Offering women a biblical solution for inner healing
by Aliene
God doesn’t call you to figure it out—he calls you to have faith. Childlike faith in God’s Word creates unshakable confidence to believe the impossible.
Want more? Today’s podcast is an audio message taken from Brave Heart. This nine-week study on Joshua and his journey into the Promised Land was written by Aliene Thompson and is a part of the Nourish Bible Study Series.
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by Aliene
Hey brave heart, leave blessings in your wake for future generations and make a difference. You can spend a lifetime replaying your past or trying to change your family members. You can play the blame game. I know this – I’ve been there. This doesn’t solve things, and it gives power to people who cannot build God’s dream in your life.
OR Brave heart, you can trust God your Heavenly Father and move forward. I like that better – don’t you?
Inside God’s design for family, wives are to be loved as Christ loved the church. This love was sacrificial. It was costly. It brought beauty. Daughters are to be valued and raised without anger through unconditional love. Wives are to respect and submit to their husbands. Indeed, inside God’s family framework we find a model of how God intends to relate to us. The family should be a place of rest, solace, love – a place where we are free to make the mistakes necessary to uncover our true potential – a refuge from the storms of life.
Sadly, under the weight of a broken world, the reality of a perfect family is fractured. Every woman has imperfections in her family. While God’s framework for family is perfect… we are not. The perfect family does not exist because there are no perfect people. But sometimes those fractures are so great, that our hearts can carry deep wounds. I believe this grieves the heart of God.
Be wise brave heart. As much as there is a God that loves us and wants us to have his design for family, there is an enemy of our souls who would love to destroy family. Don’t believe his lies that God’s framework for family doesn’t work – it was fallen humanity that was not there to love you.
Never forget that Paul’s description of God’s family framework in the book of Ephesians, he writes about our war with the enemy. This order in scripture is no accident. The enemy knows that there is strength in family and would love nothing more than to destroy God’s design (Ephesians 5:21-6:20).
God in his great redemption has a plan for restoration for our hearts through Jesus. You have a heavenly Father that wants to nourish your heart with truth so you can live the life you were created and redeemed to live. As God’s adopted children through Christ, we can reach out to our true Father and hold on to him.
The key is to turn to God, live by the Spirit, and allow Jesus to have the greatest impact in your life. Researching and analyzing our family can help us understand why we are the way we are, but only the Holy Spirit can change us from the inside out. This is godly girl power. ONWARD!
This is not easy. No one would question that our background shapes our character. The people in our lives influence the way we are.
All of us have those negative cycles that may feel like inescapable realities. But the reality is we can break the cycles by making new choices. We can choose new life and new legacies for our children. God brings a solution that surpasses self-help, self-determination, and self-effort: God’s solution is found in sonship. God not only adopts you but longs for you to live “led” as his daughter.
Through Christ, we are adopted into a new family and given the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to walk in a new way of life. It’s not an instant change. If you want to live in the freedom of this new family, God will lead you on a slow and deep journey of beautiful internal transformation. This journey is called discipleship. It’s a lifetime process directed by the Holy Spirit. Listen, follow, and watch God unravel cycle after cycle as you surrender to him.
Cutting new paths is not easy and takes time. Cycles, even if they are destructive, feel comfortable, so moving beyond them is a process.
Leave blessings in your wake for future generations and see new legacies continue to emerge. Reestablish God’s framework in YOUR family and leave a legacy. (Be the first if you have to, brave heart. What an honor!) Could there be any greater blessing in life than that?
While your family background may influence your character, it doesn’t define your God-given destiny. May the gospel of Christ, which brings you into God’s family give you hope to live beyond your broken family by living by the Spirit. You are a treasure.
Nourish Scripture: Ephesians 5:21-6:9
by Aliene
Facing a battle? Seeking deliverance to make a difference? You will face situations in life that can only be resolved with prayer (Mark 9:29). Mighty woman of God, answer adversity with prayer and watch our Almighty God move mountains. You are not alone. You are not powerless. Jesus said there are some things in life that can ONLY be cast out through prayer. Under the enemy’s attack? Fall on your knees!
Inside today’s podcast, find inspiration and direction for a bolder prayer life so you can continue to the purist of your purpose and be all God created you to be!
