fearfully and wonderfully made

Our lives can be disrupted by our thoughts. Our thoughts can pull us down. Our thoughts can be intrusive. Our thoughts can lie to us. Our thoughts can tell us things that are not true about God or make us fear ourselves or fear other people. Fear is not of God. And when our thoughts are wonky, that's just really, really hard because that's one of the things that if the brain is the part that governs our thoughts, right, then if that is giving us thoughts that are unhelpful, it's really hard, and it's really challenging. When we have these thoughts, we have these feelings. And feelings are just indicators of our environment. They're not right or wrong, they're just feelings.

But then those feelings if we go with them too much or tell ourselves lies because we feel the feelings. Feelings aren't actually facts, so we can get confused there and then our bodies start to take those thoughts and those feelings as if they're real. And so the actions that we do or the way we feel in our comfort level in our bodies, I mean, it's just this whole thing, right? And as Christians we know that there's this whole spiritual being that we are and it's like what are we even dealing with? Like is this a spiritual thing? Is this a physical thing? I'm confused as to what I need to do here. Do I need to pray harder? Do I need to take a vitamin supplement? Do I need to exercise more? Do I need a nap? I mean, someone help me cut through the chaos. That's why I like to say, "It's time for no more crazy lady" because I have been there. I have totally been there and sometimes it's still unclear. But I have ways of discerning now. I have ways of understanding.

One of my key takeaways is that if it is something that is condemning or it is something that is fear causing or judgmental or tying you in knots, it's not of God. It's not of God. God is peace. God is peace. His Holy Spirit one of the fruits of the Spirit is peace, gentleness. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So that's the first tip, is that God's ways are indicated by who He is, by His Holy Spirit. If you aren't feeling love, joy, peace, self-control, patience, having kindness with yourself, gentleness, I mean, those are things that God has for us, and I don't want them to be stolen from you.

And that's what the enemy tries to do. So if you're wondering, am I in a spiritual battle? Well, yes, we wrestle not against flesh and blood. Right? It's a spiritual battle just to be a living human being on the planet Earth. And also, I think I don't want to say this in a wrong way, but it's also a practical battle, too. It's a physical battle. It's an action battle. It's a thought battle. It's an emotional battle.

It is pretty much that we can help when we have these spiritual battles by also having tools for very practical things. Just like if you have a broken arm, you put a cast on it to heal. It was something that was meant to harm a broken arm. But a cast can help it to heal and mend. And I mean, yes, the spiritual is that God gave us wisdom and bones that can heal. So he gave medical wisdom to put it in a cast, and he gave bones that can heal. But also it's a practical skill that allows us to have movement again without pain, that allows us to immobilize the arm until it's totally ready for use again, and then to build up the muscle strength again. Right? So it's practical and spiritual, and sometimes we get the lie that we're not spiritual enough or we're not good enough, or God's mad at us because we're having some more practical, physical, or mental or emotional issues, and we're thinking, what is wrong? I'm praying to get out of this, and I'm trying. And I don't understand why I'm still here and still stuck.

So today I'm going to give you the first part of what I have put together with God's great grace and help, and that is the Empowered Freedom Framework. So, God and I have worked on this together through the years. I didn't know what it was called. I didn't see it all laid out until this summer, where I've really been seeking God's direction for showing me kind of the next steps with the podcast and helping people and the next steps for my family and all of that. And as he's helped me put this together, it is a framework for you to get freedom. It includes things in the way of how I got free. It includes things in the way of education and science and biblical truth and practical skills and spiritual identity. It's a comprehensive educational program that will give you the tools, insights and skills to be able to heal, to be able to take back your power that is rightfully yours from Jesus.

To start we're going to talk about peach pie. I don't know if you like peach pie or not. If you don't like peach pie, I want you to insert whatever pie you do like. If you don't like pie, insert cake. If you don't like sweets, insert soup. Insert a recipe. I'm using the peach pie metaphor because I like alliteration and they both start with the letter P.

To have a peach pie, we need a baker. That baker is someone who knows exactly how to design this peach pie. This baker knows what to put into the peach pie. To make it a peach pie, they might put in some peaches, and they might put in some cinnamon, and they might put in some flour, and they might put, I don't know, whatever else they put, butter or nutmeg. Whatever they put in there, they have a recipe, and they know how it's going to turn out because they followed the recipe. The unique ingredients are in there for this perfect peach pie. See what I did there? More alliteration for the perfect peach pie, okay? And that perfect peach pie is priceless. I mean, that perfect peach pie is so priceless because it is just perfectly made, perfectly designed by the baker. And that peach pie has everything it needs to be successful in delighting people's tummies in delighting their taste buds in filling a need for a sweet after a satisfying meal. It's inherently perfect as a peach pie, and its purpose is from the baker.

