Celebrating Life in Recovery

Sexual Purity

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Cheri Peters (Host), Shannon Ethridge

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Series Code: CLR

Program Code: CLR00031A


00:11 Welcome to Celebrating Life and Recovery.
00:13 I'm Cheri your host.
00:14 Last season, we covered Every Man's Battle and all
00:17 the women, a lot of women, out there said,
00:19 what about me?
00:20 This program, we are going to look at every woman's
00:22 battle so come join us.
00:51 The book for this season is Exalting in His Word
00:54 by Shelley Quinn.
00:55 She says in that book that we are either
00:57 powerful or pitiful.
00:59 And I so relate to that.
01:00 I either walk in the power of God, in the Holy Spirit,
01:03 and we talk about the Holy Spirit on the whole last season,
01:05 or I limp around through the day struggling under the
01:08 weight of my own junk.
01:09 And I just I so believe that everything in me says
01:13 that I'm not smart enough.
01:14 I'm not together enough.
01:16 I don't even know where the damage is really
01:18 so that I can figure it out.
01:20 But if I turn to God and say, God,
01:21 You know through the Holy Spirit show me, because you know,
01:25 15 years, 15 years in the first part of my recovery.
01:28 I chased after everything.
01:30 I decided, you know, my problem is I'm a heroine addict.
01:33 That's all it is.
01:35 So I'm going to do every single thing, about drug recovery,
01:37 and I did.
01:39 I got all the books.
01:40 I went to all the classes.
01:41 I went to all the groups and all that kind of stuff.
01:43 Every time I was in church, I wanted to tell everybody,
01:46 "Hi, my name is Cheri, strung out on heroine, I'm a mess!
01:49 You know, normal people look at you like, What you know!
01:53 And my first suicide attempt was when I was an eight.
01:55 I wanted to so cover all that stuff, you know.
01:57 And so I'm following all that.
01:59 I'm struggling with all that.
02:00 I'm trying to learn all that.
02:02 I'm trying to do the right thing and do recovery.
02:04 Just be all that.
02:06 You know what, after like 20 years, God says to me,
02:11 you know Hon, the issue is, you don't know
02:13 how to trust anymore.
02:15 You never let anyone love you.
02:17 You don't know how to do that.
02:18 I'm thinking, I don't think that's it.
02:22 I still think you're wrong about that.
02:25 And it is so funny when we think God is wrong
02:27 about something, He can't be wrong.
02:29 I mean, you know, He literally can't be
02:31 anything but what He is, you know.
02:32 And so it took me a long time to finally say, He gave
02:36 me an image, and I know everybody's had this image
02:38 before, but I want to tell you He literally showed me
02:40 that I'm in a room, no windows, bricked up,
02:43 and three years old.
02:44 Sitting in the corner just crying, just sad.
02:47 He gives me this image, and I'm thinking you know,
02:50 man, that's kind of sad.
02:54 I don't think that's me.
02:55 And He says, you know what every time I even get
02:57 close to your little brick house and try to move
03:00 one little brick.
03:01 You get so scared I have to back off.
03:03 And I am just asking you, let me heal that part.
03:07 And I finally I sat there in worship and study and
03:13 thought okay God, how am I going to let
03:15 you heal that part?
03:16 cause if it's true, and I was starting to begin to feel
03:20 the whole weight of the truth of it, if it's true, I don't
03:24 know how to let You heal it.
03:25 I don't how to do this.
03:28 I don't know how to let someone trust me.
03:30 I don't know how to let people in.
03:31 I believe I have attachments disorders, bondage disorders,
03:35 and most of you know, my mom tried to abort me six times
03:38 while she carried me.
03:39 We had no bonding stuff.
03:41 So I have all that and I am so afraid, God.
03:43 I'm afraid, I don't know how to heal from here.
03:46 And He says, good, let me do it.
03:48 And I am thinking, really?
03:50 You'll do it and I just wanted to weep, because I don't
03:54 know how to do it.
03:55 You know you and I don't know how to do it.
03:57 John 15:5 says, "apart from me, you can do nothing".
