Welcome to Women of Valour which is about
YOU
experiencing your freedom in Christ, being set free,
experiencing the love of God, and opening your blinded eyes
Isaiah 61:1
The thing that we believe will kill us
is the VERY thing that makes us stronger and
who we are meant to be.
The Holy Spirit hit me with this thought: God takes our Trash and turns it into Treasure. As I looked up pictures and images about trash to treasure I saw that the title of this blog post is the motto for recycling. God takes the things about us that we know and believe are jacked up and HE transforms them into something that He can use for HIS glory and our good.
You may ask: 'What Trash?' The trash of our 'stinking thinking' as Joyce Meyer says. It is also our attitudes, motives, and actions toward ourselves and life.
YOUR thought processes/mindsets matters the most.
(Proverbs 23:7)
God Himself gave life to us through Jesus Christ. (John 10:10) People can speak life to us. They can lay hands on us and pray for us. They can even cast out demonic forces. But, we can:
- choose to go back into the same mess
- choose not to believe or receive what the Holy Spirit says or has done within us
- then nothing changes and we stay the same: miserable and disgusted within ourselves
TESTIMONY: I was asked to take out two bags of trash which I did. When I did, I saw the plastic green trash can sitting beside our building full of trash. So, I rolled it over to the dumpster. When I fully opened it; there were baby diapers in a trash bag which had been torn. The stench was _________________. Let's just say it was NASTY!!! So, I had to maneuver the bags until all of them were in the dumpster. The more bags I lifted the nastier the smell became. I came to realize that the bags as well as the trash can itself was filthy. The trash can could NOT empty itself; it needed help. It had to be brought to the dumpster and emptied. It was a willing participant. (Read on we are going somewhere with this.)
God brought that picture to me of emptying the trash as I started writing this blog. Our sins are NASTY to God. If you know how a diaper hamper smells it was worse than that. God wants to clean us out but HE has given us free will as HIS children to ask for HIS help and choose. When you ask HE is going to do EXCEEDINGLY MORE.
We have three options:
1) We can either sit there and complain while still being full of trash.
2) We can be close to dumping the trash in our mindsets but never fully get there without some help.
3) We can choose to participate in the process of God's transformation process within our lives.
Where does our help come from?
It comes from
OUR Father,
HIS Word,
Us speaking, and
people speaking into our lives
the truth about who we really are.
You may ask, How do I participate? You participate by asking the Holy Spirit to help you.- You can read a devotional like Our Daily Bread which references the Bible. (This is something simple that will go a long way if you start practicing it.)
- You can Google things in the Bible that you are dealing with like shame, depression, unloved, hopeless, etc.
- You can download the You Version Bible App to read the Bible. (Phone, Tablet,or Computer)
- You can start speaking what you are reading in the Bible about love, hope, peace, joy, etc. about you.
- You can start coming against the lies you have believed by speaking the truth.
- You can find a church and Bible Study in your area.
- You can get around other like minded people. (The ones that you can fellowship with to help build you up instead of keep/hold you down.
You need the HOLY SPIRIT!!!YOU CANNOT DO THIS ALONE!!!
If you do, it is called behavior modification and it will NOT last.
I have tried it many times.
When I thought about the trash can, it did not resist going to the dumpster. I thought about how many times I have resisted. My sinful self does not want to be transformed but my spiritual self does. Therefore, I have learned and understand that we can resist God's transforming power in our lives. It is called freewill.
Let's start with my attitude. My attitude was nasty toward God, people, and life in general. My thinking and I was nasty just like the trash can. I was torn and the deeper I dug the nastier I became. BUT Jesus came in and started cleaning up this trash can/house/temple. HE started with the torn parts of me and then continued to dig until the mess was gone. I am not telling you something I read in a book but what I have lived through and now have the victory.
God wants to clean out the torn parts of you and dig into the depths of the hurt/shame/painful parts of you. Many times it will hurt and bring about more hurt as HE walks you through the messes of your NASTY attitudes and thoughts to discover the answers to:
- Why am I seeing myself as worthless?
- Why am I mad at the world?
- Why am I disgusted with me?
- Why am I holding everyone else accountable/blaming everyone but me?
- Why am I blaming only myself and no one else?
- Why am I still in the relationship I know is going no where?
- Why am I still holding onto grudges from a year, 5 years, 10 years ago?
- Why am I still blaming myself/God for things not going right in my life?
I played ALL of these mental games and they led me to build up walls around myself that I honestly believed were protecting me. Self protection is not protection. The Holy Spirit has since taught me that the ONLY One who can actually protect me is My Daddy, God. HE is also the ONLY One who can protect you.
Can I tell you that there is a new aroma. I WAS MEAN and NASTY. People that know me now say they cannot imagine that. This means that the change was NOT orchestrated by Andrea but by JESUS the Christ. I can change my behavior for a time but true transformation can ONLY come from and through Christ Jesus. HE is my new aroma. But I had to participate in the process and so do you.
How do you see yourself? When you look in the mirror, Do you see a Treasure or do you see Trash? You may not say, "I am trash." But your thought processes are trash if you say to yourself:
- You will never do or be ____________________.
- No one will ever love me.
- I can't lose the weight
- I will always have this problem
- I will always be overweight
- I will always be unlovable
- I will never own my own home
- I will never get married (again)
- I will never have children
- I will always be on the outside looking in
- I will never be apart
- I will never fit in
- I will always be an outsider
- I will always blame God for taking my Mother, Father, child, etc
- I will always be alone or lonely
- I will always be ugly
- I will never conquer this addiction
Stop allowing fear to stop you
from showing the world
who you actually are!!!
-Andrea Monroe
-Andrea Monroe
I LOVE YOU, LADIES
BUT GOD LOVES YOU MORE THAN YOU CAN EVER COMPREHEND!!!
BUT GOD LOVES YOU MORE THAN YOU CAN EVER COMPREHEND!!!
******************
PRAYER: Daddy, Open our eyes to see ourselves the way You see us. Give us the strength to bring our problems to You instead of trying to figure out and mess things up. Father, we cannot solve our problems. We need You and Your wisdom to help us. Let your Word come alive to and within each one of us like never before. It is Your Word that we need to change our perspective and situations. Show us that we are made wonderfully complex by You! Open our eyes, ears, and heart to see and listen to You. Holy Spirit, heal the broken, painful, and dark places inside of us. We touch and agree with You, Holy Spirit, for the testimony that we can share concerning the new perspectives You have given us. In Jesus' Name, Amen!!!
QUESTIONS:
Are you willing to participate in your own transformation?
How will you start today?
I pray something you read touched your heart to walk closer to God.
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