Wednesday SHINE....

Today's Reading: Job 25,26,27

Happy Worship Wednesday SHINE girls!

We are on Day 3 of our 40 Days of Prayer! Are you loving this prayer journey, or what?

I love being intentional. It keeps me focused on Him. My mind tends to wander...a lot. :)

Today, I have a have a special post  from a very precious SHINE girl.

Tammy is rather new to our little site, but she has been letting the Lord have His way with her heart! She has been such an encouragement to me as well. Her words of love, support, and affirmation have touched me more than she could ever possibly know. {well, now you know!} :-)

Be blessed today by Tammy's post. God is doing a HUGE work in her heart and it's a beautiful thing.

My story
by Tammy Downs

Tammy and her beautiful family

I sent Jill an email a little while ago thanking her for this wonderful group she began.  I told her it saved my life.  While I didn’t mean that in the physical sense, I certainly did emotionally and spiritually.  She asked if I would consider sharing my testimony and I was embarrassed and hesitant.  I’m not well-versed in His word at all.  I didn’t even know where I would start.  Then this came to me:   

                                                               

  Hello, my name is Tammy and I’m a selfaholic. 

Sounds funny, I know!  It is true, though!  And I didn’t even know the extent of it until I read my first post on SHINE GIRLS!

Many of you might understand the progression of this selfaholism.  I was raised in God’s word by a man with a Bible and a hard hand.  I soon began to believe you only needed to pay attention to God on Sundays or when Stepdad said so.  God was to be feared, not celebrated.  I suppose after the Lord blessed me with my escape from that life, I felt I was deserving of a perfectly wonderful future.  See where this is going?

Every silly breakup with a boyfriend, my disaster of a first marriage, our son’s autism diagnosis…”Why me?  I’m a good person.  Haven’t I been through enough?”  If I weren’t feeling such a strong push to write this, I’d stop here from my shame.

But I can’t stop because our Lord has been after me desperately the past two years to break my addiction.  He called an intervention in a big way, too.  Circumstances led us indirectly to some of your fellow SHINE GIRLS.  It was a situation completely unrelated to SHINE but I understand now.  Through them, this website, Jill and the very personal ways He’s been touching my life, I’m finally able to admit my problem.

Life won’t be perfect.  It won’t always be without sorrow.  Yes, there will be pain.  There will also be unending, undeniable love.  God made us all perfect in His eyes and loves even the broken parts of us completely.   Knowing that…feeling it is making all the difference in my life.

So back to how I’m breaking this sickness of mine.  He led me to watch a show the other day.  I wouldn’t normally have been watching it but I’m learning not to question when He leads me.  In it an angel was counseling a distraught woman whose love had just been killed in an accident.  She asked, “If God is so good, why didn’t He save him?  Why wasn’t He there?”  The angel answered that God and His angles are always with us whispering in our ears.  An angel was with that drunk driver whispering to him not to drink and drive.  But God loves us so much that He gave us free will.  Sometimes we choose not to listen.  SOMETIMES WE CHOOSE NOT TO LISTEN.  How about decades of not listening?  Think He was trying to make a point?!

This angel also said (this is the “good person” part) while you’re waiting for God’s blessings, you must give your love to others freely and without expectations.  Yeah, there it is.  Haven’t we all given at one point or another to get something?  It might be notoriety or envy…I was even hesitant to write this because I worried about my motive for it.

So I’m already listening.  He’s asking me to step out of my comfort zone A LOT.  I understand why now.  I’m also starting to understand the giving.  It’s not simply volunteering to help at bible school or the PTO.  It’s seeing someone obviously having a bad day and giving them a smile and a “hello”.  It’s that random act of kindness you don’t post on Facebook.  Those are the gifts we need to give the world and what needs to become second nature for me in order to recover.

 “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.”   Titus 2:11-14 

Taking it day by day,

Tammy