Participants: Cheri Peters (Host), Dannielle Synot
Series Code: CLR
Program Code: CLR000108A
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00:12 My name is Cheri and today my best friend is here from
00:16 Australia and I want to say it's really fun to have you here. 00:18 I can't believe we're in the same room. 00:20 I know and I can't wait till you hear her story and how God has 00:23 led her. One of the things that we're going to look at is the 00:26 importance of friendship. Come join us in the cafe. 00:29 ¤ ¤ 00:58 I want to just say welcome to the program. A lot of times on 01:01 this program we'll talk about recovery stuff and we'll talk 01:05 about what to do as far as your next step, how to stop using, 01:09 making sure you get some support people around you, but not this 01:12 time. This season we're talking about some of the things that 01:16 happen after you stop using. Some of the core issues and the 01:20 core issues of fear and shame. I don't know about you but I had 01:24 a lot of stuff that I would look at and I thought I hope nobody 01:27 ever knows that. I hope God himself doesn't know that and 01:31 I feel like all of heaven said Hon, I know that and I love you. 01:34 Today we're going to talk about some of the healthier things; 01:38 You know, what's really interesting to me is somebody 01:41 had talked about when they do the recovery it's like they 01:45 really look at an issues and they stay on that and they 01:48 pay attention to that and God said to me one time, Pay 01:51 attention to me, look at me because that's where you get a 01:55 lot of really good stuff from. So when you pay attention to me 01:59 I will show you who you are outside of this junk. I will 02:03 even live that in you as you stand up to give you a clue 02:07 of what that feels like. So when you're going to focus on 02:11 anything, focus on God. Now years into my recovery I had 02:16 that I have a lot of people that I know, a lot of people that I 02:20 meet, lot of people that I even love, but I don't know if I let 02:23 a lot of people really into my life. So we're going to talk 02:28 a little bit about that. I want to say what got me is a story 02:32 that I'm going to tell you, what made it clear to me, is I was 02:36 going to Australia one time and I'm doing a number of things. 02:41 I'm doing a youth event, a camp meeting, I'm meeting people that 02:45 are amazing and I had a day off. My husband shows up because he's 02:49 going to do one of the gigs with me. So he shows up and so coming 02:53 up to our anniversary somebody says why don't you go to and 02:57 I don't even know, like a conservation park or one of 03:00 those things where they had all these animals and why don't you 03:03 go and spend the day there. I thought how fun is that going 03:05 to be. 'Cause I don't know about you but I've never seen a koala 03:09 bear, I've never held a koala bear and they said you could do 03:12 all that kind of stuff. So I'm excited and we show up. And on 03:15 the way down we see that the whole area had been kind of 03:19 trashed. There were a lot of storms that came through, trees 03:24 down. You could tell that it was a major, major storm and what I 03:28 heard from people is there was a major flood even with the fact 03:33 that people had... I don't know if there was loss of life, but 03:37 I mean it was that kind of thing and really intense. So I get to 03:41 the park and there were not a lot of tourists, which was fun 03:44 for me because they paid a lot of attention to us because we 03:48 were like the only ones walking around. So they were talking 03:51 about that they had been closed down for a long time, that they 03:55 had to rebuild the park and all that kind of stuff. So we got a 03:59 lot of attention. I got to hold the koala bear and play with 04:02 the koala bear. I got to hang out with kangaroos. It was 04:06 really funny about. You know you just don't see that stuff over 04:09 here. So I got to hang out with kangaroos and those little joeys 04:11 that kind of pop out of their pouch. You think they're going 04:14 be little tiny things; they get out and they're huge. I think 04:18 how do you fit in there. We just had a great time. They have a 04:22 lot of deadly snakes, got to see those. But my most favorite part 04:25 was this little, not little thing, it was this huge 04:30 thing that looked like a big rat and they're called wombats. 