Botz Posted October 26, 2008 Group: Royal Member Followers: 1 Topic Count: 76 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 4,492 Content Per Day: 0.61 Reputation: 191 Days Won: 18 Joined: 03/29/2004 Status: Offline Share Posted October 26, 2008 Hi all... I have been thinking about what I posted and I sense in my spirit that I have been deeply wounded by church leaders in my past. Please pray for me. The Lord wants to do something in my heart. I am almost crying publicly here at the library I am at while I listen to worship music. I have been so hurt in my Christian life. Lord Jesus help me. Carlos My dear brother, may the L-rd fill you with understanding, and encourage you in your heart, and where there has been hurt and pain, may you know the life giving blood of the Lamb, washing away the hurt and the sorrow, and changing you from one degree of glory to another. Swim in the waters of His love, and allow the cleansing revitalising waves of the Spirit to wash over you again and again...be filled to overflowing with His love, and may grace, mercy and truth be your watchword. Psalm126:6 He who goes to and fro weeping, carrying his bag of seed, Shall indeed come again with a shout of joy, bringing his sheaves with him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
traveller Posted October 26, 2008 Group: Royal Member Followers: 5 Topic Count: 827 Topics Per Day: 0.10 Content Count: 12,101 Content Per Day: 1.49 Reputation: 249 Days Won: 3 Joined: 04/01/2002 Status: Offline Share Posted October 26, 2008 Hi all... I have been thinking about what I posted and I sense in my spirit that I have been deeply wounded by church leaders in my past. Please pray for me. The Lord wants to do something in my heart. I am almost crying publicly here at the library I am at while I listen to worship music. I have been so hurt in my Christian life. Lord Jesus help me. Carlos My dear brother, may the L-rd fill you with understanding, and encourage you in your heart, and where there has been hurt and pain, may you know the life giving blood of the Lamb, washing away the hurt and the sorrow, and changing you from one degree of glory to another. Swim in the waters of His love, and allow the cleansing revitalising waves of the Spirit to wash over you again and again...be filled to overflowing with His love, and may grace, mercy and truth be your watchword. Psalm126:6 He who goes to and fro weeping, carrying his bag of seed, Shall indeed come again with a shout of joy, bringing his sheaves with him. amen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stormy612 Posted October 26, 2008 Group: Advanced Member Followers: 1 Topic Count: 21 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 191 Content Per Day: 0.03 Reputation: 13 Days Won: 0 Joined: 09/22/2008 Status: Offline Birthday: 02/15/1971 Share Posted October 26, 2008 Thank you, Botz. I know I'm immature right now. I know I've got a whole lot of growing left to do. Right now, God seems to be teaching me a lot of things at once. It's confusing and overwhelming right now, but I know it'll all make sense once all the pieces are there. Pride is something He's been gently teaching me on since the get go, and I will always be learning about my pride. My extreme self-centeredness is part of it too (its part defensiveness and part rage turned outward). There's more too, but suffice it to say, I've been a very sad, a very angry, and very frightened person for a very long time. And then, six years ago, He brought me face to face with the most intense rage, the most intense terror, and the most intense sorrow I've ever had to deal with. And I broke. Everything in me broke. Everything I've ever believed was true about this world turned out to be true, and I couldn't run from it anymore. I have to face it now and stand firm (something I have never, ever done well.) And to be honest, I spend a great deal of my energy just trying to fight my flesh. To keep me from hurting others. I won't hurt others, but I am more than willing to hurt myself (not physically, but emotionally). I am so tired. People scare me, but I scare myself more. Coming here, to Worthy, was a chance for me to love people because His love is what heals. I see the sorrow in others and I want to make it go away as much as I want mine to go away. It was a big step for me. Staying has been an even bigger step. This place is helping me more than I can put into words, or that anyone can know. I don't know what else to say except, praise the Lord for you, and for everyone here. Carlos, thanks for letting me hijack your thread. Your post touched something in me too. I'm sorry I over did it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlos123 Posted October 26, 2008 Group: Diamond Member Followers: 0 Topic Count: 61 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 1,015 Content Per Day: 0.14 Reputation: 97 Days Won: 4 Joined: 07/12/2004 Status: Offline Author Share Posted October 26, 2008 Carlos, thanks for letting me hijack your thread. Your post touched something in me too. I'm sorry I over did it. Stormy612...thanks for your consideration but please know that I personally don't care if the thread goes off topic as long as the Lord is using the things that are said to help us or enlighten us in some way. Which he most certainly has...in my heart for sure . Thanks for praying for me you all. It was difficult coming face to face with the woundedness in