Now, as you probably have figured out, you are the peach pie, right? And God is the baker. He has perfectly put the ingredients into you for the purposes and outcomes that He has for you to do in this world. You are a beautiful, perfect peach pie in every way, and you are made to shine and do your job as you were designed with the unique ingredients for the perfect purpose and just it's spectacular. You are a unique creation, and the world needs you.

And God destined you for such a time as this. So that's the first part of my empowered freedom framework is realizing the story of you, of who you are, and that you are made by God, fearfully and wonderfully as a masterpiece. Here's the second part, though. Sometimes the story gets messed up. Someone tries to rewrite it, rewrite the recipe, they start to mess with the ingredients. These things that were good, like trusting, caring, showing vulnerability, connecting, being real, praying, trusting God, having a sound mind, a restful body, gentle emotions that are easy and light came along and messed with the recipe. It was like an evil person who was jealous and wanted to stop the recipe from being perfect. And what happened is the pie was perfect and all the ingredients were perfect when this devious thief came and stole from the baker, stole from the pie, put some ingredients in there that caused pain or that contradicted the good stuff, or that left some space for doubt as to whether they should be following the right recipe or not, it caused chaos.

Just like in a peach pie, if you put something else into it or not enough of something into it or too much of something into it, you're going to get different results. That didn't mean the original recipe was wrong. That didn't mean the original baker was wrong. That means that someone tampered with the ingredients, someone tampered with that perfect story, that perfect recipe, and that's the enemy. And the enemy can tamper in the lives of God's creation, through hurtful relationships, through bad experiences, through tragedy, through trauma, through gaslighting, from parents, through abusive marriage relationships, through bullying or insecurity, through hardships. The enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy.

But God, through Jesus, has already overcome the world, and we have the Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead living in us. So the death that the enemy meant for evil, God will turn for good and redeem. And that peach pie will now be like a super peach pie. By the time God gets done with this, the original baker with the original recipe, He's taken those original ingredients and gotten rid of the muck. With all of those things that were not wanted, or additives or things that were stolen, the icky, God comes along and takes what the enemy meant for evil and turns it for good. Now, maybe the peaches are too sweet or not too sweet, but now maybe the peaches are so sweet, and God adds praline topping to it or some caramel sauce or some whipped cream, and it's like, even better than before. God makes it look like He had it planned all along well, because He knows what's going to happen.

He knows he's not going to let anything happen to you that He can't redeem, because He is a redemptive God. And He didn't want that junk to happen to you, but He wants the victory of you being who you are made to be. And sometimes those things that happen to us are the very areas where we overcome and shine and do even more than what the enemy was trying to stop us from doing in the first place.

That's why you're hearing from me today. I never thought that I would be able to get through my low self-esteem, my anxiety, my panic, my post-traumatic stress disorder, my obsessive-compulsive disorder. I mean, if you had seen me 30 years ago in my 20s, this would have been a whole different person you would have seen. And yet I was still the same person with all the right ingredients. But I had had some very toxic experiences in relationships, and I needed healing.

I needed the original baker, the one with the original recipe, to come in and supercharge my recipe by putting in even more of the wonderful things he had put in me through his power. The pralines and the pecans and the caramel sauce and the whipped cream. And it almost makes it worth all of the struggles that I went through. I don't know if I could say that I'd prefer to have still gone through them, but I am so glad to be on the other side. And I am so glad God redeemed it. And I am so glad that I am now here to help you get that extra recipe, that extra special sauce. As you break free from that awfulness that was trying to distort your recipe, you are fearfully and wonderfully, made a unique masterpiece no one compares to you. God has good for you.

God will redeem what the enemy stole, and He will make it all work together for good. So it'll look like it was part of the plan all along, because God is a good God, and He has got you. And He has got you with pralines and caramel sauce and whipped cream and even a cherry on top with a dash of cinnamon, I mean, God is that good. And if you're suffering right now and your story is more like the recipe of things that were tainted or stolen or harmed, where too many dashes of something bad were added in, or maybe someone dropped your pie on the floor and it crumbled, so to speak, God is a God who restores.

