To Find your life or to lose it, that is the question!

Hi Ceci, I wrote this letter to Bonnie. Would you please read through it and send it on if it is appropriate? Thank you. I'll write again soon. Been up at the hospital all today and all day tomorrow. This is all I have time for. I love you and sleep well. Debbie

Debbie, I did make one comment below in red, and I'm going to post this outstanding letter of confession..... You are ordering your conversation aright and you will see the salvation of God...... that's what Mary did!!!! I remembered back on a time when I realized I never jumped over the fence of REALLY, REALLY wanting to do God's will. Hardships, trouble, all hell breaking loose, was a big benefit to REALLY wanting to jump the fence, which is what your letter is all about! IT'S OUTSTANDING, exciting, and I'm sure the Angles in heaven are rejoicing, and I pray that you are a blessing to every life you touch! We all have to come to the end of playing games with ourselves and our true inner motives. Love, Ceci


Hi Bonnie, Debbie here. Reading through your letter reminded me of a scripture that Gene gave me about a year before I left. It could have saved my life then. But, thank God He has given me chance after chance to pick things up that were not important to me at the time. It is Psalm 4:4. It says, "commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still". What Gene was trying to tell me was to be honest with myself about who I really was....commune with myself.
Then it says to be still. Stop trying to clean up the ouside of the cup, as Ceci always says. Stop doing all kinds of works to hide my shame and to try and put myself forth as someone who loved the Lord. I didn't love the Lord. I didn't care about His people. I just wanted to get my needs met, and if it meant ignoring who I really was and lying about it I was going to do that. Sadly, it caused everyone around me a lot of heartache, though. They could see who I was trying so hard to hide. So, I had to put up a fight to defend myself all of the time. I was always hiding. I didn't want to tell myself that truth, and I didn't want to give anyone else the opportunity to do so either. So, I hid from everyone. I wasn't going to take a chance on being found out. Talk about the emporer with no clothes on!!! I get it now. But, I sure thought that I was doing a good job of hiding then. If I did admit to any truth it was only because I felt like God was requiring a sacrifice from me.
I was really struck by what Linda wrote that Bob had said concerning the mens' meeting.....If Jesus stood in our midst would we start apologizing for everything our conscience condemned us in or would we just fall on our face in loving adoration and worship. I have been thinking about that a lot. That is SO deep. That is what happened to me in almost every meeting. Jesus would show up and I would start confessing everything that my conscience condemned me for. And, there was a lot, because I didn't bring anyhting to the light for help. I didn't do that because what I was hiding was that I didn't want to be a christian. I just wanted to be married and left alone to consume my husband. So, I became more and more sick because of the pretense I went to the meetings in.
The scripture asks the question about why are so many sick and weak and some sleep. Then it gives the answer....because we partake of the blood of Jesus unworthily. I was unworthy because I had no real intention of loving and serving Jesus and His people. I just wanted my husband to think good of me, so I went to meetings and pretended to be a christian.
Linda tried to talk to me about this also. But, again, I thought that she was wrong and that she was just nitpicking at me. I thought this all most all of the time and it nearly destroyed me. Not to mention the strain that she had to live with. What kind of person would I have been if I had listened and sincerely turned? What would my marriage have been like? How much heartache could I have spared so many people from? What a tragedy!!!!
Jesus would come in our midst in a meeting and I would feel compelled to give some apology for my life because I never did what Psalm 4 said. I would not lay on my bed and commune with my own heart. I spent all of my time protecting myself and my hidden agenda to consume Joe. I had no intention of living my life for Jesus and His cause. But, because I confessed my sins all of the time I decieved myself to think that I did. I would shame myself and others just about every time that I talked. It was my sacrifice for the fact that I was living my life to please me and not Jesus. It was my guilt offering.
Everything that I thought that I had overcome came back on me and more. It reminds me of the man that had been delivered from spirits but didn't fill his house. It says that the latter state of this man was worse than the first. That was me. I became more and more the way that I had been before I ever got saved. Which was being very wanton, accusing God of being cruel, not willing to meet my needs, looking to consume man and accuse and hate anyone who confonted me about it. I was pretty much given over to all of the familiars that the Lord had tried to deliver me from.
But, the Holy Spirit, through Gene had given me the answer. Psalm 4:4. I didn't take it as a pill to save my life. Look what happened. I kept hiding and lying about my condition and my whole life fell out from under me. The Lord made the way for me to come here where the only option is to commune with my own heart. There is no one else to blame. No one to try and suck the life out of. It is just me.
God had men set up cities of refuge in the old testemant. These cities were for men that had death sentences on them. They could go to cities of refuge and live there free from the threat of the death sentence. As long as they stayed in thise cities they were protected. That is sort of what the Lord did for me. I had a death sentence on me. So, the Lord opened the way for me to come here. This has been my city of refuge. It has not been pleasant here. I have been lonely and heart broken. But, it has been a time for me to commune with my own heart and get honest with myself. The difference is that I am not doomed to the city of refuge. I have come here and have been being freed by doing Psalm 4:4.
