Beauty for Ashes...Freedom from Shame

At church today, we had a wonderful guest speaker, Ruth Puleo, who gave such a wonderful message that I have to share it with you today.  After the service, I asked Ruth Puleo if she would talk with DV Survivors if I could get a group together, and of course she said she would.

Her message was a message of freedom from the shame of abuse, from sin, from everything that the devil has fed to you to keep you down.  That God has soooo much more in store from each and every one of us, and that too often we are kept from what God has in plans for us because we are kept back because of shame that we feel.

She shared a story of a family with 14 children who's father/husband was a violent drunk.  He would drink and beat his wife and children, and run after them with a hatchet telling them that he was going to kill them.  The wife called her Minister, Ruth Puleo's father, to come because she believed he was going to kill her and her children that night in a drunken rage.  The Minister went, and prayed over the man and rebuked his wicked ways, and the man would hear none of it.  He stated that he didn't have to stay and listen to any of this, and he walked out of the house in a huff.

He walked down the walkway out the front door with the Pastor and wife watching him, and he stopped dead at the end of the walkway and stopped, and turned, ashen, and walked back towards the house fully sober.  He asked them who had put the man in the white suite and the sword at there in the driveway?

After this, he turned his life to God and became a board member at his church and did many good things in the name of the Lord and abused no more.  He had been Scared Saved!!!

How many of us have, or have had, abusers that need this awakening??  

Without knowing, Ruth Puleo confirmed what we were taught in Sunday School today.  We are going through John Bevere's "Good or God", and he was sharing how we don't have as much as God wants us to have because we don't ask...that He has so much in store for us, so much planned for us, yet we don't reach our God given potential because we listen to the world, not Him!

God takes what we can't do...

Luke 13:10 - 13

10And he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath.

11And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself.

12And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity.

13And he laid his hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.

This, if Jesus can do this for the woman that was inflicted with an infirmity, what will He do for you if you'd only reach out to Him?

Ruth Puleo also shared Acts 14:8-11

8In Lystra there sat a man who was lame. He had been that way from birth and had never walked.
9He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be heal

10and called out, "Stand up on your feet!" At that, the man jumped up and began to walk. 11When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, "The gods have come down to us in human form!" What this brought to my mind is that we have Jesus inside of us...we are charged to not only go out and spread the Good News, but also heal!!! Then He called His twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority over all demons, and to cure diseases. He sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. (Luke 9:1-2) The Lord Jesus Christ has given you All authority and power on this earth in His name!  John 14:13 states, "And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. "If you ask anything in My name, I will do it."  Many Christians are waiting endlessly for the Lord Jesus Christ to move on their behalf.  He already did two thousand years ago on the Cross, when He paid the price in full with His precious blood for you.  He gave you all His power and authority to be released on this earth in His name.  And if that is not enough He gave you access to the Father God Almighty's power through the name of Jesus! And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. (John 16:23-24)

This means that those of us that have gone through Domestic Violence, and have received true and total healing from God, need to share it and heal others that haven't received it yet!!  OMG, the healing that comes from Him is so awesome and frees you so that you can do His work that He has set you to do, whatever that is!

Ruth Puleo's message was the facts that Jesus saved us from the shame of failure in the Garden of Gethsemane...the shame of abuse with the Crown of Thorns He wore for us...the infirmity and weakness in us with the Whipping Post he endured...and the shame of sin when He hung on the Cross...

We ARE FREED!!!!  The shame doesn't belong to us that have been abused!!  Let the abuser carry that until they themselves are healed, it IS NOT OURS TO BEAR!!!  Jesus bore it already for us!

We are kept from what we can become, what God has planned for us, because we listen to that shame that has been wrongfully put on us!  We CANNOT live in shame of our abuse!  LET IT GO!!  Instead, use what we have gone through for the Good of God, and help those that are coming out heal as well!  Guide them!  Show them!  So many don't know that they can be totally transformed through the healing of Jesus Christ...transformed from that caterpillar in the cocoon into that butterfly!  Let's show them!!!

~Angel Hugz~
Tracy