Today, I have a special request from a podcast listener, Crystal from Mississippi, so thank you, Crystal, for providing this. With the war that's going on in Israel, she was asking for my insight on how we can conceptualize being mentally and spiritually and emotionally able to handle and process times of crisis.

Specifically, I think we need to start with what Crystal said she's already doing, which is praying. She's been in prayer for Israel and for the peace of Jerusalem. She's trusting in God and asking for Him to come into the situation and have His hand and His healing and His presence absolutely. First place you go, right? Well, maybe second, if you're in the attack, the first place you go is getting out of the attack so you can survive, so you can pray. And that's just how God made us. So, if there's time before there's something that happens that is fearful and there's time to pray, great. But if we think about what trauma does and the fight or flight response, the people who are actually on the ground there who have been affected, they may not have had time to think, okay, I'm going to pray now. Their spirits may have been praying, but they didn't have time for that conscious thought. In many cases, when crisis is imminent, survival becomes the first thing as that's what God put into our bodies. When we're alive, then guess what we can do? We can pray.

Survival and prayer would be the first two things. The thing about trauma, such as a crisis or war or the COVID pandemic, is that there's a lot of unknowns. There's a lot that is something we can't tell when it's over. We can't tell if something more is coming, if there's more danger, if there's more threat. So, it seems scarier because it's out of our realm of understanding because we've never been here before. It's something that we're not used to and that's a big "T" trauma. And the difference between a big "T" trauma and a little "t" trauma is not the amount of trauma that you have, but whether it is something that is a kind of big isolated, one-time kind of event like a war. I mean, even though it may go on and on, the fact that there was this attack is a big "T" trauma. It was like out of nowhere and overwhelmed everybody's system and everybody's in survival mode.

And now what do we do? Right? And as the rest of us in the world who aren't affected are listening into those who are affected by it and the news of what's going on there, we're going to have different perspectives. It's a lot different when you're in the midst of it and you're the one experiencing the crisis than it is for those a continent away. Now, that doesn't mean that we're not all traumatized, but the effects of the trauma and how to deal with it are different. So, for the people who are actually in the war zone, or the medical crisis is imminent, for when they're the ones who are in that pain point directly and the pain point is still going on, even if it's like a one-time attack, but the fallout is still there. We're not minimizing it but we're just saying like this is something that we can kind of put a finger to and say this is the problem. Like the COVID pandemic is the problem. There may have been lots of people who were hurt by it and lots of people who were affected from the ripple effects of it, but the people who were suffering with it in the midst of it, they were the ones who were surviving it in that immediate moment.

The people in the war zones right now, for instance, are experiencing it in that immediate moment, and the best thing that you can do try to slow down your thoughts, your movements, your breaths and just gently, compassionately soothe yourself. Once you're in a safe place and able to survive, basically at that point it is hunkered down and continue surviving. Especially when the threat is still going on. It's too soon to heal from trauma when the threat is still there, the unknowns are still there, the fight or flight is still there, and you're still in survival mode. So, at that point, the best that you can do is hunker down with the basics of taking care, of trying to make sure your basic needs are met, that your loved ones' basic needs are met, and that you just at this point survive. Try to get to water. Try to take slow, deep breaths. Try to focus on something physically comforting in your present space. If there's anything like that, get to shelter if possible. If you can eat, try to have something to eat that can settle your stomach. Just go back to the basics of your physical body. There will be a time where you will know that the threat is passed, but it may not be immediate. And that's okay. It's not okay that you're going through that, and I'm so sorry that you are, but it's okay that you don't have to have it figured out.

You don't have to know your next steps. In fact, you can't, because your brain can't even fathom what has happened. It hasn't made meaning of the story because you're still in survival mode. All you need to do at this point is give yourself grace and compassion and do the next thing that you need to for your physical body to survive. We mentioned prayer as well, also being able to ground yourself in the present moment and your present location. If you are safe recognizing, okay, for this moment, I am just focusing on where I am right now, or I'm just focusing on these words, I'm saying them over and over again in prayer. If that brings you comfort or stroking a stone or something that you can just hold on to and caress it over and over, anything like that can be helpful. So survival first!

