Thank you for your words of encouragement and your prayers.

"for I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain."

It amazed me when you said His word for you is "rest." I have a piece of paper taped to my mirror that has "rest" and the definition of the word. It has been taped there for about 4 years. : ) It says:

"Rest: To cease from action or motion: refrain from labor or exertion. To be free from anxiety or disturbance. To sit or lie fixed or supported. To remain confident: trust. "

This simple definition says SO much. Only in Him can we stop whirling and fretting about what is happening, and sit or lie fixed and supported while He does His surgery. And all we can do mentally is remain confident in His abilities to do what needs to be done. And carry us through.

I will be praying for you in your path ahead.

Thank you again.
Sharon

I heard about "A Doxology in Darkness" while listening to you and Erik on the Etcetera podcast - and I had to begin reading. Something in your conversation struck home … something familiar.

I have been a Christian for most of my life … always the one with the answer, the first to defend God, the Bible, etc. Yet there came a time in my life when I was in my 20s when I was struggling with deep depression. One day I found myself standing in the shower weeping, face lifted to God, accusing him of being in league with the devil to drive me crazy.

I was angry. Felt betrayed. And at that time I truly felt I was the being toyed with by God. Here I was serving him and devoting my life to him and his church, and yet I was so alone, depressed and feeling abandoned. How could he allow this? Why didn't he take away my pain? Surely he 'owed' me at least a little reprieve. (That was my rationale.)

Days later as I reflected on this incident I realized two wonderful things: 1. God was not mad at me and he hadn't turned his back on me, even in my rage against him; and 2. I can be honest with God. His 'ego' is not fragile. Actually, it pleased him that I was honest. We can play the 'good Christian' role in front of most people, but God sees right through it.

Having had a rather legalistic religious background, this all surprised me, and proved to be the beginning of my journey of grace.

Reading what you have written - and some of the responses that have been posted - my mind goes to Psalm 103:13-14:

As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.

For me, that says it all.

It don't think it by accident that I heard the podcast and am reading "Doxology …" at this time. Right now I'm in a very challenging - no, hard - season in my journey with God. It has been filled with a deep darkness for at least six months now and I honestly don't see light coming any time soon. I guess reading your story and hearing Erik express what he's been going through, offers a small strand of hope. (Yeah, may sound silly coming from a pastor, but that's just the way it is.)

God is doing some invasive surgery in my heart and he is exposing some deep-rooted fear and loneliness, and I guess unbelief. I really don't know the extent of it right now.

God's word to me for the past six months is 'rest' - it has come from so many sources. I'm struggling with how to enter into that rest (Hebrews 4). I don't really have an answer yet … but I sense it has to do with faith/belief/trust.

Well, again, thanks. It's good to know we're not alone when God takes us down these valleys of shadows …

Mike McK, I hear your anger, and will be praying that you meet the compassionate Abba, who will forgive anything we, in our frail humanity, can dish out. He is SO patient, and His love is SO great, that even when we are entirely real with Him, He stays by our side, and binds up our wounds. I am not going to get into a debilitating argument with you, nor am I going to try to defend myself to you. I am not trying to be a "man-pleaser," only a God pleaser. And I know His love for me is boundless. He and are are not separated by any past and cleansed sins, nor any foolishness I may have once committed. I am precious to Him. He cannot take His eyes off me.

I pray you experience this same all-encompassing love, Mike.

God bless you.

I am a sober alcoholic. Sometimes I tell others stories about the insanity of my drinking. Some of the stories are even funny sometimes, but that doesn't mean that I think what I did was right, or that others should do what I did.

I submit that only those that truly belong to Jesus are the ones that can look back on a dark period of their life and be honest about it. When we tell others where we were, what happened, what we were like, and how God has changed us or comforted us during those times, we glorify God.

When the Spirit lays bare what is in our hearts, and sometimes has to remove the ugly, cancerous growth that is there, it's painful. It's surprising, too, because we often didn't even know the ugly thing was there until it's brought out and shown to us.

The Bible also tells us that God brings dark things into the light to be dealt with. Of course what you went through was troubling, but I'm not squeamish about hearing it, and I would certainly never use your sharing something so personal as an opportunity to challenge your salvation.

I wish you continued healing, Sharon. I'm looking forward to hearing how things went with the prayer counselor.

The big problem is not admitting or acting that you have cursed God. It is the pretention that you never have (no matter how righteous you think that you are). We have all not believed God, in essence, calling him a liar (as Sharon openly admitted).
And He loves us anyway…Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

And that is all I have to say about that.

OK. I guess when you refered to the Bible's telling us that we should confess our sins one to another, I guess I just assumed that you meant confessing our sins one to another as we're told to do in the Bible.

[quote]Every time we sin, we are acting as enemies of GOD.[/quote]

Oh, so I guess 1 John is wrong, then.

[quote]Perhaps you're slightly skewed by not listening to any of the last few Etcetera episodes in which Sharon gives some of her background and gives more context to her story. If so, I recommend listing to an episode or two before making any more condemning comments.[/quote]

Oh, well I'm sure that being on an internet radio show that nobody listens to makes cursing God and blaspheming Him just fine, then.

Every time we sin, we are acting as enemies of GOD. Unless you believe Christians can get to the point (this side of death) that they don't sin, GOD would need to hate us all. Since the bible says GOD loves the world, I can't reconcile your view with scripture.

Perhaps you're slightly skewed by not listening to any of the last few Etcetera episodes in which Sharon gives some of her background and gives more context to her story. If so, I recommend listing to an episode or two before making any more condemning comments.

Are you saying that cursing and blaspheming God is compatible with being born again? I understand if you are. I mean, after all, this is the land of "sin all you want to" and "God's not mad at you".

But I just can't reconcile the two with scripture.

In fact, the Bible tells us that those who curse God and blaspheme Him are enemies of His, not born again.

Sharon - If I'm off base here from your perspective, please say something. I don't want to put words in your mouth, it just seems like a very clear situation to me.

Look, I understand that among the KeyLife crowd it may make perfect sense to say that you can curse God and blaspheme His name, but His word says that if you do those things you're an enemy of His and, in spite of what Steve Brown may tell you, He is very, very angry at people who do those things.

The real surprise isn't that I would point that out, but that others on an allegedly Christian board would stay silent about it.