First of all, I want to thank everyone who has been praying for the Peters'. Bev (Dan's mom) sent an e-mail last night saying he was being transported to Germany and should have a phone so they can talk to him sometime today.
Second, I would like to thank those who have been praying for me as I follow God wherever it is He is leading me. To this point, I am not sure where this is all going yet. I did meet with the Pastor on Tues. He was excited about what I had to say and eager. So now he wants to meet Richard, the head of the Sight Ministry. The Sight Ministry is the Exodus affiliate ministry here that I have been involved with. Part of what I would like to see is for our church to support this ministry. My Pastor seemed very receptive to that and wants to talk to Richard about what kind of structure our own church should be developing as an effort to be prepared for this area of ministry. The Pastor also want to meet with my daughter who started this whole thing to begin with. I wrote earlier about her friend who came out to her in their senior year of high school. Through him she has met and befriended many young gay men. And I began praying for them. Out of those prayers as well as my daughter's witness to them, one of them, the one who was her friend in high school, has decided to leave the lifestyle! Praise God!!!!!! Anyway, he is so afraid of his old church and it is my goal to have a safe place for him to heal and seek God. A place where it is understood that he won't just change overnight, but where there are people willing to accept that and stand with him as he finds freedom. Thank you for your prayers and keep praying, please. First for this young man and the many others that I wish I could name. Second for me, I have to SPEAK about this on Sunday and for the next 2 Sundays after, to a group of youth leaders about the standing firm with compassion and the reality of this among our own youth. Have I mentioned that I am scare to DEATH of public speaking? Yes, it's true! Microphones make me CRY! But back when God first started dealing with me about sharing my own story, He gave me a vision of sharing it publicly. I knew it was coming and I feel this is training for that day. I figure it's easier to speak about something that's not so personal when I am just starting out.
I want to leave you with this. Think about your own church for a minute. I bet you never realized that probably as much as a third of your church members have something to hide. Maybe it's something that happened long ago. But the chances are it is sexual in nature and very painful for them. Now think of this...Who do they have to confide in? Could they come to you? Would you love them enough to help them deal with it and find freedom in Christ? Or would it just be too shocking and make you fearful to be around them?
If they could come to you, how would they know?
The church, in general, is so unprepared to deal with this issues. Why is it that the very place that God intended for us to find healing, is so ill-equipped to help us? This is my mission. I don't know how, and I don't know what, but I believe God has placed it on my heart to see that, at least my own church, has the resources, the training, and the means, to meet the ever growing population of sexually broken people. We are so inundated with it in our society. It's everywhere we look, everywhere we turn. It's no wonder we have people who are "broken" in this area. The internet alone has brought a tremendous flood of an epidemic of people addicted to sex and porn. Yet the church is only now beginning to wake up and pull its head out of the sand on this issue.
I will stop on that note for now. It's time to start chauffeuring my kids for the afternoon. But think about these things for a bit. And keep praying.
Thank you so much!!!