Our personal prayer sheets, which can be found inside the Nourish Notebook, are designed to help you develop a bolder prayer life that flows from your study of God’s Word. Click here to order your Nourish Notebook today!
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by Aliene
Once surrounded by the shadows of shame from her wounded heart, the dark cloud of depression settled above her hiding light in her life. She felt heavy. Dark thoughts echoed in her head from the way she was treated. Seeking relief from the pain from shame, her temporary fixes only gave short-lived relief and slipped her soul into further darkness.
But then one day, someone shared the light of Christ with her. This Light pierced through the pain to see clearly beyond the words that wounded her heart and eclipsed her thinking. This light was powerful. The darkness could not overcome this light (John 1:4-5, Ephesians 5:8-9).
Jesus. The light of the world. Jesus carried both grace and truth to the world – to her. She saw herself differently. She saw God differently. He was love and truth.
The life of Christ awakened inside her and changed her completely. She found herself singing songs of praise and her heart found the beat of joy again.
Much like the light of candles that grow in a Christmas candlelight service as light is shared from one candle to another… someone brought this light to her, and now she wanted to make the most out of every opportunity to share this light with others.
At first, she was confused because she felt if she held out truth, she had to let go of love. And at other times she felt if she held out love, she had to let go of truth.
However, the Lord showed her truth defined love and love defined truth. It was not truth OR love. It was not one or the other. Both were needed, but in order to create the right balance, instead of hanging onto one or the other… Jesus told her– hang onto me by holding on tight to the Holy Spirit. As you are led by the Holy Spirit you will walk in love and truth so that they intertwine to create just the right current to carry my light to a dark broken world.
And as she was led by the Lord, a pattern of love and truth came so closely together that others saw the light of Jesus shining brightly in her.
Love and truth find perfect balance as we are filled with the Holy Spirit to share the light of Christ.
Light overcomes darkness. That’s godly girl power. Shine brightly. Love bravely.
ONWARD!
Nourish Scripture: Ephesians 5:1-20
by Aliene
Facing a spiritual battle? When the accuser’s arrows fly, LIFT YOUR SHIELD OF FAITH HIGH. Ephesians 6:16 refers to Satan’s attacks as flaming arrows. He draws back his bow and knows just the right arrow to launch your way. And sometimes, when those arrows feel like an avalanche, I put my efforts into “avoiding” the arrows through extreme self-protection, which causes anxiety and prevents me from passionately pursuing my purpose with fearless, childlike faith.
Know what I mean?
But God has another way. Treasured One, his truth for every brave heart in the battle is extinguishing the arrows instead of trying to avoid them. “In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.” (Ephesians 6:16)
In today’s podcast, discover how to lift your shield of faith. The world is a battlefield, and your brave heart makes a difference. Let’s do this!
Inside today’s podcast I reference the study Brave Heart. If you would like to download the first chapter free, click here.
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by Aliene
The wound in her soul was hidden to her eyes but not to her heart. The hurt continued to haunt her life as it seeped out of her soul and stepped into her thought life. No matter how hard she tried to forget what happened, her mind automatically reached into her soul and retrieved the repressed hurt, replaying it again and again. The wound owned her, and it was growing bigger even though her offender was miles away.
She wanted to be free. She felt powerless.
“Just forgive,” she heard her pastor say. “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one each other just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32).
But what IS forgiveness? Instead of this advice bringing freedom to her soul, it often brought frustration. She was tired of being a doormat others used to wipe their feet. But she had to do something. Her buried hurt emotions were building to the point of breaking her.
This struggle is my story. Is it yours too? Who doesn’t struggle with forgiving someone who hurt her heart?
Opposed to our human nature and often misunderstood, forgiveness is a hard concept to grasp. Forgiveness is not saying what happened was okay. Forgiveness does not mean forgetting what happened. Forgiveness does not mean trusting the person . . . but it does mean trusting God to handle the situation.
Forgiveness is letting go of your right to retaliate by releasing your offender to God.
If you retaliate, you are allowing your offender to control your life. If you repress your emotions or deny them, you’ll swallow that anger and plant the seed of bitterness in your soul. Revenge, repression, retaliation . . . they all put you in a prison. But releasing the offense to God allows the GREAT I AM to control your life. And with that release comes freedom.
Being real about your hurt and bringing that pain to God opens the door for healing. Showing love to your enemies dissolves your offender’s power to hurt you because it confirms God is in control of your life.
