Am I Loved?

By Kareena Holloway, Fellowship Bible Church NWA Celebrate Recovery TEAM Women's Encourager Coach, Devotional team 8/8/2018


As someone who has struggled with Love and Relationship Addiction as well as Codependency for years,  the lines can sometimes become blurry when looking for signs that I am loved. 
I learned early on in life to do and say what I needed to in order to win the affections of those around me.  I was a chameleon, changing who I was in order to feel loved and accepted.  I see clearly now that for all of those years, what I really was doing was controlling and manipulating everyone around me so that I didn't have to feel the sting of rejection or abandonment from anyone.  I just wanted to feel loved, accepted and adored, so that was how I coped.
Over the eight years that I've been at Celebrate Recovery,  God has helped me to learn three very important truths which I can use as tools in my recovery toolbox whenever the enemy whispers the lie that I am unloved.

1:  God has always loved me!
      "This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. -1 John 4:9-10"



2: God has given me community to love on and to be loved by!
      "So Christ himself gave the apostles,the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers,  to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him, the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. -Ephesians 4:11-16"



3:  Jesus paid the ultimate price because he loves us!
      "For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.  -John 3:16"



Prior to coming to Celebrate Recovery, I had heard these things before, but I didn't comprehend them, that they were meant for me!  I kind of felt like it was for somebody else.  I can't really explain it, but I do know that the enemy worked hard on convincing me in my heart that I was unwanted and unlovable.  When I began to accept that these truths were also meant for ME, I began to see some beautiful truths.  With those truths, I also needed to take responsibility for some actions, and that was when I came to realize that I had been trying to control the people in my life.  When I let go of that control, I began to experience deeper, fuller, more authentic friendships with my brothers and sisters in Christ.  I no longer made them responsible for my worth.  I put my hope and trust in God to fulfill that, and He has done that!  I now get to be my true self everywhere I go and experience true love and acceptance.

My prayer and encouragement for you is that if you do not yet see your worth in Christ, that you will meditate on the 3 above things and see yourself as the precious son or daughter of God, created for His glory alone.  When you come to accept that fully in your heart, everything else just falls into place.  :-)  

Please click HERE to watch this video and listen to "I Am Loved" by Stephanie McKenna

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why do we introduce ourselves?

One of the things that might confuse a newcomer coming into this great ministry is the way we introduce our self and do so every time we meet in a Step Group and/or Open discussion group. The question that often comes up is; “Why in the world would we have to introduce our self every time we come together? I mean, we all know each other don’t we? We all know what the other is struggling with right? So why should I have to state my main issue I am dealing with? These are all logical questions and I think the below content from Tina at Saddleback might help shed some light on this. As you may already know, in our small groups we ask our Leaders to introduce themselves with this statement: “Hi my name is _______; I am a believer who struggles with________.” We ask our leaders to keep it short; to stick to one or two primary areas of recovery. We ask them not to state a host of recovery issues and character defects, etc… especially because we do not run recovery specific groups for cha...
Read more

12 Days Of CR Christmas

Image
One of our great leader Monica rewrote the lyrics to this old Christmas song to tie into the 12 steps. We had a lot of fun singing it and love that it keeps the focus on the 12 steps thru Christmas. Great job Monica! On the first day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, the notion it’s not about me; On the second day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, my sanity, and the notion it’s not about me. On the third day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, the will to be faithful, my sanity, and the notion it’s not about me. On the fourth day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, my inventory, will to be faithful, my sanity, and the notion it’s not about me. On the fifth day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, the chance to come clean! my Inventory, faithfulness, my sanity, and the notion it’s not about me On the sixth day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, desire to be humble, the chance to come clean! my Inventory, faithfulness, my sanity, and the notion it’s not about me. On the ...
Read more

Guidelines are there for a reason

Anyone who has participated in a Step Study or a small group through Celebrate Recovery has heard the five small-group guidelines. They’re supposed to be read aloud before each meeting starts, just to remind everyone or to inform any newcomers. Most of the guidelines are obvious and make perfect sense on the first reading. Anonymity is vital and as people who are submitting to God as our Higher Power, we should realize that we are in no more a position to “fix” each other than we are to “fix” ourselves. There’s one guideline that puzzled and even annoyed me at first, that pesky no. 2. “There is NO cross talk. Cross talk is when two individuals engage in conversation excluding all others. Each person is free to express his or her feelings without interruptions.” At first I really didn’t understand the guideline. “Did they seriously need to tell us not to talk to each other while someone was sharing?,” was my thought. But as the guideline was explained further, I better understood. We ar...
Read more