Who am i

When I was a new Christian attending one of my first Bible Studies, the leader asked us to answer the question “Who am I”. My answer went something like this: “Who am I? I guess it depends on who you ask. To the world, I’m a mom, a grandma, a friend, and a co-worker. You get the idea we all wear many hats. I’m an average everyday ordinary person, nothing special. But if you ask Jesus, my Savior and Redeemer, I’m a unique handmade one of a kind original creation. Ask my Jesus who I am and He’ll tell you I’m someone worth dying for.”

Every day I hope to be a little more like the person “worth dying for” and a little less like the person that’s “nothing special”. I am a seeker of the fullness of Christ in me; I want to reflect more of Him; and less of me. Can you relate?

My name is Karen Strickland and I’m a Credentialed Minister with the Assemblies of God, a Teaching Pastor at Christian Center of Desert Hot Springs (my church for the last twenty plus years), a full time worker in the Health Care industry and a very grateful follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you would like to know my whole story, I’ve included my Celebrate Recovery Testimony which was given during a meeting four or five years ago. While it’s longer then your average post, it tells my story in a way that will help you understand the journey that has lead to the desire to share my heart as a seeker with you.

I hope you enjoy my blog and my prayer is that you too would experience all of the fullness of Christ; may His abundant blessings pour forth into your life.

Pastor Karen

MY CELEBRATE RECOVERY TESTIMONY

Hi my name is Karen and I’m a grateful believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.  I celebrate recovery from loss and fear.

When I was sixteen years old I attended a Revival meeting that was held at my local High School.  I remember walking down the concrete steps of the bleachers to respond to the altar call and give my heart to Jesus.  When I left the altar that night there was no one there, No one to teach me, No one to guide me in developing a relationship with the Jesus I had just accepted; so I didn’t.  But God placed his hand on me that night!

  My life was a typically middle class one.  My father was an officer in the army and my mom was a stay at home mom.  They were both alcoholics but I didn’t suffer the type of trauma and dysfunction so many others have. They were kind and loving parents.  I was married for more than twenty years to my second husband who was a great father, but wrestled with his own demons.  Our marriage was marked by his infidelity and he ultimately left. During our marriage I returned to the Lord and found a home at Desert Hot Springs Christian Center.

Between 1995 and 2010 my two daughters and I learned to walk with the Lord there.  We were baptized in water there. I received the baptism in the Holy Spirit there.  If the church was open my girls and I showed up and God met us there. Although my husband had chosen to leave, by 2010 I was happy with my life and actively serving in ministry.  I had learned that my spiritual gift was teaching and I was participating in classes designed to help working adults meet the requirements for a credential with the Assemblies of God. I had no intention of being a pastor I just really liked the learning and being with my friends who were taking the classes.  But God had His hand on me and was getting ready to shake my world!

I have said that I was happy with my life, but I had begun talking to the Lord about being lonely. Probably more whining than talking, but very early in 2010 a wonderful man by the name of Tony walked into my life.  He loved the Lord with all his heart and he loved me too! Thanksgiving Day 2010 he officially proposed and I officially accepted.  The wedding would be the following year. Life was good!

Wednesday, December 13th, 2010 was a day just like any other day. I worked from home as the business office for the company I worked for was located a little over 100 miles away. I was preparing to be at a mandatory meeting on Friday so I spent the day getting as much done as possible.  After work Tony came over, we cooked dinner and spent the evening working on the computer designing our Wedding Invitations.  Around 10:00 we kissed goodnight and he went home; all in all a pretty good day.

 One of the things Tony did every morning without fail between 6:30 and 7:00 am, was pray for me and my day by sending me a good morning prayer text; but Thursday morning – no text.  I tried to call him, no answer, by 10:00 in a panic I called a friend of ours and asked him to drive over to check on him.  All of my fears were confirmed when 30 minutes later I see my Pastor and friends from the ladies prayer team speeding up to my front door.  They told me what I already knew in my heart; Tony had died in his sleep and was now getting to meet Jesus face to face.  But God had his hand on me!

You see Tony’s death was just the beginning of my journey.  I called my boss to tell her I’d be missing the mandatory meeting.  On Friday I was sitting in the sanctuary talking to our Pastor trying to make plans for a memorial service.  I was completely numb and not being much help when my phone rang.  It was the Director of Human Resources, She was calling to let me know the mandatory meeting was to let everyone know that our office was closing and we were all being laid off.  My last day of work would be February 28, 2011.  She apologized and hung up.  BUT God had his hand on me!

