This is the 4^th month of a year-long Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) discussion group at the Ark.  It is amazing to me!  God keeps encouraging us.  One example: the ActiveHeroes.org’s 22 Pushups Challenge going worldwide.

Statistics show that 22 veterans commit suicide each day. The challenge is for people to do 22 pushups a day for 22 days to honor struggling soldiers.  Recovery from PTSD first requires awareness.  Second, it requires love and trust to encourage the wounded to ask for help and support.  This reminds me of how Jesus left the 90 and 9 to find just one lost sheep.  One is worth it all!  I always knew this, but the PTSD group is bringing new awareness.  Our group is based purely on faith and availability, and our veterans voted to open the group to others suffering from PTSD.  They are still serving.  Do keep this mission in earnest prayer.

Our Deaf Signing classes have started again.  At the Coffeehouse on September 30, beginning signers and people who are deaf came together and learned by sharing and fellowship.

Enrollment is huge for this Anger Management Resolution and Domestic Violence Prevention Class .  My husband, Garry, reminded me to put Resolution back into Anger Management classes.  We don’t just want to manage anger; we want the skills to resolve anger.  We all know violence comes out of anger (which may be hidden or suppressed) until it erupts in rage and violence.  Proverbs 29:20 states, “Do you see a man who is hasty in his words?  There is more hope for a fool than for him.”

Have you ever said, “I wish I hadn’t said that”?  Over and over scripture warns and tells us to wait before the Lord.  One way to resolve anger is to ASK the Holy Spirit to help, lead, and show each of us correct responses.  If we don’t ask, we won’t receive.  At 83, I am still learning to wait and ask for Holy Spirit help.  Romans 8:26 says, “In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.”

The Recovery Devotional Bible reminds us: “Fortunately, God is aware of the problem and offers His own Spirit to pray with us and for us.”  No matter our ages, we must continue to seek God’s will.  He knows the way through the wilderness and walks with us “through the valley of the shadow of death.”  (Psalms 23:4)  “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of sound mind, peace, joy, and love and self-control”. (II Timothy 1:7)

Satan tempts children, even adult children with fear of rejection, abuse, anger, lack, and abandonment.  Traumatic experiences triggered by Satan (often called “flashbacks”) may be activated by a harsh tone of voice, a certain scent or reminder of a past bad decision. Those hinder forward motion in today’s life journey.  Unrealistic self-expectations can weaken today’s self-respect.  The Holy Spirit’s gentleness and touch can show us that He protects us in our daily lives.  I am circling the words “show and tell” in my Bible.  As a teacher, Jesus used show and tell, as does Father God.

Toxic or incorrect thinking causes 87% of today’s illnesses according to scientific studies. As Jack Hawkins’ teaching on “Possessing the Mind of Christ” encourages: we must adapt and adjust our thinking and so manage responses to current events.  Yes, we do “have the mind of Christ.”  Please read: I Corinthians 2:14-16.

Scripture says, “Be holy because I am holy.”  (I Peter 1:16)  Holy (without fault) means perfect; and with Him, in Him and Him in us, we can be holy.  We must continually renew our minds to the Word.

Consider: I Corinthians 2:14-16: “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.  But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one.  For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him?  But we have the mind of Christ.”

Yes, God wants each born-again believer to have that same discernment of Christ.  We are the temples of the Holy Spirit.  My desire is to have Christ functionally-formed and living through each of us here on earth.  Jesus, Himself tells us to go and do the things He did.  Consider this: “For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”  (II Corinthians 4:11)

Do you desire this?  I do.  My mentor in Prison Ministry is still teaching me to think not as a prosecutor whose quest is to condemn, but as the Savior whose heart is to redeem.  We must stop making excuses, taking the comfortable, convenient path of least resistance with little or no effort.  That response often leads to failure.

I Peter 1:19-25 reminds us, when we pray, we call Him “Father”:  “He judges all people by the same standard according to what each one has done… we are to spend the rest of our lives here on earth in reverence for Him… it was the costly sacrifice of Christ, like a lamb without defect or flaw… through Him we have believed in God, who raised Him from death and gave Him glory; and so our faith and hope are fixed on God… by our obedience to the truth we purify ourselves… and come to have a sincere love for other believers, and love one another earnestly with all our heart. For through the living eternal word of God… [we] have been born again as children of a parent who is immortal, not mortal… the word of the Lord remains forever.”

This is the Good News that He wants us to proclaim!  He wants us to “grow up and be saved…”  (I Peter 2:2)  Each believer is “chosen by God as valuable.  Come as living stones and let yourselves be used in building the spiritual temple, where you will serve as holy priests… But you are a chosen race, the King’s priests, the holy nation, God’s own people chosen to proclaim the wonderful acts of God.  He called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”  (I Peter 2:4-9)

One of the important steps is your submission to the words of Father God and the leading of the Holy Spirit to listen, meditate on His word and then, obey.  “For the sake of the Lord, submit yourselves to (every) human authority: to the Emperor, who is supreme authority, and to governors, who have been appointed by him [the Emperor] to punish evildoers and to praise those who do good… God wants you to silence the ignorant talk of foolish people by the good things you do!  Live as free people; do not, however, use your freedom to cover up any evil, but live as God’s slaves.  Respect everyone, love other believers, honor God and respect the Emperor.”  (I Peter 2:15-17)  Only with daily renewal of our mind, Christ’s mind in us, can we duplicate His works and obey His word.Today, be made whole and continue on this journey realizing you have been chosen to serve Him…  You, by grace, ARE the righteousness of Christ…  He lives in each of us… the Holy Spirit, teaching, guiding and comforting us… as we daily renew our minds in the mind of Christ…  “because God had decided on an even better plan for us.  His plan [is] that only in company with us would we be made perfect.”  (Hebrews 11:40)