-help books say is important, and also my recovery experience has taught me.) Denial ain’t just a river, but it can drown you all the same.

I am so blessed, yes. I long for the day that I can blithely respond to people who ask me “How are you?” that I am “too blessed to be stressed” or “blessed and highly favored!” But then again nevermind. Christians who spout off things like that when it is clear they are hurting have always secretly made me want to throw up. On them.

Because, you see, sometimes I still struggle with feeling enough.

My inner critic is a heartless wench, a dominatrix, really. She combines lording my inadequacies over me with equal parts humiliation.

“Roll up your sleeves, and do! You must do more to be more. …
Well, you really fell short there.
You did it again. Get it together, already!”

She cracks that whip with enough force to split me in two, and she has.

I really just want to know that I am enough already.
I don’t have to prove my worth or disprove my frailties.

That people will run their mouths about things they know nothing about, and that’s okay. I’ve run my mouth plenty. It’s what people do. (What is that old AA adage? “What you think of me is none of my business.”)

That having spent a lifetime on one pursuit and have the season end, doesn’t mean that I’m spent altogether.

That I cannot control my own flesh and it’s propensities, but I can rest in that flesh instead of fight against it. That bodies wear down against our wills. Somehow I’d like to learn how to keep my will from breaking down with it.

God knows that it’s hard to roll up your sleeve when you wear your heart on it!
And therein lies the answer, I think.

God knows.

I know in the deepest pools of my spirit that what God believes about me is absolute truth, that everything else is either bullshit or outright lies. Everything else is having my spirit ‘taken behind the woodshed’ and beaten to a bloody pulp. People will try to take you back there, you know…behind the proverbial woodshed. Don’t follow them – or your inner critic – there.

God says I am already enough. He said, “It is finished.” That’s a really good thing, because I’m tired, Lord.

“It is finished already.” That’s what Abba tells my soul. “Stop making idols of people whose opinions of you don’t matter.”

(Why do I DO that? When will I learn? What’s my DEAL? See? Self-flagellation engage.)

Today, I am asking God to do what I cannot seem to do for myself (for the millionth time) – remind me that I am enough, more than a conqueror, in flighty emotions and failing flesh.

I’m praying he will convince me of it – not in some flashy way – but with an installation in my spirit too deep for my inner critic to deny. Because knowing that I am enough will never truly come from any other source – not an entire library of books, not from the opinions of others – only from God.

ONLY from God.

But his is the only opinion that matters. He has no use at all for pious. He needs present. He doesn’t care about ‘thin,’ he just wants to know I’m IN.

It is finished, it is finished, it is finished.
So, pipe down inner-critic, and naysayers, devil and other purveyors of bullshit.

I am enough already.

(And reader, so are you.)

Grace · Holy Spirit · humor · Inspirational · Jesus · Love · Spiritual

The Flippin’ Sweet Whole Love of God

January 9, 2015March 6, 2017 Jana Greene7 Comments

By: Jana Greene

Last night, I was tossing and turning. Thinking about all the things that are oh-so wrong in this world. I exhausted my energies with worry, and then I implored my Heavenly Father to please comfort me. As I often do when asking God for favors, I quoted scripture to Him, when really – plain talk would have sufficed. He already knows my heart – a heart thirsty to be filled up with His love.

“I’m tired, Abba. Worn down. I need your strength,” my spirit said. ” I just need a touch, Lord. Just see me through today.” I reminded him of the woman at the well, who touched the hem of the garment of Jesus and was made whole.

^“Just then a woman who had hemorrhaged for twelve years slipped in from behind and lightly touched his robe. She was thinking to herself, “If I can just put a finger on his robe, I’ll get well.” Jesus turned—caught her at it. Then he reassured her: “Courage, daughter. You took a risk of faith, and now you’re well.” The woman was well from then on.” Matthew 9:20-22 (MSG)

And God, in His infinite wisdom and Holy magnificence, brought a very specific thought to my addled mind…. a scene from one of my very favorite movies, Napoleon Dynamite. Because – if there is anything I’ve learned about the Creator of the Universe – it’s that He has a sense of humor. He wants to relate to us.

SWEET (Yes, even this guy….)

The quirky film’s protagonist, Napoleon, is just trying to make it through high school. In one of the best scenes, he works up the courage in the lunchroom to talk to the girl he is crushing on, who is sitting at another table. In the most awkward pursuit ever, he commences to woo his girl – who is drinking a carton of milk – with this smooth line:

“I see you’re drinking 1%,” he bluntly states. “Is that because you think you’re fat? Because you’re not. You could be drinking whole if you wanted to.”

Why would the God of the universe bring that scene from the movie (CLICK HERE to see it) so vividly to the forefront of my mind in the middle of the night? Because I’ve been drinking in about 1% of His word lately, and asking for the bare minimum of his power to just get by.