04:33 For some of you may not even know what that is but it's like 04:38 a mole or a gopher but huge, huge. So this thing came walking 04:42 up and I thought look at you, how cute are you. And he was 04:46 just goofy looking and he just had this joy in his face like 04:51 you know what, are you looking at me? I am looking at you and 04:55 he just wanted to be held and played with and all that kind of 04:58 stuff and I was just glad to do it; it was adorable. Picking 05:02 them up was a little awkward because he just huge and so one 05:05 of the people at the park told me a story about this wombat. 05:10 They said that during the storm of course there were no tourists 05:14 that came to the park and the park closed down. The animals 05:17 don't come out of their areas. They're fed and they're taken 05:21 care of and all that kind of stuff but you know everybody 05:23 was just kind of panicking and trying to deal with floods and 05:26 all that kind of stuff and they realized, they called this 05:30 wombat Tonka and I'll tell you why because I think that's 05:33 amazing too. You know how moles kind of tunnel their way under 05:37 things and they can be destructive a little bit. 05:39 When the mole is the size of a Mack truck it can talk a whole 05:44 building down. These guys are kind of destructive, so they 05:48 call him Tonka. So anyhow Tonka was getting sick and he lost 05:52 like 18 pounds and he wasn't sleeping well and when they put 05:56 food for him he wasn't eating and they thought oh man during 06:00 this whole time, I bet we're going to lose him. I don't know 06:02 what happened. What if he got hit with something and they 06:05 didn't know if there was internal bleeding. What if he 06:07 has a cancer of some kind. They just didn't know so they started 06:10 taking Tonka to the doctors. Nothing. I mean they're running 06:15 all kinds of tests and nothing. Pretty soon one of the young 06:20 girls said I think he's depressed. And they said no way. 06:25 He's like a rat. Do rats get depressed? And she says no, no I 06:31 think he's depressed. So anyway they end up deciding as a staff 06:36 that we're going to start to play with Tonka, pay attention, 06:41 make sure that we don't just drop his food off, that we go in 06:45 and we hang out and all those kind of things. Well Tonka 06:48 became so happy again. He started eating again, he started 06:52 gaining his weight. Everything changed. His joy came back and 06:56 they're telling me this story and I'm holding this thing that 06:59 kept wanting just to snuggle into me. I thought, you know 07:03 what, we're like that, we're like that. And in our recovery 07:07 one of the things that I think God is really clear about is 07:11 make sure you let somebody love you. Make sure that you start 07:16 paying attention to the people around you and love on someone 07:20 else because we are made to be social, we're made to be in 07:25 community. Sometimes in our addictions we really get 07:29 isolated. I hang out with other heroin addicts and we're nodding 07:32 off for 12 hours and the only thing we have in common is that 07:35 we're going after this drug and you may have that with your 07:38 sexual addictions, drug addictions, alcoholism, all that 07:41 kind of stuff. But when you get into a normal life look around 07:45 and see who's there. It's going to be risky at first but make a 07:50 friend. I believe what God told me is have three close friends 07:54 and really spend time with them. Be intentional about those 08:00 relationships because we need to see in someone else's eyes 08:05 that they find joy in us, that they love us. In the middle of 08:09 our destruction, I talk, I could take a building down. You know 08:12 what when I'm PMS-ing I think I can too. You know what I mean. 08:17 I am not always that easy. But you know what there are friends 08:20 that they know that about me and they'll look at me and say 08:24 no worries, I love you. And I can't even tell you how healing 08:27 that is. For a lot of us we've been told out whole life that 08:31 we're not okay, nothing is okay. Find two or three friends that 08:35 tell you know what, you're okay no matter what we'll get through 08:39 this and I love you. That's one place where God brings healing 08:43 into your life. We're going to take a break. I'm going to 08:47 introduce you to my friend and you're going to hear her story. 08:50 But remember find three people. It's a little bit of work but 08:53 you can do it. |
Revised 2014-12-17