I tried to continue to work from home, but for the first time in my life I just could not pull myself together.  I contacted my HR department and was granted a leave of absence.  My daughter and son in law opened their home to me and I moved into my kids’ spare bedroom. 

And I heard God say “trust me; don’t worry about a job” and I rested and prayed and grieved. But time was moving on and I started worrying and God kept saying, “trust me; don’t worry about looking for a job”.  That just didn’t make any sense to me; but I knew God was telling me not to worry about it.  I was obedient until April 22, 2011.  I spent all day on the internet getting more and more worried and more and more afraid that I was not going to be able to find a job.

That night my son-in -law invited me to join him and my daughter on a hike. I really needed to get my mind off of everything so I said yes.  The hike was really scary, a place called “the bump n grind”, had I known I would have said no, but I went and God protected me and I survived, until I tried to walk to the car, skidded in gravel and fell back onto my own ankle breaking both bones in the process. 

April 28th I have surgery, a couple of screws and a metal plate and I now have a re-built ankle and am facing the next 8 weeks of recovery time, most of which I am not allowed to even put my foot on the floor.  Well I guess I’m not looking for a job now.

It’s May; I’m still on crutches and doing as well as can be expected.  If you had asked me, I would have said I was doing ok, all things considered.  My Pastor and another leader had scheduled a meeting with me to discuss a new program they wanted to start called Celebrate Recovery.  I remember listening to them talk about secular AA programs (which I knew nothing about) and how Celebrate Recovery was Christ centered, and what a great ministry it would be to have at Christian Center, and would I please consider partnering with the other leader because in order to start the program they needed to have at least one men’s and one women’s leader.  I did a fairly decent job of hiding the fact that emotionally I was barely functioning.  Honestly just getting up in the morning was overwhelming but I did it because that’s what you do.  You just keep moving. But my Pastor was asking me to do this and so I agreed.

It’s early June, we were given copies of the Leaders Guides and Participants Guides and training material and more information than I could possibly digest. The plan was to start Step Studies in September so that we would have accountability partners, sponsors and leaders trained before we launched the large group. My plan was to get people trained to take over as soon as possible because this just wasn’t my thing.  I had never been to AA or any other kind of “counseling” for that matter. I just didn’t understand it. I may not have thought “those people” and I don’t think I was being arrogant or unkind; I was just very, very uninformed.

Its mid-June my ankle is healing well and my next doctor’s appointment is scheduled for July 1.  A friend of mine and I are leaving at 4:00 am to visit friends in Oregon when I get a private Facebook message that says “are you still looking for a job”? The message is from someone I worked with three years prior but at the local office of the same company I was just laid off from.  This office was 15 minutes away instead of 100 miles away and she is now a Department Director.  I agreed to call her when I got back from my trip.  Have I mentioned that God had His hand on me?

July 1st, I go to my doctor’s appointment and am given the all clear to resume my normal activities.  I go to say hello to friends who still work there. The director pulls me into her office, tells me she has 2 jobs available, and asks me which one I want. I was scheduled to start work August 13, 2011. 

This is my testimony that between December 14, 2010 and April 22, 2011, I lost my fiancé, I lost my job, because of my job loss I also lost my home, I lost 90% of my possessions and I broke my ankle all in the span of 5 months.  People would ask me if I had read the Book of Job.  The question actually terrified me because I had read the book of Job and my children were all fine.  But I had become so afraid of bad things happening that I would lay awake at night begging God not to hurt my kids.  I knew the bible said God wouldn’t give us more than we could handle but I was pretty certain that insanity was just around the corner if anything happened to my girls. But God is gracious and kind and He had His hand on me!

What I failed to see, and what the CR step studies helped me recognize, was that I was really living in terror that at any moment something even more horrible was going to happen.  Every little thing that went wrong was exaggerated out of all proportion as was my emotional reaction.  Nothing felt safe, nothing felt familiar, and nothing felt secure. I smiled and praised God, and cried and praised God, and went numb inside and praised God.  Because to praise Him was the only thing I could think of to do to make it all stop.

September arrived and we started the Celebrate Recovery Step Studies.  It did not take long for God to show me that this wasn’t for “those people” this was for me.  He wanted me to get up close and personal with the material and actually be a participant in this whole recovery thing.  So I started paying attention.