04:01 Nothing, and He doesn't mean that in a way that He's
04:04 trying to just say that you are nothing.
04:06 You can't figure it out.
04:08 He's not just saying the damage is so intense,
04:10 it's so deep, it's so out of your range of even being
04:13 able to see the whole ramification of
04:16 what happened to you.
04:17 Generations may be, what happened to you.
04:19 You can't do anything, but I am God, and the Holy Spirit.
04:22 In Isaiah 57:18, was our text last season, that says,
04:27 I'm God, and I love you and I want you to heal you.
04:29 I know how damaged you are, but I want to heal you anyway.
04:32 For all that kind of stuff we have to so trust God in that.
04:35 I finally just wept and said, okay.
04:39 I can't do it, and God just likes to joke with me.
04:42 I don't know if He jokes with you guys,
04:44 but He likes to joke with me.
04:45 He says, now you're at step 1.
04:47 And I'm like, I've been in recovery for like 20 years.
04:49 Step 1 is not where I'm at.
04:52 He's like Hon, step 1.
04:54 Okay, step 1.
04:57 I think, how fun is God.
04:59 Our damage is so intense, it's so deep, for most of us,
05:03 that He says I will take as long as you need to take.
05:06 I will not force you into recovery.
05:08 I won't force you to look at anything that you are not
05:10 ready to look at.
05:11 I won't force you to do the right thing.
05:12 I will so love you, that you will be able to see it
05:16 as the right thing.
05:17 You'll long to do it.
05:18 Wow, stop it!
05:21 How cool is that, I just amazes me how cool that is.
05:25 The rest the text, in John 15:5 says that God is the vine,
05:32 the root, He is what goes into the ground.
05:36 If you look at a root or a plant, and literally takes all
05:39 the nutrients and just so brings up the water in the nutrients,
05:44 and all the stuff in the soil and feeds the branches, which
05:47 we are the branches, it says, so, we are the branches, and
05:49 then the fruit comes from all that happening, bringing
05:53 to the branches and we bear fruit.
05:54 And so He says remember, if you cut the root at the bottom.
05:57 And that's what it means apart from Me you can't do anything.
06:00 If you cut the very source that is going to be your best
06:04 counselor, your best Father, Physician, friend, lover, all
06:08 that kind of stuff, if you cut that at the root, then all of
06:12 that is robbed from you.
06:14 So remember in recovery, and I just beg you, in recovery,
06:17 and I don't care what you are recovering from because
06:20 I can list tons of stuff.
06:21 Whether sexual addictions, drug addictions, religious
06:24 addictions, work-alcoholism, eating disorders, cutting.
06:27 I've seen people, I mean people are
06:29 addicted to everything.
06:31 I think anger sometimes as an addiction.
06:32 I like adrenaline, and that happens, and I feel powerful,
06:35 when I'm just in-your-face, and I'm like this
06:37 puffer fish thing.
06:38 I mean we have all these addictions, whatever the
06:40 addiction is, it's apart from God, you are not
06:43 able to figure it out.
06:46 I'm going to talk to you about for the first 20 years of
06:52 my recovery, 15 years or whatever.
06:54 Every single step that I made, you know, I just like in going
06:59 to do this recovery thing.
07:00 I'm going to do it.
07:01 I'm going to step up, and I'm going do the right thing.
07:03 I'm going to eat the right thing and sleep and not get
07:06 too tired too hungry, like every 12 step program says.
07:09 I'm going to make sure I do all that.
07:10 And I do it, for as long as I can white knuckle it.
07:13 And then all the junk hits me, I fall like
07:16 2, 4, 8, 10 feet back.
07:19 Every step I make, I'm falling back 10 feet, you know.
07:23 So it's just like I'm so self-defeating.
07:25 As soon as I learn to turn over to God, as soon as I
07:27 decided God, I'm going to let You take this.
07:30 I'm going to let you do this.
07:31 If I think I'm even going to read a book, on recovery.
07:35 If I'm even going to open the page on recovery,
07:37 I'm going to ask you, is this the book?
07:40 Is this good, because I don't know.
07:44 I don't know.
07:45 And so I'm just going to trust God to that extent.