I see you are reaching for a touch of the hem of his garment. Is that because you think you’re not enough? Because in Him, you are enough. You could be filled with Holy Spirit if you wanted to.

I hear you asking for a touch. Are you drinking in God’s love in tiny sips because you think you’re not sure it’s real? Because it is. You could be having the real deal if you wanted to.

Are you asking for less than is already yours because you think only a portion of Me is available to you? Because it’s all here for you. You could be having more comfort than you can handle, if you wanted to.

The “hem of his garment” – the part of Him which is furthest from His heart and still tangible – is flippin’ sweet, as Napoleon might say.

But the heart of Him?

It’s ours, and He wants to fill us with it. And we cannot even begin to imagine the supernatural-ness available to us.

It made me smile, in the midst of my insomnia, that God would remind me of his Whole Power in such a way – a way I could readily understand and even laugh at.

Are you asking for just enough to make it through because you think you’re unworthy? Because you’re not. You could be having the Whole Love of God if you wanted to.

God’s pursuit of us is not awkward, but our acceptance of His love often is. I am learning that Holy Spirit is already in us in full, but our ability to tap into it, to have the Whole Milk Experience, is fettered by our own busy minds and insecurities. Courage, daughter.

Just follow your heart, as Napoleon says.

That’s what I do.

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blogging · Christian writers · Going Viral · viral blog posts · Writing

Viral Spiral: A dozen thoughts on ‘going viral’

December 26, 2014December 26, 2014 Jana Greene8 Comments

By: Jana Greene

In 2014, I received a totally unexpected gift. In February, I wrote a blog post that truly went “viral.” My blog had been up and running two years at that point, and I wasn’t expecting it.

I’d written the piece (“Skewer the Stigma“) on the fly in a 20-minute span. It somehow took flight across the world and ultimately ended up landing in the hands of a quarter of a million people. No one is more surprised about that than me.

I had written it, posted it, and left it alone. But within a few hours, I started receiving email notifications that readers were leaving comments. Like 100 of them – surpassing my normal total daily readership and confounding the mess out of me.

Naturally, I assumed someone had passed out on her keyboard whilst looking at addiction recovery sites, and the multitude of visits were caused by her forehead landing on the “refresh” button repeatedly. It was the only logical explanation.

At 15,000 hits, I was convinced it was a cruel joke of some sort. Those pesky hackers.

But no, for some reason, the article was truly going ‘viral.’ Something about it resonated with people enough to pass it along. And as a writer, that is really the most you can hope for – to hit the note that resonates with others.

I had wondered what it would feel like to have so many visitors…to have a blog post go viral. Strangely, the experience taught me more about myself than my readers.

Through the experience of going viral, I learned:

1) To pray for favor.

In many ways it was a post like every other. It wasn’t – in my estimation – better or worse than anything else in the previous 180 blog posts on The Beggar’s Bakery. But I did specifically ask God for favor when I posted it. Now this is where it gets tricky, because while God’s favor is everything, I would subsequently pray favor over all of my posts and gleaned a little pearl of wisdom. I became willing to accept that God’s favor does not “look like” ours. He may favor you with two readers whose lives are forever changed by your words. His favor may look like 1,000,000 hits. Or He may favor you by revealing something to YOU in your own words that you never would have recognized any other way, even in a post that never makes it online. Prospering spiritually is so much richer than prospering in numbers. Speaking of numbers…..

2) That numbers do not validate me.

I’m not really a “numbers girl” normally. I’m a Words Girl. I have this crazy, innate aversion to numbers, whether they be accessorized with mathematical symbols or dollar signs. But there is nothing like obsessively checking the stats of a blog post to muddy the blogging waters with numbers. 250,000 hits? That’s crazy talk. I must be legit now, right? Numbers that climb ever-higher may feel validating, but they really whip up insecurities. In many ways, blog stats are like alcoholic beverages to me: One is too many and a thousand not enough. When have I “arrived?” The stats and numbers do not hold that answer. Higher numbers often equal higher anxiety. Not a good thing for folks like me whose OCD feeds off of getting “one more hit.”

3) To stake my claim.

People are going to think you are crazy, or wrong. Or crazy wrong. The same vulnerability that makes your writing authentic opens you up to all kinds of criticism. I will never forget the first really negative comment that posted as a comment. The reader was very angry, taking exception with my statement that alcoholics and addicts get well with help from God. “What about atheists? What about them, huh? You must recant! You can’t make blanket statements like that!” To which I replied, “Oh but I can. And I did. And I will.” At first, it hurt my feelings, but then it gave me an opportunity to learn how to stand firm.

My blog is my reality; my point of view. It is what works for me. I’m not going for a PC award, and I refuse to water down my message to appease readers. You can be both kind and firm. The experience taught me to strike my own authentic stance, and hold it. With hundreds of thousands of blogs out there, any reader who insists I change the content can, well … move along, little doggy.

