Introduction to Grace and Truth in Your Story
Grace & Truth in Your Story is based on the idea that every single one of us have faced experiences in our lives that we need to recover from. Experiences that have distorted our God given design and purpose. Recovery is just another word for sanctification. They both describe a process of returning something or someone to their original state or design. Grace and Truth in Your Story is a bible study and a journey that was created by a God best illustrated for us in the life of Jesus. This path is intended to help you move towards recovering the character of Christ in you and the peace & fruit that follow.
Good news is Jesus has given us instructions on how to navigate this path. Most concisely in the Sermon on the Mount and further illustrated throughout the scriptures in the life of Christ, the only man that will never need recovery. Amazingly it looks a lot like the 12 steps.
This path will help us to throw off the things that entangle us and prevents us from being the wives, mothers, daughter, sisters, friends and disciple makers we can be. We will discover and weed out lies that have replaced truth in our life, hurts that have caused us to operate outside of God’s will for us. Unhealthy thinking & behaviors we have developed subtly over the course of our lives that continue to negatively affect us and those around us will be weeded out leaving room for the peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self control God wants us to enjoy.
We will be walking through our stories looking for insight as to how we got to this broken place, where our life experiences have impacted our relationship with God and our friends and family.
Most of us won’t look at our own stories unless we are forced to through some crisis or conflict but we can choose to join God as an active participant on this path to recovery. The recovery of our God give design. We can choose to follow God’s words and keep our eyes open to what God has to teach us from our life experiences and join Him in the redemption of our struggles & pain.
It has taken a nearly 54 years to see the path right that has been right in front of me. The path God has been trying to show me all along. He used this path to strengthen me through my life story with all it’s experiences. Experiences such as being called to know God at 10, being parented by extremely loving, nonjudgemental parents, being sexually and physically abused for 6 years of my young life, my unsuccessful coping skills of drinking too much, doing drugs and promiscuity, the marriage God gave me through grace, by the death of my daughter and father and the crumbling of my mental health. God wasted none of it.
Fear, denial, incorrect thinking, distorted views of who God is always tries to twist the truth in my life. But I have learned on my path, my life story gives me the opportunity to connect with God, to explore the truth about who HE is and who HE created me to be. I don’t need to judge it, it is what it is and it’s a gift that it directed me to the place I am.
I hope you are excited to discover God’s grace and truth in your story.
He is a good & loving God.
Julie Gould, LPCA, RN