Wow. This is going to be a very heavy topic. God has been speaking to my heart a lot about reaching out to people who are CONSUMED with anger, unforgiveness, frustration, hurt, etc. Last Monday night at our Spark group at church, He placed it on my heart to pray against feelings that hold us back from our goals of losing unneeded weight. Those feelings can be very heavy baggage that can really weigh us done in body, mind and spirit. God worked in a mighty way to allow several people to share and hopefully relieve some of the baggage that has been weighing them down, both physically and mentally.

This morning, I went into a blog that tore at my heart. I have to confess that I did not post, as I was not sure what to say. I could see several of the emotions mentioned above in many of the Sparkpage member's posts. I wanted to share with her what I am posting here, but due to different beliefs, I felt I would add more to her fire. I was of the impression that God wanted me to hold my tongue, that maybe someone else could reach her, in the right way, at the right time. Believe me, that is hard for me to do and if I was wrong about what God was telling me, I ask His forgiveness. However, I did feel His leading to post this blog so that others who are carrying these feelings can choose to read it or turn away from it.

So many of us have been hurt in our lives, the worst being by people we have loved and trusted, either a family member or a person we counted as our friend. We have felt betrayed, abused, stepped on leaving a heavy pain in our heart, like it was being torn out. Because of this, many have harbored hate and/or unforgiveness in their minds and hearts.

In doing this, in most cases, we have not killed the other person's spirit, but our own. We are CONSUMED.......there is that word again...........with bitterness, anger, pain that is eating away at our minds and our bodies. Anger and unforgiveness can and will eventually kill us. Our mind and body are CONSUMED with things the enemy knows will eventually destroy us. We are so CONSUMED that we cannot focus on the things that God is giving us to lead us on the path to a healthy life. One more thought on the wrong person or thing throws us right to the potato chips, ice cream. french fries, etc. What does it all matter anyway......is our motto. Oops, there is that word CONSUME again. We CONSUMED a whole bag of chips, a half gallon of ice cream, or a Double Whopper with cheese, with an extra large fry and super sized Coke. Hopefully, I overstated the menus and we only had a Whopper, Jr with a small diet Coke., but you know what I am talking about.

What the Lord has showed me, is that sometimes the people we are unforgiving with did not do things to the degree that we feel they did. Possibly there was no intention to hurt us as we have been hurt. Maybe they were an innocent friend of ours and also the person who truly hurt you, but we misplaced the anger. And just maybe they did mean to hurt us and hurt us badly. But we have to realize that in the end, the ones we are hurting are ourselves, God and the ones around us who the anger is touching because of our feelings. We need to seek God to help us release our emotions and help us to forgive. Even if we were the person who was originally hurt, we need to seek out the person and let them know we forgive them and release them from the dark place in our heart. We must look to our Creator and see how He continually forgives us when we do things that break His heart. In the process of asking for forgiveness, we need to visit Him and be restored in mind and body as we seek His forgiveness for the anger, etc. And then we must let all of those bad feeling go, so that we can free ourselves from the CONSUMPTION that has stolen so much of our lives from us. If we put our minds and hearts on the Lord and CONSUME what He has to offer us, our bodies will be full of what we need to keep up lifted in spirit and love. Our days to come will be much more enjoyable as we dance (exercise) in the SPIRIT OF GOD.

May God richly Bless you from this day forward.
Carol