Thanksgiving!
Two ladies at the Home of Grace for Women experienced salvation last week with tears of joy! One hugged Linda for the longest time saying, “Thank You, Thank so much!”
I simply present the Word of God and how it has worked for me as a recovering person. That is all it takes.
Last Thursday night after speaking at the Wings of Life, Craig, a man in his fifties, came up and gripped my hand and said “Thank You!” Then he said, “You were the first preacher I heard when I entered this program a week ago. After that meeting I knelt by my bed and invited Jesus into my heart and He became my Lord.”
To think that God Almighty could use my simple witness to impact a life eternally is incomprehensible! These experiences happen every week in all our venues of ministry!
How long has it been since you told someone about “the most important person” in your life? I submit that part of good mental and spiritual health is sharing our story with others. More importantly, it may be pivotal in someone’s journey.
What great joy when someone recognizes salvation in Christ alone! What a great joy to provide a safe place for wounded souls to find healing and then bravely offer healing to others!
During this Thanksgiving season, Linda and I want you to know how much we appreciate your continued support as we go to labor in the harvest fields each week to minister in His name. Your investment is resulting in souls being added to His Kingdom and wounded lives being made whole. Thank You!
Fellowship and Meditation upon God’s Word Improve Perspectives…
Malachi 3:15-17 (NKJV)
So now we call the proud blessed, for those who do wickedness are raised up; they even tempt God and go free.
Then those who feared the LORD spoke (often) to one another and the LORD listened and heard them; so a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the LORD and who meditate on His name.
“They shall be Mine,” says the LORD of hosts (Heaven’s armies), “On the day that I make them My jewels and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.”
Hebrews 10:24-25 (NLT)
Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works and let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.
Ken is one of the brave hearted Discovery Group brothers. This testimony is presented with his permission.
At first we do not know the depths of a wounded heart. Then, when we listen, we hear familiar sounds of God’s transforming power! Then, we relax and rejoice! Discovery Groups are a confidential, caring safe place for those experiencing life crises, no matter what the presenting problem may be.
My Story
I recognize that I do suffer with abandonment issues. I was given up for adoption by a birth mother I never knew and a birth father that may not have even been aware of my presence within my mother's womb. God blessed me however with an adoptive family that was connected with the religious sisters who operated the hospital where I was born. Unfortunately, my adoptive father was accidentally electrocuted while using a power saw, leaving the only woman I ever knew as mother, alone to raise a son (9 yrs old), myself (2 ½ yrs old), another son (1 yr old) and another son in her womb. After only two and a half years, the bond with the only father I knew was traumatically broken.
My mother raised four boys on her own for the next eight years. She, then married a man who had three daughters and one son and the families became one. My new stepfather decided to move the family to a college town where he was offered an opportunity to attain his PHD in civil engineering while also earning a great living teaching engineering. This was a great move for him, but for me, not so much. This move occurred in the middle of my freshman year in high school and it seemed to me that I was forced to leave everything and everyone that was important to me and I never really connected with my stepfather because of my ill feelings. Thus, I felt abandoned by him too. I was sad and lonely.
I reacted in a completely self-centered way. I turned inward and shut down. A scout leader molested me and I learned that sexual feelings and fantasy made me feel good and the sexual floodgates opened. I quit football even though my coach assured me that he thought I had the talent to move to the next level. Very quickly I became obsessed with sex. I habitually sought sexual release because it felt good. The trouble was, that good feeling did not last very long, so when I started feeling those sad, lonely feelings again I would seek that sexual release again and this turned into a vicious sexual addiction cycle that I would live with for the next twenty-four years.
All addictions are progressive. This simply means that an addict will require more and more of whatever his drug of choice is, in order to achieve the same high. For me, as a sex addict, the progressive nature of my sex addiction led me to progress from simple photos to more suggestive photos to pornography to seeking people who would be willing to do progressively immoral things. I was willing to take advantage of innocence, even neglecting my own children in order that my lust might be fed. I hit bottom when someone signed a warrant for my arrest for making a harassing phone call. I was court ordered to undergo psychological examination and treatment. After six months of treatment the group I was working with labeled me as an antisocial personality with little hope of recovery in the short term. One therapist suggested that a 12 Step group for sexual addiction might help.
I began working this 12-step program for sex addiction in 1991. Because of that I was able to leave my self-imposed isolation and rejoin humanity. I have continued to work through the twelve steps, stumbling at times, but because there are fellow sojourners in my group, I have been helped back onto the road to recovery and achieve some success. I recognize this success as it is reflected in my family. I have a wife of thirty-nine years, three adult children and one teenage grandson, all whom I love very much and with whom I have healthy relationships.
Over three years ago a friend invited me to travel across the bay to check out a Discovery Group that his wife had seen in a small ad. This was truly God ordained. It was the last paper in a stand at the grocery store. We attended our very first Discovery Group meeting that week and have not missed many since. DG is part of Discovery Family Ministries founded by Gary and Linda Browning. It is a Christ centered, Bible based, Transformational Program. Most twelve-step programs talk about getting and staying sober and that is good, but God wants us to be transformed through His grace and enter a life filled with fruitfulness. That is what Gary and Linda offer us each week in Discovery Group.
Hope to see you there.
May the Peace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
Ken Crowley