Wow what a testimony the song more love comes to my mind.
Lelia Struve email [log in to unmask] msn [log in to unmask]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Phil Scovell" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, July 30, 2005 2:29 PM
Subject: A Chocolate Testimony
> Carol emailed me this testimony she wrote and asked me to put it on my
> website. I haven't done so as of yet but am working on formatting it for
> my
> site. For now, I thought echurch people would be encouraged by reading
> her
> testimony. There is way more coming from Carol that you may find
> difficult
> to believe. This story is one that some will have trouble believing but I
> know all the details behind this story and everything you read is true.
> Carol will likely be sharing more as time goes by. She needs to write an
> auto biography because she could certainly fill a book with all the many
> things the Lord has done, and is continuing to do, in her life. Some of
> you
> old timers to echurch may remember a discussion Carol brought up many
> years
> back about her love for chocolate and how concerned she was and didn't
> know
> why. In prayer sessions we had together, the Lord showed her what the
> chocolate was all about. Even recently, the Lord revealed even more to
> her
> as you will see.
>
> THE CONSOLATION PRIZE
>
> By Carol Pearson
>
>
> One day recently I reached for a chocolate bar. It was far too
> hot to bother to get anything else to eat and, anyway, I felt
> pressured by others and a bit down. . . .. Things weren't going
> too well; that sinking feeling down into "depression" was
> crowding in on me. . As I reached for the chocolate, I realized
> again how many times I had done this before. It had become a
> well-worn path over more than fifty years of my life! . Yes, I
> wanted it somehow to be a consolation to me at that very moment!
> I knew, Even if I'd done something wrong or just hadn't quite
> achieved . . . the chocolate WOULD help me to feel "Just a bit
> better about myself and my situation! Again (as I had many times
> before) I reminded the Lord that I had been concerned about my
> "habit" (to eat this wonderful tasting "stuff" for a while now
> but I was powerless to do anything about it. I told Him again
> that I wanted Him to reveal any root cause and show me if I
> should leave it alone completely. Again, I found myself thinking
> that perhaps I could just cut it down. . . .. At that point
> "discipline" came to the fore and I ate just a third of the bar
> and put the rest away until another time!
>
> Later that day my mind flashed back to the thoughts I had had
> when taking the chocolate and then, as if a light had been turned
> on, I found myself thinking about an occasion much earlier in my
> life when I was a junior at boarding school. I recalled much
> detail of this memory, although this has not always been the case
> when the Lord has healed me from past wounds and wrong thinking.
> At that time we had a visit from a researcher who was most
> interested to learn how blind people "tick", what sort of things
> we could do, how imaginative we were and whether we could learn a
> complicated little route. His tests were quite numerous and
> varied and I quite enjoyed them. We listened to a series of
> noises and had to tell a story around them, adding to the story
> as each noise was given to us. We had a maize through which we
> had to walk and most of us got horribly lost. We had yet another
> test which involved working out exactly where a sound came from.
> There were others also, but I don't remember them now. I do
> however remember that after each test we were rewarded with small
> bars of chocolate. It seemed to me that some friends got more
> than others, and perhaps this was because they were better at the
> tests but it may have been because they were "the favourites",
> and of course I didn't like that very much . . .. However, we
> all got some chocolate each time a test was given and that was
> the best part of taking the tests and made it all worthwhile!
> Truly, when we had done badly, the chocolate was a consolation!
>
> As I had seen that flashback to that memory so clearly, I then
> saw His truth as He revealed it to me! "That's right, Lord," I
> said: "The chocolate was 'my consolation' - it was given to me
> whether I did well or badly. I reflected, "It was given at other
> times in my childhood also. It was the way to say "Thank you
> very much, little girl, for your services" as, on a number of
> occasions, I was forced to please relations and friends of the
> family as they allowed their sexual desires to have full pleasure
> as they did what they wished with a small, frightened child. The
> chocolate bars were the presents for "being a good little girl
> and saying nothing to anyone about these terrifying experiences!"
> Again, the bars of chocolate were given as a consolation from
> Daddy when there was nothing else he could give to me when he had
> been away working and I had not been able to understand where he
> was and why he had left me! Yes, they were my "consolations" and
> "my comforts" and I enjoyed them!
>
> I understood a long time ago that people often took comfort in
> their eating and even knew that I did it myself, but now, as He
> spoke into my situation and thinking, this became personal to me.
> I was able to understand where this root had its beginnings and
> to face the lies which emerged every time I ate the chocolate! I
> knew how Dad had felt so much better when he gave me the
> chocolate on his return from another work trip, but the gift he
> bore each time soon became a "must" for his little girl who
> needed the comfort she thought it afforded! The chocolate had
> also served to help those who took me to their beds to feel
> better about what they had done to me and be reasonably sure that
> I would keep quiet. I had to face it though, that it only
> satisfied for a little while, then I needed some more to be "my
> fix" for depression, loneliness, bereavement, disappointments and
> so many other problems in my life. I needed that chocolate time
> and again! What a ghastly state. I knew without a doubt that I
> was certainly no better than those who abuse their bodies with
> drugs and alcohol and all I could do was to cry out to the Lord
> for His victory for me!
