Participants: Cheri Peters (Host), Shannon Ethridge
Series Code: CLR
Program Code: CLR00031A
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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! |
Revised 2014-12-17