4) To consider my work realistically.

Even when I write something I’m sure will get tons of traffic, very few posts actually do. I am neither the best nor the worst blogger out there is cyberspace. Going viral taught me to ride the wave without expecting a medal for surfing. Just enjoy the ride.

5) To pray for my readers.

This one should have been a foregone conclusion, but I had to learn to do it. Prayer takes a normal, natural article into a supernatural force to be reckoned with. I will never know where my messages ripple. Asking God to use it for his purposes assures me that even if a post only makes one person smile, or say “Aye carumba! I totally know how this feels!” it was worth writing and posting.

6) To blog honest or not blog at all.

When the post first started going viral, I fought the urge to go back in to WordPress and “perfect” it. Perhaps I shouldn’t have admitted this. Maybe I could take that out. But I try not to censor myself a whole bunch. I usually edit a piece several times before it goes up, but I try to keep the editing to grammar and spelling, and leave the truth raw and bare. It’s the only way, really, to share experience, strength and hope authentically.

7) Confidence to (self) publish my first book.

How many times did I say to myself, “I have a book in me”? Before this experience, I didn’t honestly think it would ever come out. But we all have books ‘in’ us – several. God spurred me to actually write that book – and self-publish it – in a two-week span after “Skewer the Stigma” went viral. God had told my spirit several months before: “Before you walked with me, your story was your story. When it became your testimony, it belongs to others, too.” I pray that the book falls supernaturally into the hands of those who might need some hope regarding addiction recovery. Going viral helped boost me in the direction to share it, just because I felt more confident. That was the only variable that had changed. I didn’t write the book to make money (which is a good thing, since I didn’t) but to share a story. You have one, too.

8) To expect viral posts to spread like … a virus.

It kind of picks up a life of it’s own. It becomes – as it should – more about the message and less about the author. It becomes out of your control in an epic way, in a manner that makes it impossible to track. I discovered that no, I really don’t crave fame. I’m proud of the piece and grateful to Abba for allowing me to share it in such a huge way. But getting my name “out there” was strangely anti-climatic. I became very ‘meh’ about it, very quickly. It just doesn’t satisfy the way you imagine it would. Only God can satisfy that wholly, that perfectly.

9) That I may have peaked, cyber-wise.

I may never go this way again. The heady, surreal nature of going viral is so fleeting. How to recreate it? That’s where faith comes in. God will give me the words he wants me to spread, and hopefully he will help me filter the words I shouldn’t spread. I cannot ‘recreate it’ nor should I try.

There are far, far better things ahead than what we leave behind, as C.S. Lewis said.

Or as is written in Ecclesiastes… to everything there is a season (turn, turn, turn…)

10) Not to bastardize my craft.

When I began blogging, I felt like such an amateur writer. Then a post went viral and I felt legit. And then after things calmed down, I worried after my worth as a writer again. I was causing myself so much drama in figuring out my place in the blogosphere! Nothing I’ve written since has gone bananas, and it may never happen again. And I’m okay with that. Now, I still sometimes wonder how it would feel to be a legitimate writer, for real and for true. And then God reminds me that it’s my job to write, and to skip the labeling, and get over myself. To just write already, and let the flow happen. A real, legitimate writer would just keep writing. It’s that simple.

11) Nifty stats are not my friend.

Oh my heavens, the detail available! There are numbers, and even color-coded maps of the countries whose residents read it! India. Saudi Arabia. France? Ooo la LA! Such neat accoutrements – they must be tools for success, no?

No. Stats take a creative, open, spiritual soul out of the lush garden, and make her a neurotic, over-analyzing, nut-job in the dry desert. And that about sums up my experience with fancy statistics.

12) Going viral is kind of neato-keen for a while, but not essential.

Our Father in Heaven is not interested in the numbers games, but we humans love to count pats on the back. Pair numbers with technology and you have the virtual world in your fingertips and a real world that hasn’t been touched at all. Algorithms and marketing (I did absolutely none with the one post that went viral) do not determine the “success” of a blog post.

Sometimes I post a blog that gets hit ten times. I am so grateful for my readership, no matter the size. Sometimes I will just be having a day that sucks, and I’m not feeling spiritual at all, and my feelings need a place to go – so I jot my grumpy words down. And once in a while, a reader will comment that they, too, are having a sucky day and not feeling spiritual at all, but it was a comfort to know that their circumstances were not sucking in a vacuum – that we are all intertwined, somehow. Chin up! You are never alone!

Because we are all intertwined, somehow. And no one is more surprised about that than me – every time it happens. As a writer, that is really the most you can hope for – to hit the note that resonates with others.

God controls the ripples, the currents, and who consumes the words. In all of the great Cyberland, we share our words as experience, and it comes back to us joy. And that is something to get infectiously viral about.

A real gift.