God is moving in CR

By Carl Kimbro, Fellowship Bible Church Celebrate Recovery Devotional Team writer, 9/29/21 Sometimes I wake up at night haunted by my past. The people I have hurt walk in my dreams single file in what seems like an unending parade. Past regrets flash before my eyes. Fear resurfaces and brings along its friend failure. Old habits and addictive sins call to me in an attempt to lure me back. They reach out with the promise that this time it will be better…this time I will find relief in my coping mechanisms…this time I can find true happiness in my addictive behaviors…this time I can believe the lies they tell me and everything will be alright.  My “night haunts” usually occur when I am struggling in life, when work is stressful, family relationships are hard, friends seem distant. When I am weakest they surface in my dreams, tempting me to return to my sinful past and destroy my walk with Jesus. My night haunts also remind me that I need God. I can’t handle the disappointments in lif...

 By Kareena Holloway, Women's Encouragement Coach at CR Fellowship Bible Church 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 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 l...

By Eric Hutchinson, Fellowship Rogers CR Training Coach, 9/16/21 One day I was walking through my kitchen and  there were some muffins cooling on the kitchen  countertop. They smelled incredible and I picked  one up and took a bite. It was horrible! I can’t  remember if my wife intentionally left out the  sugar trying to make a healthy muffin or just  forgot an ingredient, but it did not taste like I  thought it was going to taste. The sweet smelling  muffin was a deception and totally destroyed my expectations. Have you ever expected something to be really good but when it happened it just didn’t meet expectations?  This has happened to me a lot as I have lived my life. I put a high expectations on something and it just doesn’t deliver. It could be a house, a car, a family meeting that should’ve gone well, but didn’t or it could be that I thought something would make me happy and whatever it was didn’t.  In Real...

By Carl Kimbro, Fellowship Bible Church Celebrate Recovery Devotional Team writer, 9/8/21 When I first began to attend Celebrate Recovery, I went with my son. I did not believe I needed it because I did not have a problem. Each week I saw the miracle of recovery lived out before my eyes. In my “detached” point of view, I always got the impression that you attend CR and open share, and you stayed sober as a result. But when I admitted my own addiction, I found out quickly that this wasn’t even close to the truth.  My first two weeks after picking up a blue chip were awesome. I stayed close to God and stayed away from my problems. It seemed that the “chip” was the answer. Week 3 however was not so good. I struggled with and gave in to temptation. Suddenly, recovery wasn’t so easy! The harder I tried, the worse it got. It seemed like failure was going to be the winner in this fight.   However, I did not give up!   Fortunately, I sought advice with one of the leaders and li...

  By Eric Hutchinson, Fellowship Rogers CR Training Coach, 9/1/21 Where do you get your “News?” I remember growing up and my mom and dad watching the news at 10:00 pm.  I have never really watched the nightly news, but now I get the news pumped right to my cell phone.  It’s always alerting me of stuff that’s going on locally and around the world.  I have noticed that very rarely is the news positive.  For some reason it almost always has a negative story to tell me.  Maybe it’s because network ratings are higher with negative news than positive news. Maybe it’s because there is more negative news than positive news, but I doubt it. I think it’s because the enemy wants to get into my mind and change the way I think.  During the pandemic my wife and I started watching more news.  Then, I started noticing my mind thinking about the negative news stories that I watched and listened to. I didn’t like where it took my mind.   How about you? Doe...