07:48 I want to, before I go on, to what I want, the first part
07:52 of this program, where we were talking a little bit about
07:54 how the show and stuff like that.
07:56 I want to introduce you to the guest here, and we have
07:58 some incredible folks.
08:00 Amanda, your joining us.
08:01 And I'm so glad Shannon Ethridge sharing Every Woman's Battle.
08:04 We are going to get in that a lot today, so if your
08:06 sensitive at all, if you do not like people to talk
08:09 about sex or sexual things RUN!
08:13 Run! don't watch the show.
08:16 But you know what, we are sexual beings, and we have the
08:18 privilege of healing in this area.
08:20 It's so cool.
08:21 So stay with us.
08:23 JoAnie from California, one of my best friends, I have a
08:27 few people that I put here because you know, I'm just
08:29 afraid to trust people.
08:30 But you are one of my best friends, and I'm so privilege
08:32 to have you here.
08:33 Heather, thank you, you've been on the show before,
08:36 I'm glad you're here.
08:37 Irma, how cool are you.
08:39 Thank you for joining us.
08:40 Nyse Collins, and Nyse, I'm hoping to see you tons.
08:43 You're going to be doing another show, doing a testimony
08:45 and I'm hoping to see you, ton's.
08:46 So now I want to tell you one thing before I introduce
08:49 you to the guest which is Shannon Ethridge.
08:51 Is I want to tell you, I got asked to go to Russia.
08:54 So I, I'm thrilled about going.
08:58 I'm a heroin addict in recovery, as flaky as can be.
09:02 I'm going to do a six-week outreach in Russia
09:05 with heroin addicts.
09:06 And I know God is going to bless us beyond
09:09 what we could even imagine.
09:10 And so I'm getting ready for the trip.
09:12 It was hilarious, because someone says, six weeks.
09:14 And they know I never take notes, and I never know
09:17 what I'm going to talk about.
09:18 I never know because I trust the Holy Spirit is just
09:20 going to say what the Holy Spirit needs to say.
09:22 This, what are you going to do for six weeks?
09:25 And I am thinking I don't know, they said,
09:27 you have to have a plan.
09:28 I'm thinking, really, because I don't do well with plans.
09:33 I don't know if anybody can tell that I'm ADD.
09:35 I'm flaky, so plans are not something that I do well.
09:38 No, no plan.
09:39 And I am thinking, really, well yeah have like a
09:42 whole kind of seminar on PowerPoint.
09:45 It would just be cool.
09:46 And I am like a really.
09:48 And I'm excited, I am thinking somebody even thinks I'm
09:51 capable of doing like a PowerPoint presentation.
09:54 How funny is that.
09:55 So, I'm like okay so I get one.
09:57 You can buy those with the pictures and the scriptural
10:01 references and everything, it's like the whole
10:03 six weeks is planned out.
10:05 And it's beautiful, it's perfect.
10:07 I never saw such a together program in my life.
10:10 I'm like, I am just going to be, this is going to
10:13 be so much fun.
10:14 Then someone says, what language is it in?
10:17 Oh shut up, what do you mean?
10:19 I said it's English, well, aren't you going to Russia?
10:22 Oh man, so I now have to find this same program in Russian.
10:27 That takes me forever.
10:28 So I finally found the program, and now I have the program,
10:31 and never opened it.
10:33 I get to Russia, and they asked me, what are you
10:37 going to talk about?
10:38 I have a PowerPoint program.
10:41 And they said, with tears in their eyes, was amazing to me
10:45 teared up, I was hoping you would talk to us about addiction
10:48 and freedom from that.
10:51 And I was just was so convicted I thought God, I'm so sorry,
10:55 because You did have a plan.
10:56 And it wasn't another Bible study.
10:57 Bible studies are absolutely amazing.
10:59 But we are dying because we are lost in our addictions,
11:02 it's huge, it absolutely is huge.
11:04 So I get there,
11:06 before I got there God tells me that the Mafia is going to
11:11 approach us.
11:12 And I was going to work with the Russian mafia.
11:14 I'm like Ahhhh! How fun is that!
