View Screen-Reader Accessible Site

Search

Login

Login  |  Register

Celebrate Recovery

What Do You Believe About Yourself?
I was struck by the speed in which my neighbors pine tree turned from a healthy 25’ foot pine tree to an amber dead one. I didn’t even know it was sick. When I saw a few branches turning color I thought it must have a bug in the branch that has injured it. As I periodically viewed the tree I could see that the whole inside portion had turned an orange color. Today as I view the completely auburn needles of this once beautiful pine tree, I see that death has claimed it. No longer is there any green left, just a tree still standing with pine needles of orange hue. Ultimately it will be cut down, tossed away forever and forgotten. I asked the neighbor if he know what happened but he was as mystified as I was. The trees next to it, though not pine, were unaffected. It still stands there but I know there is no life in it anymore. It is officially a dead tree.

In some ways our lives, like this beautiful pine tree, can be affected by some mysterious sickness that causes us to feel dead inside. God has given us emotions to respond to him, and each other with love and affection. Satan’s lie’s perverts this truth causing us to believe we are unlovable and deserve condemnation which produces shame and guilt. What we believe about ourselves can be caustic to our health as well as relationships.

In our Search for Significance study we have learned four statements that prove our worth in life. Though we can say this and recognize it as truth, we don’t always believe it.  Thoughts that contradict these truths are lies. Sometimes lies are what rule our whole outlook on life and our relationships. We have a belief system that states lies to us like: “I can’t be fully pleasing to God I mess up all the time, to be pleasing to God, I’d have to be perfect” causes us to respond in anger at our mistakes or worse. These lies have bound us up and kept us from feeling good about ourselves.
  • I am deeply loved by God 
  • I am completely forgiven and am fully pleasing to God
  • I am totally accepted by God
  • I am complete in Christ

Because every situation in our life is interpreted by what we believe, our belief system-not the situation-is the key to our response! Our family background, past experiences and relationships also affect our reactions in situations. What we believe affects our thoughts and produces emotions that cause us to react. Feelings are neither right nor wrong. They are signals that tell us something about our surroundings. When our emotions are painful we need to ask why before the needles fall off of the tree.
We may have learned to repress painful emotions because we didn’t want to believe that something was wrong with our families, our source of stability and security. Some of us have become numb, unable to feel either anger or joy, hurt or love. Some of us have developed a habit of forgetting difficult instances and there accompanying pain as a defense mechanism. 
 
There are many different ways to block pain and try to gain a sense of worth, but we need to begin reversing this trend by finding someone who will encourage us to be honest about our feelings.

This is where our Celebrate Recovery groups can help. We have all had a life that has produced some dead needles, but before the whole tree is engulfed in that orange hue, come and join us so you can change the outcome of your life with real people who are there and have been there and a God who truely does understand and love you unconditionally.