>
> I acknowledged before my Heavenly Father that I had substituted
> all that He had to give to me and all that He would do for me
> with "my temporary fix" of chocolate. For years, I had said time
> and again that I wanted to know the riches of God and His
> abundance in my life, but over and over again I had chosen my own
> comfort! I knew I had treated my Heavenly Father very badly in
> taking the chocolate instead of asking for His mercy and great
> riches. I poured out my heart to Him and asked His forgiveness.
> Then I waited quietly to see what He would say to me. I knew He
> would speak because otherwise I would be left with a problem far
> too big for me to address! I knew well enough that He would not
> leave me comfortless but He would come to me! (See John 14:18.)
> He had spoken those words to me, as He did to His disciples, on
> a number of occasions during my walk with Him, so they were very
> precious!
>
> He showed me a picture. A tiny baby lay in His arms. (Yes, that
> baby was me.) There was a large comfort blanket tucked under my
> chin. I had been sucking it, because it was my comforter. As I
> fell asleep, He gently removed it. Then, something else
> happened. He spread me out in front of Him and began to breathe
> into my nostrils. I was receiving the very life of God Himself!
> I could no longer use that blanket to meet my needs because now
> they were being met by the very breath of God as He continued to
> fill me! I had nothing to do except just to lie there and take
> in the pure sustaining Spirit of God!
>
> Now that He has spoken clearly to me and answered my prayers, I
> know my need can no more be met with a bar of chocolate! When I
> find, for any reason, that I am not coping with pain and grief,
> fear and frustration, or anything at all that separates me from
> Jesus Christ and causes me to move from my place of rest, I have
> to go directly to the One Who Satisfies. Taking the chocolate
> first and then going to My Father in Heaven is no longer an
> option for me. He requires that I go straight to Him and find He
> has more than enough to supply all my need! I have thanked Him
> that, by His grace alone, He will work this in me to His glory!
>
> It has been very important here that God has come to me in answer
> to my prayers and spoken with me about this problem I had in my
> life. Hearing from others about the hold of a habit in a life
> and even agreeing with them is not enough! We have to invite the
> King of Kings and Lord of Lords to come in and take His rightful
> place. He is gracious and heals and restores. He does not
> condemn us for our weakness. He understands it and makes us
> strong as He deals with everything that we have placed before
> Him in our lives. There are some who believe that they do live
> completely without sin in their lives now that they are
> Christians. Well, I long for that day to be true in my life, but
> I choose right now to acknowledge the truth and confess God's
> Word, as the Apostle John wrote in his first letter:
>
> 8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the
> truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and
> just to forgive us [our] sins, and to cleanse us from all
> unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make
> him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:8-10 AV)
>
> One day I will know the joy of the power of Jesus living always
> and forever in my life. Meantime, I do still reach for that
> chocolate occasionally, but now have a far greater understanding
> of what I'm doing (yes, committing sin) if I take it to pacify
> some need in my life which God wants to meet! Then I have to
> confess it, get up again and go on giving all to Him and asking
> Him to show His power in me!
>
> I don't know what things you find yourself reaching for when the
> going gets tough, but He knows and, if you will only ask Him, He
> will work a miracle in your life that will free you from any
> bondage however long you have been bound by it! We cannot free
> ourselves but we can want Him to free us! He is our God and He
> has the right to say to us, "You shall have no other god but Me"!
> That simply means having nothing to depend upon (trust or rely
> upon) or give our affections to that takes His rightful place!
>
> We can be in bondage to many things or people. We have wrong
> relationships where we seek to serve another person, (sometimes
> allowing our flesh to be gratified. We go on doing what pleases
> others and not what pleases God! We get into such messes and
> cannot help ourselves out of them. Praise God! He waits to be
> gracious to us and to free us from everything that does not
> glorify Him!
>
> God doesn't give Himself as "a consolation". He gave Himself
> fully when He sent His son to die on a cross for each one of us,
> taking with Him all the sin of a fallen, depraved world! He
> doesn't offer a consolation prize for being good because none of
> us are good in His eyes, but He does offer us His grace in
> abundance which brings us from darkness into His wonderful light
> and sets us on course to gain that prize of eternal life with Him
> which He has for every one of us if we will live according to
> His rules! Put very simply, we win only as we put Him first in
> all things and love Him with all our mind and soul and strength
> and that means putting nothing before Him and allowing Him daily
> to satisfy all the longings of our grieving, hurting, wounded,
> sin-sick souls. Will you go there with me and offer up to Him
> whatever it is that you reach for to satisfy every pain that you
> bear today? If you will do this, He will give to you much, much
> more than you could ever dare to imagine.
>
> If you want to do this but need help to share your pain and
> suffering with Him, Safe Place Fellowship offers you help and
> security as you find your way through whatever troubles you to
> that place of wholeness in God as we find His provision to be
> sufficient for all our needs!
>
>
> --
> Copyright: Carol Pearson - July 2005.
>
> Safe Place Fellowship
> Phil Scovell
> Denver, Colorado USA
> Phone: 303-507-5175
> WWW.SafePlaceFellowship.com
>
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