11:17 So I call my pastor, pastor, you've got to pray for me
11:20 because I think I'm going to minister to the Mafia.
11:22 It is like you are so grandiose.
11:25 No! no, I think the Holy Spirit told me that.
11:27 I even got a book on Mafia and Russia.
11:29 So I could kind of, what they do when the whole
11:32 political system is falling, mafias taken over.
11:35 I mean is just this incredible thing.
11:37 So I got some information, and I get there in the
11:39 first couple days.
11:40 I get a call at the studio in Russia, and they say to me.
11:45 Somebody from the Mafia wants to meet with you.
11:48 I knew it, I knew it!
11:51 How fun is that, like how fun is that!
11:54 But I'm like okay, okay, you know, I'm ready.
11:56 So we meet, he's Russian.
12:00 So he can't understand anything and he is trying
12:03 to do small talk.
12:04 And I have an interpreter and he shows me a picture
12:06 of his three year old son, gorgeous kid.
12:08 The Mafia is not so much into drugs, just blowing people
12:11 up and doing protection stuff, taking money from
12:14 businesses, and stuff like that.
12:16 But this guy got strung out on heroine.
12:17 So the whole family says, you know, you got to deal
12:19 with your drugs.
12:20 You can blow up a whole train in Moscow,
12:24 but don't be a heroine addict.
12:25 Well that's just not okay with us.
12:27 Anyhow, so we're are meeting, and I trying to figure out
12:30 how to deal with this guy.
12:31 What do I tell him about who God is and why do you walk
12:35 away from your addictions.
12:36 And so then I'm tell in them all addictions.
12:39 He's like, you know what I'm telling you, I have no
12:44 other problems that I want to deal with it except this.
12:46 I'm okay in everything else.
12:48 I'm just saying he's in my face, I'm like okay.
12:51 Let's just say, do you play board games?
12:55 How about let's pretend monopoly,
12:58 we're going to play Monopoly.
12:59 And you know monopoly and the monopoly is.
13:01 You have all these different pieces.
13:03 You know you have liked a top hat, and you have,
13:06 whatever car, dog, and all that kind of stuff.
13:10 The little iron.
13:11 I mean, you have all these little pieces.
13:12 But I'm going to have you imagine that each piece
13:15 represents a horrible addiction, each piece.
13:18 The top hat is gambling, right?
13:21 Little dog is, kicking dogs, that's the anger.
13:25 You know what ever, eating disorders,
13:27 sexual addictions, drug addictions.
13:29 So we are going to play the game.
13:30 I want you to pick a piece, pick a piece.
13:34 And so he looked at it for a minute, so he picked drug
13:40 addiction, because you know he's dealing with drugs.
13:42 Okay, so we played for a little while,
13:44 I said, pick another piece.
13:47 Okay sexual addiction.
13:48 I'm playing, he's playing, we're playing,
13:50 for a little while.
13:51 Pick another piece, wait, no, no about how about you
13:53 not pick a piece?
13:55 Pick a piece for your son.
13:56 And he looked at me and said, I'm not picking
13:59 a piece for my son, yea you have no choice
14:02 you are going to be lost in this addiction, pick
14:05 a piece for your son, and he is like I am not.
14:08 I could see this anger.
14:10 I said, if you are going to be lost in addictions,
14:12 I don't care what they are, you are going to pass them
14:14 on to the next generation.
14:15 God is begging you, put the pieces down and step
14:20 away from the board.
14:21 Don't play, don't even think that you are going to play
14:24 with a lesser addiction.
14:25 Don't play, because every addiction keeps you in the game
14:29 and every addiction keeps you trashed, every addiction.
14:32 So, we're going to talk today about sexual addictions.
14:35 And we are going to talk about relationship addictions,
14:37 and those kind of things.
14:38 And I beg you to listen up.
14:39 Because God is begging us, don't play the game.
14:42 Don't play the game, turn it over to Him.
14:44 The Holy Spirit and choose recovery, and He will give you
14:47 a life that you wouldn't trade for anything.
14:49 So we will be right back.
14:50 Stay with us!


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Revised 2014-12-17