 I paid attention to Step 1 and admitted that not only was I powerless over addictions and compulsive behaviors; I also had to admit that I was powerless over painful events.  I recognized that being in denial had disabled my feelings. I confessed that the only feeling I truly felt was fear.  I knew I was powerless to know what or when the next bad thing was going to happen and I certainly was powerless to stop any of it.  Painful as it was Step 1 helped me recognize my fear and helped me decide not to accept living with it the rest of my life.

Step 2 says “We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”  The acrostic in Lesson 3 is HOPE.  This step helped me recognize that while I knew God and had a relationship with Him I had lost all hope for the future.  My fear caused me to dread the future instead of looking forward with real hope to the blessings God had for me.

I’m here to tell you that the step studies are where the real work of recovery happens.  It’s all about sitting down quietly with the step studies guides, working through the lessons and letting God speak to you and show you “truth”.  Because until I started the step studies, I didn’t know I was in denial, I didn’t know I was living in constant fear and dread, I didn’t know what I was really thinking and feeling because I had locked it all away and just pretended it wasn’t there.

BUT then came Step 4; and those 3 questions that stopped me cold:

  1. Who is the object of my resentment or fear?
  2. What specific action did that person take that hurt me?
  3. What affect did that action have on my life?

What do you do when the answer to number one is God? When the answer to number 2 is He did absolutely nothing to stop any of the hurt from happening?  And when the answer to number 3 is my life, as I knew it, had ceased to exist?

 How do you confess that you’re mad at God, disappointed in God, that you feel like He didn’t keep His promise to love you and protect you? It took me a very long time to confess the truth to Him. To really be honest with Him about what I was thinking and feeling, and about the fears I now faced.  But the minute I confessed is the same minute my healing and my recovery really began. God used Celebrate Recovery and the Step Studies to finally begin my real healing. Healing that was based on my getting honest with God and being willing to have Him show me the truth of who I am.

From 2011 until today God and I have been on this journey of recovery and healing together and I’m grateful that it will continue until He and I meet face to face in heaven.  I’m also grateful for the lessons He has taught me through Celebrate Recovery all along the way.

First: That He is God and we are not. He is to be feared and respected as God. But He wants each of us to be in an honest, committed, trusting relationship with Him.  He wants us to truly know Him, not just know about Him. Step 11 helped me reestablish that relationship.

Second: That in those moments of despair when you think God is nowhere to be found and you believe He has completely abandoned you – just reach out your hand and call out His name, because the truth is He is right there with exactly what you need.

Third:  I’ve learned that the enemy is a liar and we had better learn how to tell him to shut up.  If we don’t he will continue to talk so loudly in our ear we’ll never hear God’s voice.  I’ve learned that it is up to me to choose whose voice I’m going to listen to.  Hearing God requires effort on our part.

Fourth:  I’ve learned to stand on the truth of God’s word when every circumstance in my life says it’s wrong.  Jeremiah 29: 11 says “For I know the plans I have for you”, says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”   I stand here tonight and declare to you that God has done exactly that for me; I look forward to the future with the assurance that it will be a good one and I have absolute hope now because I know I am a child of the living God who loves and cares for me, and who can and will see me through anything that comes my way. 

Romans 8:28 says “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” And you might ask – Did He?  Did God work everything that happened to me during those 5 months of my life for my good?  The answer is yes, He absolutely did.

You see years ago God set me on a path to pursue my credential with the Assemblies of God, to teach and preach His word.  And for years I have given Him one excuse after the other as to why that was a bad idea, why I couldn’t, why I wasn’t educated enough, eloquent enough, smart enough, one excuse after another. But you know what? He had His hand on me and wasn’t buying my excuses.

I have studied the word and taught the word and talked about the God of the bible.  I still do, but now I  talk about My God, My Jesus who carried me when I was too wounded to walk on my own; My Jesus who stepped into my life and calmed all my fears.  My Jesus who didn’t stop any of the bad things from happening because in the end He knew I would be stronger for having gone through them and that I would come out the other side knowing Him more deeply, more personally and more intimately.

 My testimony is about My God who has kept every single one of His promises and blessed me beyond measure during the darkest days of my life. I am so very grateful for Celebrate Recovery and the Step Studies that helped me find my way out of the darkness of fear and despair and back into the truth of his love and acceptance.

My name is Karen and I’m a very grateful believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, Thank you for letting me share.