Then the next thing is for those who are coming out of something tragic, is to not judge it, not put a time frame on it for recovery, not put a time frame on it or a judgment on it for what it should look like or how it should be handled. There's no rulebook when things that are out of the ordinary happen. It's not like, okay, you should be past something at this point, at this mile marker of loss here. You should be over it by this month or this many days out-that's individual. To try to put pressure on yourself or anybody else for not healing or getting back to normal according to a timeline is absolutely unhelpful.

It's a lot better to just be present for those if you're walking alongside people who are going through the battle, whether that's a physical bombing type of battle, an emotional battle, a relationship battle, medical battle, financial battle, whatever it is, if you're walking alongside somebody, just be present. Meet their basic needs, pray for them. Don't try to throw in anything amazing to say. You don't have to fix it or make it better. There's nothing you can do to fix it or make it better, so just take the pressure off of yourself and just sit with them. Meet their basic needs, hold them or don't if they don't want that, give them space if they need it, but be available, provide them with resources. Provide financially or food or whatever you can if you're not the one in the circle of the crisis at that moment. And that can be helpful too, to feel like you're doing something.

Now, for those of us across the world from, for instance, the stuff going on in the Middle East right now, we might have loved ones there, we might have just heard it on the news and care, right? Either way, the same things apply. If you have an ability to be part of the solution of providing for basic needs normalizing, providing comfort for physical needs, sending money to a reputable place, doing something that brings meaning and support and care, you will feel less powerless. Praying, donating, serving, comforting, letter writing, sitting with somebody who needs it, who's on the other side of the world.

Praying that you happen to know this, praying for someone who knows someone involved in something like a war or is having some sort of threat or trauma or danger in some other way. Taking action when you are not in the center of the trauma circle in that immediate moment may look like prayer. It may look like a financial donation. It may look like dropping off blankets or clothes. It may look like putting a sign in your front yard to support something. Doing something is better than nothing because it gives you a sense of agency. It's more traumatic to feel stuck and unable to do anything. So put some good out into the world and try to be there in whatever way is possible that you can.

Support doesn't mean being responsible for everything, and it doesn't mean trying to fix everything. It just means noticing what you have to give, noticing what other people have need of and prayerfully, considering what actions to take, and giving it all to the Lord and then showing up.

It starts with stabilizing. Whether you're in the battle or you're next to somebody in the battle or you're just hearing about the battle, whatever the trauma is, the steps are stabilizing after survival, making sure that the trauma isn't continuing or reoccurring. If it is, then it's not over yet. Trying to give skills for how to hunker in and deal with things if the battle is still going on. And that might mean doing the best you can in circumstances that are not ideal to meet basic needs, physical needs, safety needs, nutritional needs, comfort needs. Then once those acts of survival and physical being are certain, once the story has solidified and it's like, oh okay, I see what happened and now that danger is passed, we're no longer in survival mode, even if we feel like it.

Then it's a matter of getting some extra things like some therapy help or getting some trauma counseling, getting some ways to deal with the anxiety or seeing a doctor for medication if you're having trouble sleeping because of what you've been through or whatever. But those are not things for while you're in the middle of it. First is survival, second is stabilization, and then it's rebuilding.

If you're not in the circle, it's being somebody who can take action towards a positive result to help somebody who is in that circle will make you feel a lot less helpless and a lot safer or at least doing something. Understanding that we've had wars for a long time, there have been pandemics before for a long time, there have been atrocities before, doesn't minimize what anybody is going through at any given time. Pain is pain, hurt is hurt. War is war. Illness is illness.

It is all super unpleasant and not stuff of God, it's not the stuff of heaven, so we're not going to be able to understand it other than it's suffering. When we realize that what suffering needs is comfort and love and safety, we can provide that for ourselves, our loved ones, or those that we see who are affected. Taking that action helps us to survive the human spirit, to survive human beings, and to move on. The hurt may linger, but when you're in the middle of the crisis, it's not the time to figure out the next year of your life or the next ten years. You're still just where you are. Trying to figure out this next survival instinct or how to support the person who is in that survival place.

I hope that's helpful. It's. Taking the practical and being there, going back to basics, taking away judgment, taking away trying to understand in our own human understanding, trusting that God loves us, and He's there to be our comforter and an ever-present help in times of trouble. Praying for those we love and those we know are going through difficult stuff. So Crystal, thank you so much for sharing that. I really hope that that was helpful in some way.

I just want to pray right now, Lord, for the peace of Israel, Jerusalem, the Middle East, Lord, that You will work miracles of healing and help and wisdom, protection, salvation.

Thank you, Lord, in Jesus' name.