Hello! Great to see you again!


Oh cool, its raining!

Don't you love the smell of rain? So clean, fresh, and pure.
 
Uh oh, it is starting to storm.

The weather is pretty bad right now.

The winds are clocking in at 30 mph and rain is pouring down in buckets.

We need to pull over until it passes.
To try and just drive thru a storm blind is very dangerous.

Just like it is with the storms in our lives.

The trials and tribulation we endure from time to time.

We need to slow down and even stop during these storms and not just wander into it blind.

TRIALS and TRIBULATION are sometimes so overwhelming that our soul becomes encaged in fear and we can even begin to doubt our Faith.

Since we have a little time on our hands until the storm passes, let's talk about TRIALS and TRIBULATION and find out why we as Christians endure such terrible TRIALS and TRIBULATION at times and how we are to overcome them.

Sooooooo, it appears that these storms in our life is what STRENGTHENS us.

Just because we may feel weak during the storms, does NOT mean we should just give up and go back to our old way of negative thinking and dwelling on the past.

That life is gone. History. No more.

We are becoming NEW creatures now.

It's like a game of chess. It's our move now.

And we will use what we learned on this road trip thus far, in making our move ...

No more allowing the negative thoughts to control our emotions.

No more entertaining negative memories.

No more visiting THOSE places that we know led to trouble before.

We are stronger than that now.

How can we recover if we are still around the disease and have to deal with it constantly?

If we are cooking, and our hand hits a flame or hot burner… what do we do?
First we REMOVE our hand from the source of the heat that hurt us. Then we TREAT it.

If it's a severe burn, we may have to go the hospital to get extra help from a doctor because we don't know how to treat and heal that bad of a burn.

We don't have to know how to heal OUR SELF.
Let's let someone help us. Let the true doctor help us.

Let's let GOD help us.

When we begin to heal, do we go back and put our hand on that flame or burner again?
 
No. We know better.

We remember what happened the last time.
We know by putting our hand there again, it will make all the treatment and healing that has occurred thus far to be futile. 

We may not have realized what we were doing before, but we do now.

More is always expected of those who know more.
 

We KNOW the Truth now. We know what is right and wrong now.

We must CHOOSE to do right.

Don't go against God. He loves us too much. He doesn't deserve that.

WE DO NOT DESERVE THAT.

Let's stay on the right road. 

On the road to Freedom, we need to CHOOSE to help ourselves.
By making the right choices, we are choosing to obey God and HEAL.

God never said this would be easy.

But, we know our old ways did not lead to joy, peace, or freedom that we so desperately seek.

No, it brought forth only pain and sorrow.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

We have got to try something new.
 
Yes, it will be hard at first. But we have each other remember?
Most changes are hard. But, through those tough times is when we gain more strength.

When a puppy is born, the bottom of their paws are extremely soft and weak. They are untouched…until they start walking around on the ground. Soon, their paws become stronger and tougher. Then they are able to RUN.

We may have been the caterpillar wallowing along the ground but we are to be a butterfly and soon we will FLY.

The more we persevere though the hard times of temptations of returning or thoughts that meander into our head and linger there, the better we will be able to control and OVERCOME them.

Practice makes perfect.
So, instead of running and hiding from the storms, let's bring our umbrella of HOPE and FAITH and wait it out.

We have nothing to fear.
 

How many times have we tried to lift ourselves up?
Too many to count, huh?
How many times have we asked GOD to lift us up?
God can take our pain and past and make something remarkable out of it.

STRENGTH. BEAUTY.

And when God is doing the healing… the product can end up remarkable.
 

We can be CONFIDENT that God will protect us.
We have nothing to fear.
God is on OUR team.
We just have to believe it.

Have you ever thought how when trouble comes, it could actually be a good thing? It's all in how we see it. Is the glass half empty or half full? It's the same amount… just how we decide we want to view it can be different.

Turn up the radio for a minute and listen to the words that the Beatles sang after they realized the same thing.
 

A state of mind?

What a different perspective.

I suppose we can have different perspectives on just about anything. Some people view rain as cleansing. Some people view it as the chance of a flood. Some love the warmth of the sunshine, though others view it as the time of the day they will get sunburned. The ocean is gorgeous, but others view it as threatening and intimidating.

It's all in how you look at things.

Look outside your window. Since we're sitting along the coastline you can see the ocean in a distance.

We have never seen the air and surroundings as serene as it is right now. In the far distance we see a glimpse of a rainbow. We see the clouds scattering and breaking up only to reveal a picture perfect sunset. The smell of the clean air.

We made it through the storm TOGETHER.

You want to stop and get out for a few minutes and check out the coast?

Wow. Waves are a thing of beauty, aren't they?
 
They can either be calm and relaxing, or a mighty thing of nature to show strength.

But notice… it NEVER stops going. Back and forth, calm to mighty, whatever it needs to do.

I read once that "there is little actual forward motion of individual water particles in a wave, despite the large amount of energy it may carry forward."

The wave always stays in control. Nothing can stop it.
 

Picture it, if you will.

Picture yourself with the strength of a wave. Because we do have it. Whether we believe it or not.
We are strong. We did NOT let it kill us.

Now, we may not feel strong everyday.
But, one day at a time, right?

 Just like Jesus taught us:
 

This means that we should only concern ourselves with the problems of today and not look ahead at tomorrows potential problems. So we take one day at a time.

Today is the first day of the rest of our lives.

WE can be in control by giving our negative thoughts, flashbacks, memories, and worries up to God every single day.

Then, after a while, we won't need to every day… maybe just every week… then every other week.

Our past will NOT dictate our lives.
Our past is NOT dictating our future.
Our past is NOT messing up God's purpose for us.

He hears our cries and comes to our rescue.

Alone, we are nothing.

With HIS strength, you are strong, powerful, precious creation of the Almighty God.

Don't let ANYONE tell us otherwise.
 

You know how abuse survivors are often labeled as strong?

Yeah right. In reality, it's the LAST thing we feel. We often think to ourselves, "If we were STRONG, it wouldn't have happened at all or I would have at least have been able to stop it."

But we can find strength in believing that GOD can deliver us from our past.