When you release others, you open your hands to receive from God, the only One who can redeem and restore.
God wants you to be powerful, not passive. But godly girl power does not rest in revenge—it rests in love. Love is a powerful force and puts God in control instead of your offender. Forgiveness carves a path for the mighty river of God’s love and power to flow to you—and through you to others!
God has a great purpose for your life. He wants you to spend your energy, your purpose—not dwelling on buried hurts or revenge, but focusing on his purpose for your journey. Focusing on God’s purpose for your life is an essential, effective way to live. You are not responsible for your offender’s actions, but you are responsible for how you respond. God saw what happened to you. He is not asking you to say what happened was okay—but he does want you to turn it over to him.
For you to be okay, you must treat the wound his way.
When you retaliate, your offender is in control. When you respond in love and forgiveness, God is in control. Forgiveness carves a path for the mighty river of his love and power to flow.
Who will rule your heart? Your offender . . . or God? God never gives us a command without promising the power to walk that truth. On your own, this love is impossible, but with God all things are possible. Don’t let your offender steal your power one more day. Wounds are never easy to deal with, – just for today take the first step…bring God your willing heart.
She told God she was ready to forgive. She didn’t want to, but that was okay. God wrapped his arms around her and told her if she was willing, he would help her. It was a process and didn’t happen overnight. But when she let go of the painful relationship and released that person to God, a door opened in her soul. Redemption came in and healed the raw wound in her heart. God redeemed all that had been lost in ways beyond anything she could have ever dreamed.
She was free. She was fearless. She was powerful . . . because she forgave!
(Jesus said the truth will set you free. At Treasured Ministries we believe that two of the biggest barriers to forgiveness are misconceptions about forgiveness and how to practically put this command into practice. To discover more about this topic listen to these two podcasts.
Nourish Scripture: Ephesians 4:24-32
by Aliene
The COVID-19 virus has brought an avalanche of anxiety, and it’s never been more important to answer the attack God’s way. One of the best ways to calm your heart in any storm is by speaking God’s word out loud each day.
But let’s be honest – this helpful habit is not easy to keep. Life is busy and this discipline, while it is vital for the health of your soul, can get lost in the shuffle especially amidst the storm of uncertainty we are all facing.
But when you stack speaking God’s word on top of another daily habit, you will find that it is much easier to make a part of your day. This process is called habit stacking. Here is how you can do this in three easy steps:
When Joshua was headed into battle God told him to meditate on the word day and night. Friends, we are in a battle with a silent enemy. Let’s speak the word of God each day and night to find courage for victory!
Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. (Joshua 1:8).
Almighty Father, when worry overcomes me, let me call on the one who is greater than any giant I may face. For greater is the Spirit that lives within me than the one in the world!
When the enemy attacks with his lies, let that be a trigger that turns me right to you. Help me to reject the thoughts that do not come from you Lord, and replace them with your truth.
I win over worry with worship.
Christ Jesus. Messiah. Healer. Defender. The name above every name. The Bread of Life, the Light of the World. My Anchor in the storm. Emmanuel—God with me. Jesus, my Kinsman Redeemer, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and End. My strength!
I close in prayer today asking you for what I need and thanking you in advance for what you will do today and tomorrow and what you have done in the past.
May your peace that surpasses my understanding of the situation guard my mind. Amen.
Download the Calm Your Heart Scriptures to battle anxiety God’s Way.
Blog written by Aliene Thompson. Aliene Thompson is the founder of Treasured Ministries and the Author of the Nourish Bible Study Series. © Copyright Treasured Ministries 2019
by Aliene
Forgiveness can be frustrating when figuring out exactly how to put it into action. But when someone gives you a road map, you can take steps of faith aligned with truth to find freedom and live in peace as God intended. For 35 years, Carla Ross has taught on forgiveness and today she shares her insight that will equip you like never before. Oh my, did I discover some amazing new revelations on forgiveness inside this interview! Listen in today and share with a friend.
Carla is currently on a sabbatical from Meredith College. She is working on researching the most important steps to forgive and writing a manual to guide individuals through the forgiveness process. She is honored to be working with Dr. Everett Worthington, the world-renowned scholar and publisher on forgiveness.
You can connect with Carla by emailing her at 70x7Counseling@gmail.com.
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