God is moving in CR

By Sarah Bryant, Fellowship Bible Church, Rogers, Celebrate Recovery Devotional Team Courage – noun . 1) The ability to do something that frightens one. 2) Strength in the face of pain or grief.   Two years ago, on the Friday before Memorial Day, I was sitting at my desk at work…stressed out about life and burned out at my job. With Monday being Memorial Day, I had already planned to take the next week off work but had been too overwhelmed to even think about what I was going to do or where I was going to go. For the past four years I had been struggling quite a bit with panic attacks, and traveling was something that tended make them worse. I never used to have panic attacks. It’s a long story, but they didn’t start until my late 20’s. It was just like the illustration they use at CR sometimes. My life felt like I was just standing in the water trying to hold down a bunch of beach balls. All of the sudden I couldn’t hold them all down anymore, and one of the things that popp...

By Carl Kimbro, Fellowship Bible Church, Rogers, Celebrate Recovery Devotional team, 5/13/20 I didn’t want help in my struggles. I made every excuse in the world to avoid getting it . “I can do this on my own.” “Others will think less of me as a person if they know.” “Sharing my burden with others is an admission of failure.” But dealing with my hurts, habits, and hang-ups alone never worked for me. It always left me in failure and wanting to give up. I needed others who would share my struggles with me. The cool thing about CR and sharing is that there were always several people willing to do just that. I just had to allow them to do so. “Bear each other’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2 In the beginning, I was embarrassed to share and didn’t think it was helping me. But my accountability partners soon became my lifeline. They encouraged me to turn it over to God, live through Him and for Him, and find the freedom I was seeking. Soon, my strugg...

By Carol Holmstrom Fellowship Bible Church Celebrate Recovery Staff Psalm 139:5  is one of my favorite “comforting” verses: "You  hem  me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me." Other versions use words like encircle, surround, enclose, and barricade instead of hem. But, here are some thoughts on the idea of God “hemming us in.” The dictionary definition of hem is:  verb (used with object) ,  hemmed, hem·ming: to fold back and sew down the edge of (cloth, a garment, etc.); form an edge or border on or around. to enclose or confine an edge made by folding back the margin of cloth and sewing it down. the edge or border of a garment, drape, etc., especially at the bottom. the edge, border, or margin of anything.   I don’t sew a lot, but I have done a little sewing in my time. What I do know about a hem is this: A hem is really there to protect the edge of the cloth. It keeps the raw edges from being expos...