I am always so beyond belief when God reveals something to me….shows me something….reminds me of something! But this…this is beyond amazing and I’ve got to tell you about it! We serve the Powerful Lord God Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth and nothing is ever too difficult for HIM!

Grab a seat and cup of coffee as you sit back and see His mighty hand at work…spanning across the years, yet again!

I hope you have read how God brought me through the worst years of my life back in 2001-2002…if not, please do so now. Nothing could have prepared me, like that time period of depression, for answering His call to lead this group…now going on 4 years!

Hopefully you have also read the miraculous “post-it note” God gave me during that horrific time period. If not, please take a moment now and read it as it will explain so much for what God has just revealed…as He has now revealed the circle around us!

You see, Kelley and I have been reading the Circle Maker by Mark Batterson, which has opened our eyes to so much more of all God has for us with regard to Anchored HOPE. God has used this book to draw us into an even deeper walk with Him and oh the trust! Faith is blind trust ya know! So as we continue leading HOPE and prayerfully seeking His will regarding the group and the future of the group, we picked up the Draw the Circle devotional by Mark Batterson. The introduction identifies the logistics of a prayer challenge by saying “…But whatever you do, don’t do this alone.” So Kelley and I are reading it and prayerfully going through on our own, but together too.

Our time at First Baptist Church for meeting Thursdays for HOPE group was to last 6 months. We have continued praying God would open up the next door for us so we did not have a time period where we had no meeting place, ideally it would sync up to our time period at First Baptist and no complications…well He has done that…sort of!

You see God can do whatever He desires, however He desires, whenever He desires! The fact that He chooses to let us get a glimpse of what He is doing is just beyond amazing! He doesn’t have to…He could keep us in limbo until that door opens, but He’s sooooooooo good all the time, and all the time God is good! Here it is the middle of May and we still aren’t sure where our next meeting place will be, yet First Baptist has not ended our 6 month time period, we are still able to meet there week after week (we’ll see if that’s still the case after this post LOL – but hey I trust God has got this as well!)

The longer this time period drags on, the more uneasy I have become, along with other of life’s difficulties, I find myself second-quessing, even questioning what God has revealed to us for Anchored HOPE. God has brought us a third person (Stacie) that we had been praying for with regard to Anchored HOPE, but still so many unanswered questions with regard to how, when and where….you know the key details for any organization in order to press onward! So we’ve all been praying and grasping for answers, signs …and finally we have received the answer from God in the form of the very thing we have been doing for months…drawing the circle…only this time it’s God revealing the circle He’s been working on for YEARS!!!

Okay so you’re caught up on where things stand, how they began and what all God has done…well as an answer to our prayers regarding what next, where, and how…God has revealed this circle He’s been working on since 2001…or perhaps even before time began based on His Word and how He knows everything about us since before we were ever formed in our mother’s womb – Psalm 139! Ah…His Word is so good…I could get side-tracked on that alone! But back to His revealing the circle! Remember that “post-it note” and how it was an answer to my prayers, but I was too wounded, too stuck in the midst of the mire and pit of depression to ever begin to see it, instead I was angry, angry at Him, at God Almighty. Fast forward 14 years and how He is using that very depression I nearly died from, nearly lost my family to, and bringing HIS ultimate hope to so many, not just here in Clarksville, but all around the world! And yet the details of a ministry can be so consuming, frustrating, and exciting all at the same time! But have I told you lately what a Mighty God we serve! Oh He is oh so good…as we all have been searching for answers, prayerfully seeking what, how, when He would have us do next, especially in light of the fact our time was up at First Baptist as of last December…wouldn’t you know God uses that very same message on the “post-it note” to give us HIS answer! Through a sermon Stacie shared with us from Jentesen Franklin, special emphasis on section 12-35 minutes of the sermon, God gives us an example of none other than His children, the Israelites, the most discussed lesson in our HOPE group meetings. After all the Israelites have witnessed, after all they have experienced first hand of God’s love, God’s power, and God’s faithfulness, they still go by their own thoughts, their own ways rather than consulting the Lord as we are shown in Joshua 9. They end up being tricked by the people of Gibeon…which leads them into a lifetime of more hardships because of their limited knowledge and forsaking the counsel of God! “God is our Shepherd and He loves when we ask Him for advice, wisdom….it is prideful to not seek Him in all we do,” says Franklin.

²¹ Your own ears will hear him. Right behind you a voice will say, “This is the way you should go,” whether to the right or to the left.

Isaiah 30:21
New Living Version (NLT)

Then check out this out….