I have realized that there is no longer a death sentence on my life because of Jesus. Not just that He died for my sins, but because I have come to the place where I should have been all along...where every Christian should be...where we have all prayed to be so many times...and that is ...not my will, but Thine, Lord be done... Be it done unto me according to Thy will, oh Lord. That has taken the death sentence off of my head.
Had I been willing to do that there I would still have my marriage. Going back even farther...my sons would be serving the Lord because I would have been able to guide them. I would have been able to help them find the way to get the death sentence off of thier lives. OH, how my life would have been different if when I became a christian I would have really became a christian and signed "the contract", as we have heard Gene say so many times.
Ceci used to always tell me that I was my own sacrifice for my sins. That I put myself up on the cross instead of looking to Jesus as the one that paid my death sentence. I had to make my own sacrifices of guilt laden, shameful confessions because I was the Lord of my life. I had no real intention of changing after making these confessions. I made them merely out of guilt. I wasn't really sorry.
Linda used to talk to me about godly sorrow versus worldly sorrow. I was so sure that she was wrong about me having only worldly sorrow, not a sorrow that is sad because I hurt Jesus. I was so decieved. Maybe it was because I would not hear her that I became more and more blind. I thought I knew. After all, I was the lord of my kingdom and heart. I knew me, she didn't. I was so wrong!!!
So, week after week I would burden myself with the worries of going to another meeting and having to shame myself with another confession to ease my guilty conscience. Having to sacrifice for my own sins because I had no sacrifice from Jesus to cover me. The word says that if we do despite to the grace of God there is no longer a sacrifice for our sins. I had done despite over and over again by refusing to give my life up to the one that did die for my sins. I wanted only my own pleasure.
Now, I know that Jesus can be the sacrifice beause I am trying to die daily into His will, not mine. I am not saying that I don't struggle with different desires and different hopes, but I want very much to do things His way. I am actually afraid not to. Maybe that is what the "fear of the Lord" is. A fear that I could choose to do things my own way again. I hope and pray that the next meeting that I am in and Jesus shows up, I will be found praising, worshipping and thanking Him for His sacrifice of His life for mine. I hope that I am not found saying I am sorry for all of the things that I am still Lord of in my life. I hope that I can be found in surrender. I think that that is the key to life. Being willing to surrender my throne and my authority. I think there is a scripture that says we must lose our life to find it. (Yes there is Debbie, and it also says if you try and save your life you will lose it! That's why you couldn't help the other women in your life that were trying to save their lives..... all along, from the day that Dawn walked into your life. That's what I'm seeing, when you lose your life and receive the ones God sends it builds you up, so you are not destroyed, but the carnal man thinks just the opposite!)
I will add, that even though it has been hard for me here to be alone with my regrets, in some strange way it has been a good time. I have come to know that God is good, and what He says about carrying us through many trials is true. I used to think that He was a respecter of persons. He turned Cecis' mourning into dancing, but He wouldn't mine. How wrong I was!!! I have a favorite song that Robin Mark sings that says, "He raises the poor from the dust, and lifts the needy from the ashes". That is what He has done for me here. He has carried me through. All the Psalms are true after all!
But, I had to realize the death sentence on me. I had to come here. It was not Gods' divine will for my life to end up like this. But, even in the world there is a saying that says, "drastic times call for drastic measures".
One more thing....I was sure a short time into my time here I was ready to go back to Montana. I had learned all that I needed to learn and I was ready to be released from my city of refuge. I was sure that I had been rehabilitated enough. After a couple of emails with Gene and Ceci I realized that I wasn't "rehabilitated" at all. I was ready to go back and try and suck the life out of Joe once again. Now I only pray two things concerning my future..."Thy will be done, Lord" and "be it done unto me according to Thy will, oh Lord". I have come to realize that He sees the big picture and He knows what is best for me. All I see is what is in front of me based on desire and emotion. The way I figure it is that I have never been able to choose wisely.
I was thinking about Esther the other night. She did not give the eunich all of her desires when asked what she wanted to have before seeing the king. She let the eunich choose. I realized when I was praying, that even though I have desires I am going to let the Lord choose what is best for me. It worked for Esther. She won the kings favor. It worked for Ruth. She won Boaz' favor. It worked for David. He won tremendous battles that seemed impossible to win. It worked for Joshua. He only had to play music and took an entire city. It worked for Ceci. She is honored and revered by her husband and us. But, most of all, it worked for Jesus. He sits as king and master of everything that is, was or ever will be.....all because of saying, "not my will, but thine be done."
Anyway, Bonnie, I hope that this letter will help you have some vision in your city of refuge. I'll sign off for now. May you feel the Lords' hand upon your life during this time. My love to you, Debbie