Last weekend I attended a New Life Ministries weekend seminar in Denver. It was so rewarding and refreshing. If you are dealing with grief, depression, anxiety, anger, body image, and so many other issues, New Life has a wonderful weekend of counseling and laughter.

Stephen Arterburn is an incredible man with a heart for healing and encouragement. He put together Women of Faith and New Life Ministries just to name a couple of things. He loves God and his focus on healing, forgiving and surrender was amazing.

One thing really impacted me. He said:
Whatever you bury – you bury alive – and you have to feed it.

Wow. That really hit me. When I think of the painful things I’ve buried and fed over the years I can truly start to see the damage it’s done. I think sometimes we convince ourselves that burying the pain, sorrow and frustration is the best thing we can do. We wrap ourselves up in that old adage “forgive and forget”, but Steve said no. We definitely forgive, but forgetting and not learning from the mistakes or situation just makes us foolish. I found great liberty in that statement. After years of Satan standing as an accuser whispering in my ear, “Hey you’re remembering so that means you didn’t really forgive,” I’m glad to know otherwise. I was steeped in thoughts that because “God remembers our sins no more for his own sake” that I needed to do likewise to emulate God.

But, I’m not God. (Okay I hear the snickering out there.) But don’t we often beat ourselves up and let Satan wound us over and over by making us believe that we’ve failed to live up to what we’re supposed to be?

I want to encourage you today to heal – to unbury those things you’ve become slave to – to let God start you on a new journey.
Tracie

PS: My daughter Jen and I also brought home influenza from Denver and would appreciate your prayers.