my heart...I wrote a friend (who is a member on this forum too) about what I experienced and will just copy part of what I wrote him rather than repeat myself all over again....perhaps what I wrote him will be used by the Lord to help someone else. I have deleted some snippets from what I wrote indicated by ... marks. .......................... Tonight has been pretty rough for me. I assume you read my last post on the thread I started where I saw my woundedness. That was hard to admit but for just a minute. I knew I had to admit it. I was so overcome by my woundedness that I almost broke down and wept right there in the library where I was. Afterwards I went and hung out with my friends at the soup kitchen again but realized afresh tonight that there is a wide gap between me and them . I am a Christian and they are not. I felt so alone for a while. Alone with my woundedness. For a while and to some extent I still feel a little like everything I have wanted to do has been out of my wounded state and no good. It's as if someone has taken the ground out from under me and I don't know where to stand anymore. That's just a feeling .... What I have seen in the Church at large is real and a problem. I have spoken the truth I believe. But it's been difficult to see my woundedness. To stare it in the face and to realize that I have been walking around wounded. It's hard to describe bro. ... Regarding forgiveness you are absolutely right in saying that those who have wounded me must be forgiven by me. Just a minute or two after I saw my woundedness at the library, through tears, I said to the Lord that I placed the sin of all those leaders who have sinned against me on Jesus. Just as I place my own sins. I forgave them from my heart. I also came to realize that leaders are people too. Who sin at times. Yet at the same time leaders should also be elders. Older men who are mature and not prone to doing the kinds of things that have been done to me in the name of Christ. I have been left not knowing what to make of it all bro. Do I go back to hanging around with leaders in the regular church only to place myself in a position of being hurt all over again? Do I scrap my web site (I am certainly willing)? But then what? Do I go and sit and act like a good little sheep, keeping my mouth shut, and just become a spectator Christian? I don't think I could do that. It's just not in me to sit there and do nothing like so many seem to do. A time of introspection and consideration I suppose. For now I will continue with the things I have set my heart to do unless the Lord shows me differently through you, others, or through the Word as He speaks to me through it. ... I wish my life had been better bro. I wish I had not been hurt so much by Christian leaders. I wish I had had a better relationship with my earthly father. There is so much that I wish I would have not gone through. Yet...as I think you mentioned....God has allowed what He has allowed in my life. Perhaps I would have never cried out for the living God without having experienced some brokeness in my life. Why is it that sometimes one must wait till they are ... old ... before one learns the most valuable lessons in life? I don't know. I just wish I had been more open to the Lord in previous times. I wish I had been more humble and more willing to learn from the Lord and from others. Life is so short bro and there is so very little time left remaining in our lives. All I can do is learn from my mistakes, keep looking to Jesus and what He did for me on the cross, and stand by His continued grace in my life. Apart from Him I am nothing. That will always be the case. I must remember that. No amount of having done things differently in the past, of having reacted better to hurt from others, of having lived a more godly life, can change the essential fact that I am still nothing apart from Him. That only by grace do I stand now and that only by grace will I be able to stand in the future. How strange the Christian life is bro. That the longer we live as Christians the more we come to realize that we are nothing apart from Him. Instead of coming to take more pride in ourselves we come to realize more and more how utterly worthless we are in our own selves. But with that increasing realization we also come to experience a greater degree of grace to live as we ought as we cling to that which God has provided to us in the cross of Jesus. ........................ Carlos PS. Later tonight or perhaps tommorrow I hope to post some verses I have been mulling over about attesting miracles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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carlos123 Posted October 26, 2008 Group: Diamond Member Followers: 0 Topic Count: 61 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 1,015 Content Per Day: 0.14 Reputation: 97 Days Won: 4 Joined: 07/12/2004 Status: Offline Author Share Posted October 26, 2008 You know I got to tell you FresnoJoe...that your little praying icon is a real encouragement to me when it shows up on whatever thread I am participating in. I am not quite sure if you are showing yourself praying or encouraging the rest of us to pray through your little icon but I usually take it to mean that you are praying for the thread. In either case, whether it is you praying for the thread or you encouraging others to pray, I just wanted you to know that it is really encouraging for me to see that little icon show up. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