¹⁶ I will lead blind Israel down a new path, guiding them along an unfamiliar way. I will brighten the darkness before them and smooth out the road ahead of them. Yes, I will indeed do these things; I will not forsake them.

Isaiah 42:16
New Living Version (NLT)

²⁷ My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.

John 10:27
New Living Version (NLT)

“In other words, there will be a voice behind you, if you will seek His counsel. There will be a voice in front of you, and there will be a voice inside of you and there’s no way you are going to be deceived if you are asking the counsel of the Lord with a voice in front of you, behind you and inside of you. If you will seek His counsel, God already has a solution! If you will seek His counsel, God already has a procedure! There’s an unseen Hand that wants to guide our lives.” says Jentesen Franklin

When is the last time you sought the counsel of the Lord? I am always seeking His counsel… but here’s what I learned through this entire circle God has allowed me to see: sometimes the answer is so clear we can’t even see it…because we don’t like the answer He’s given us — especially when God answers “wait”.

The New Living Translation explains this even better…

“So the Lord must wait for you to come to Him so He can show you His love and compassion. For the Lord is a faithful God. Blessed are those who wait for His help.”

Isaiah 30:18-19
New Living Version (NLT)

He is waiting for us to come to Him so He can show us His love and compassion. He is faithful! And He blesses those who wait for His help! I don’t think it can be any plainer or simplified than this — do you?

Here we are doing as God has called us to do, leading the HOPE group both at the Ajax Senior Center in Clarksville on Tuesday mornings, Thursday nights at First Baptist Church, and online as well as social media…yet there is an urgency we have put on ourselves for some reason. No one has told us to get out or move on or that we are no longer welcome here. So just because a few “Gibeonites” have entered into our lives, we feel we are at a place to move on…yet that’s not what God has said to us.

The urgency we feel has been placed on us by our fears, doubts, and maybe even our enemy…but I never want to give the enemy that much credit.

We have allowed our minds and life struggles to sidetrack us the past few months from seeking the Lord to seeking what’s next! We are following the footsteps of none other than the wayward Israelites! Weary and worn from 400 years of slavery in Egypt…no problem for God — 10 plaques later. No food or water…no problem for God — manna from the sky and water from a rock later. Enemy charging behind them and Red Sea ahead of them…still no problem for God — He parts the sea and drowns the enemy! Yet they still allowed their minds to be overcome by fear!

We are no different! We see things happening all around us, and within our lives and it causes us to fear, doubt and seek solutions apart from God. We revert back to old behavior patterns because we understand those, we are comfortable in those and we feel in control…completely forgetting how they always leave us wounded even worse, and completely separate from God!

What if we just follow Him at His Word…

“Be still, and know that I am God!”

Psalm 46:10a (NLT)

But that’s too easy…and too hard at the same time! We have been raised in this life to work for what we have, want or desire. We have been trained as well as taught that nothing comes from nothing…so we think we have to do more. “Be still” is so completely opposite of what we know, trust or desire. And yet God simply desires us to trust Him, wait on Him, rest in Him!

Even as I have been writing this post the past week…God continues to allow us to see glimpses of what He has already done! How could we NOT trust His Divine plan in His Divine time!

My friend, if you are struggling with depression and anxiety or just the fears every day life brings our way…my heartfelt prayer for you is to seek Him, trust Him…He loves you! I have been where you are. I do understand. And trust me when I say with all my heart…please truly trust Him!

For more information regarding Anchored HOPE please contact us.

Decide to turn my will and my life over to the care of God Almighty. This is the 3rd step on the Road to Recovery. By now you have already admitted you are powerless to depression and that your life has become unmanageable. And you have chosen to believe God can restore you to sanity. Deciding to turn our will and our life over to His care is a second by second, minute by minute and day by day decision. It isn’t something we do once and we are done and magically all cured from depression. Don’t misunderstand here…God still performs miracles all the time! I’ve witnessed and received several myself, but God did not choose to heal me from depression.

Do you go through day after day, week after week and feel as though you literally blinked and another month has just flown by? You aren’t alone! Time is passing us by so quickly…and instead of technology making things more efficient and increasing our time, it actually sucks more of our time without us even realizing it! Binge watching Netflix, or Hulu consumes not just hours, but days of our time. Computers, internet, phones, games, it all sucks hours away from our lives all throughout the day and night, daily!

That’s why the time is now for us to seek The Lord, now to press in and get to know The Creator of the world, The Author and The Finisher! We cannot afford to waste anymore time!

So that brings us to why you haven’t decided to turn your life over to God already…what have you got to lose, what is holding you back? Is it something from your childhood that prevents you from giving God a chance? Have you ever truly given Him a chance to show you Who He truly is and wants to be in your life? All the things this world has to offer us are never going to fully satisfy us like only God can!