traveller Posted October 26, 2008 Group: Royal Member Followers: 5 Topic Count: 827 Topics Per Day: 0.10 Content Count: 12,101 Content Per Day: 1.49 Reputation: 249 Days Won: 3 Joined: 04/01/2002 Status: Offline Share Posted October 26, 2008 You know I got to tell you FresnoJoe...that your little praying icon is a real encouragement to me when it shows up on whatever thread I am participating in. I am not quite sure if you are showing yourself praying or encouraging the rest of us to pray through your little icon but I usually take it to mean that you are praying for the thread. In either case, whether it is you praying for the thread or you encouraging others to pray, I just wanted you to know that it is really encouraging for me to see that little icon show up. Thanks! Amen Carlos! Joe is certainly an encourager. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlos123 Posted October 27, 2008 Group: Diamond Member Followers: 0 Topic Count: 61 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 1,015 Content Per Day: 0.14 Reputation: 97 Days Won: 4 Joined: 07/12/2004 Status: Offline Author Share Posted October 27, 2008 Hi all, I want to post again on the topic of attesting miracles if I might but I have been sitting here at the library (where I plug my laptop and internet modem most times) hee hawing and putzing around, walking, using the bathroom, and otherwise putting it off. I have so much to say and am concerned that what I say might reflect what the Lord wants said and not me that I have hesitated to say anything at all but as is usually best in such cases...it is best to say something, anything and let the Lord work as He wills..so I commit what I say on this topic to Him and ask Him that He would mercifully and graciously be pleased to bless the rest of our thread as we continue this dicussion. I have been thinking a lot about attesting miracles today and read quite a few verses even this morning on this subject. Let me, if I may share some verses first and then I want to say some things regarding them.... Most of the following verses are taken from the New King James Version of the Bible or the King James Version where I have taken the liberty of changing wording no longer used in modern times to it's modern equivalent. Romans 15:18-19 "For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not accomplished through me, in word and deed, to make the Gentiles obedient Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlos123 Posted October 28, 2008 Group: Diamond Member Followers: 0 Topic Count: 61 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 1,015 Content Per Day: 0.14 Reputation: 97 Days Won: 4 Joined: 07/12/2004 Status: Offline Author Share Posted October 28, 2008 Oops I guess I posted too long of a post and as usual when I do that...or so it seems...the thread goes silent. Sigh... I'll just add something that happened to me today that I thought was kind of a bit...well...odd. I was at a buffet for my breakfast, lunch, and dinner all rolled into one and when it came time for the goodies (i.e. deserts and such) I figured I would get myself a couple of fortune cookies along with some other goodies. I wanted the fortune cookies because they taste good but also because I was curious as to what they would say. I looked upon whatever they would say as being from the Lord since He is in control of all things. Even fortune cookies. Mind you I am not saying that every time one gets a fortune cookie that what it says is from the Lord but today in particular I was looking at them as such. I opened my first one and it read... "You will soon be crossing warm waters for a fun vacation." Hmmm...interesting I thought. The second one said... "A bold and dashing adventure is in your future.". Even more interesting. Don't know what to make of these fortune cookies per se but if the apostles cast lots to determine who would replace Judas I figure it's not too far fetched to think that the Lord knew what these fortune cookies had in them and placed these into my hands. Kinda interesting and certainly in line with what I spoke of in my last post. Not putting a great deal of stock in these "fortunes" mind you but I got a real kick out of reading them in view of what I last posted here. Anyway I hope this thread hasn't gone dead but it's in the Lord's hands...as always. Carlos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Botz Posted October 28, 2008 Group: Royal Member Followers: 1 Topic Count: 76 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 4,492 Content Per Day: 0.61 Reputation: 191 Days Won: 18 Joined: 03/29/2004 Status: Offline Share Posted October 28, 2008 Hi Carlos...Just to let you know that I don't necessarily think it is a case of your thread going dead...I think alot of people have read what you have shared and been so open about...I feel the difficulty is when you offer the challenge of the 'adventure in faith' to go to some place and pray and expect to see G-d work with you amongst the people. If I lived in your neck of the woods, had the time, the cash, and felt it was a leading of G-d...then I would give it a go...but don't get too disheartened if you do not find many takers... and keep a happy faith-filled heart. Botz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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