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”

Romans 12:2

Why not get to know The One that created you, knew you before you were formed in your mother’s womb, The One that was here before time began and will exist for all eternity?! If God loved you so much, that He gave His one and only Son to suffer and die to pay the penalty for your sins…all the while knowing you have a choice whether to choose to love Him or choose to walk away from Him…why not give Him a chance? I know there will never be another to do for you what God has already done for you!

God knows the desires of our hearts even better than we know ourselves! He is waiting for you to come to Him, just as you are. If you are ready to take this step, please contact me so we can talk! Your life is just waiting to be changed forever! Are you ready to decide? My prayer for you is that you will decide today to stop letting depression rule and ruin each day of your life and choose today to let God rule and fulfill each day like never before! It is only through Jesus Christ that we can live now with all joy and fullness God has for us!

“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”

John 10:10

For more information regarding Anchored HOPE please contact us.

In a world where we have technology and the ability to stay in closer communication than ever before, it seems we actually are more alone than ever before. Social media gives us a false sense of connection. It gives us the perception that people all around us are living wild and free or the “good life” with little to no effort at all. All the while you are drowning in darkness, despair, a pain you can’t even begin to explain. And if you even tried to explain it to your spouse, or loved ones, they think you are crazy or weak. You feel numb. You feel that you are all alone struggling to breathe, much less function in every day life. You have been silently suffering in a pit of despair and agony. No one seems to notice you, your pain, much less truly care. You feel as though there is no purpose for you in this life. You feel as though this world would be better off without you.

Please do not believe those lies any more!

If you are considering ending your life, please don’t!

God loves you! There are others that love you!

And I love you and I am praying for you…and we haven’t even met yet!

Please call 911 if you are considering suicide. Please call your doctor. Or please try Lifeline – it is free, it is anonymous. You can either call them at 1-800-273-8255 or go to their website and chat with a skilled, trained crisis worker.

For a lot of us dealing with depression, social media can all too easily become our “way of living”…and with that can actually come a greater feeling of loneliness, misperceptions and false sense of living, that leads to an emptiness for that deep longing in our soul!

“In the beginning,” God created us in His image – Genesis 1:26-31. We were told to “be fruitful and multiply“. In Genesis 2 we see more details surrounding when God created man from the dust of the ground. Yet still, with all God had created, “there was no helper comparable for man.” So God created another human being, “It is not good for man to be alone,” Genesis 2:18. God never meant for man to be alone on earth so He gave us companionship in family and friends. But there’s still something He gave us that is far superior to even those…He gave us HIMSELF!

We live in a time where technology has increased our ability to develop new friends! Yet so many of us have lost the skillset of genuine relationships along the way. It is all too easy to hide behind our screen, create an image we want to be seen as and live vicariously through everyday life… until the emptiness is too overwhelming to go on any more, until reality shakes us to our core, until the emptiness is all we feel.

What is even worse, is that we live in a time where we expect a “pill” or quick fix for everything…even depression. Let me tell you a little secret…after personally dealing with depression for over 30 years, there is only one way to live above and beyond the depression that seeks to “steal, kill and destroy” your life and that is by Jesus Christ alone!

God created us to have a relationship with HIM! How does one go about having a relationship with the Creator of the world? We are told in the Bible,

“So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world. Let there be tears for what you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter and gloom instead of joy. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up in honor.”

James 4:7-10

How different would our lives look if we truly did this…if we truly came to God in this manner…if we truly realized how the Creator of the world longs to be in relationship with us! So much so that He, knowing all things, still sent His one and only Son to pay the penalty for our sins, past, present and future, so we could have the opportunity to be in a relationship with HIM! He loves us THAT MUCH! I don’t know about you, but I don’t know anyone else that’s ever proved they loved me that much! ONLY GOD!

So you might be asking yourself, that’s all well and good, but how is that supposed to fix my depression? The answer my friend is so simple, that it’s hard to believe…and even harder to just do!

SURRENDER….yes, surrender! Stop trying to do life on your own! Stop living your way, cause obviously it hasn’t gotten you where you want to go or you would not be here in the midst of depression. Or perhaps you feel as though you have lived a good, honest life and you do not deserve what life has thrown at you. Regardless of how you have found yourself in the midst, the mire of depression…I promise you this, there is nothing so sweet as when you decide to surrender to God your all and choose to live life His way. Even with chronic health problems, chronic pain and clinical depression, I can honestly say life is still better after having surrendered to God and choosing to live His way each day.

For more information regarding Anchored HOPE please contact us.