CASTIMONIA

Sexual Purity Support & Recovery Group

sex addict

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Being a Push Over

Codependency is a term that originated in work with addicts. It has become a cultural phenomena, way beyond relationships with addicts. Daughters are codependent with mentally ill mothers, sons with fathers who won’t let go and insist on adherence to their own value systems. Codependency is about mushy relationships to keep the scary world of anxiety at bay. Sadly enough, the ultimate outcome of codependency is the damage done by a lack of respect in these relationships. Codependency is about being unhappily enmeshed with someone else’s agenda. Codependency means that you have a lack of imagination for yourself and your are too focused on others. One example would be the wife who is a martyr to an alcoholic husband. He numbs his anxiety/dread with the obliviousness of drinking and she is in hyper drive by controlling all the details of living that he ignores. So she becomes entitled and self-righteous with all her vigilance. It’s important to recognize that interrupting codependent behavior requires that you define yourself and your wants. So many people scramble to fill the empty hole within, by focusing on the care-taking of others while ignoring themselves. So where does someone begin, to build their own identity? Fill the emptiness with more and more layers of authenticity. Risk disagreement which makes things more interesting. Practice the truth with your therapist or your best friend. Stop swallowing your real opinions, choose when to go along, instead of always being a pushover. From “Anxiety, Control & Codependency” by Rhoda Mills Sommer, L.C.S.W. http://therapyideas.net/anxiety.htm

“Perfectionism is a 200 lb. shield.” – Dr.Brene Brown

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Go.

http://purehope.net/go/

26d043c8a12711e2b41b22000a1f9a15_6“…go and sin no more.”  John 8:11

Imagine being caught in sexual sin, dragged away half-naked by a group of rabid witnesses, and thrown before the feet of a judge, knowing that the evidence of your guilt is overwhelming and the prescribed punishment is immediate death.  This was the experience of the woman caught in adultery in the eighth chapter of John’s Gospel.  She was guilty, ashamed, humiliated, probably bruised, perhaps broken from a life of abuse and exploitation, and absolutely terrified as she awaited a horrible death.  All was darkness around her, until she heard a gentle voice ask, “Where are your accusers?”  The voice was that of the judge Himself; the very One Who should have sentenced her to die was sending her away in freedom, safety, and hope.

It is difficult to fathom this woman’s experience, yet, to paraphrase the prophet Nathan, “We are the woman!” (II Samuel 12:7).  We have all sinned (Romans 3:23)–sexually and otherwise–and suffered the sting of condemnation from an Accuser (Revelation 12:10), yet we, too, have been set free undeservedly and sent out with grace, mercy, and love (Ephesians 2:4-9).  All that because the Judge Himself bore our griefs and was crushed for our transgressions and adulteries (Isaiah 53:5).  How can we but rejoice and place our faith in Him?

It is an interesting thing that Jesus addressed in the same manner both this woman and His disciples at their parting: “Go.”  Go…and sin no more.  Go…and tell of what God has done for you (Matthew 28:19).  Go…and love one another (John 15:12).  Let us all go forth today in gratitude for His forgiveness, and pursue the life of confession and community warranted by such amazing grace (I John 1:7-9).

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No One Is Perfect

Understanding the origin of your unhealthily dependent relationships also figures high in dismantling them and steering you towards a mutually satisfying connection to someone you can trust and who can trust you. Sometimes this means looking into the past at the family situation in which you learned this behavior. And sometimes that’s painful. But like with any emotional injury, it won’t heal until you explore and understand its origin. Learning to balance give and take, developing a sense of autonomy, and being able to set limits or boundaries is a critical part of a successful and rewarding relationship. If you are someone who thinks you can’t get through without someone else helping you, discovering that indeed you can will be liberating. If you are someone who is too eager and ready to “help” someone else (a partner, a child, a friend) because of your experience and knowledge about what’s best for them, you can start by pulling back and allowing others to make their own mistakes. You won’t save them from themselves by always coming to the rescue. When you find yourself becoming resentful about all the help you’re giving (at your own expense), you can learn to say no. Being withdrawn or detached, or being with someone who is withdrawn or detached, presents its own set of challenges. If you never ask for help, you can come to understand that doing so does not mean you are helpless, and does not cast shame on you. It doesn’t mean you’re weak or bad or unaccomplished. It just means that in this particular situation, you could use a little help. No one is perfect, we’re just human. Being with someone who is unconnected and not able ever to ask for help will require a lot of patience and understanding on your part of just how difficult and shameful that feels. Being able to feel, and honestly and openly express your emotions, as well as take responsibility for them will enrich your personal relationships beyond measure. Being able to lean on someone else yet know you are still yourself with your own desires and capacities is a goal to aspire to. Balancing closeness with independence, trust and vulnerability with confidence and commitment will make for rewarding relationships. If you keep finding yourself in situations like those just described, those patterns are probably pretty ingrained. Turning them around won’t be quick or easy, but it can happen. Therapy can help. From an on-line article by Katherine Rabinowitz, LP, M.A., NCPsyA
http://www.therapycanwork.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=49&Itemid=99

“Guilt is a destructive and ultimately pointless emotion.” – Lynn Crilly

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Merimnao 5 Year Celebration, January 10, 2015

On January 10th 2015 Merimnao celebrates its 5th anniversary.  We are therefore inviting any person; facilitator or group participant (and their spouse/significant other) current or past to come and join us.  The celebration will be held in the Life Center of the Fellowship.  We will start congregating at 3:30 pm; the program begins at 4 pm, and will end by 5.  Then we’ll just have some visiting time.  We’ll have some video, some live testimony, and then we’ll take a short look back the original ministry vision and what God has done to fulfill it.  After that we’ll look at the ministry vision for the next 5 years, and some of the ways God is already working to make some things happen.  Everybody is invited!  Spread the word.

Date: Saturday, January 10th
Time: 3:30pm
Location: Life Center of The Fellowship at Cinco Ranch
22765 Westheimer Parkway
Katy, TX  77450

For those that are not aware of the relationship between Merimnao and Castimonia, please continue reading:

Merimnao Healing Ministries is a “para-church” ministry, and a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to serving the churches and community in the Katy/West Houston area through ministering to the brokenhearted. It originated out of the same ministry within the church known as “The Fellowship at Cinco Ranch” (www.thefellowship.org). Brokenheartedness is a scriptural term that refers to the fact that people have an “inner part” which is so often broken. Widows and orphans are brokenhearted, individuals with life threatening illnesses are brokenhearted and people who have been abused or abandoned are brokenhearted; addicts, such as found in the fellowship known as Castimonia, are also brokenhearted.

Castimonia is therefore part of Merimnao, and Merimnao, as a para-church organization is part of the worldwide church that Jesus established after His death and resurrection.

 

 

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Strange Love

http://purehope.net/strange-love/

“Let them be yours alone and not for strangers with you.” Proverbs 5:17

Don’t talk to strangers.  That instruction was drilled into us as kids, and we may be repeating it to our own children now.  Yet many of us as adults are not only talking to strangers, but sharing the deepest aspects of our being with them.  Whether it is through pornography, strip clubs, prostitution, erotic massages, infidelity at work, on the road, on social media, in the neighborhood, or simply a self-indulgent fantasy life, too many Christian men and women are “casting their pearls” before strangers and being trampled in turn (Matthew 7:6).  Instead of guarding our heart and the streams of life that flow from it (Proverbs 4:23, 5:16), far too many of us are hanging it out in the open–with all its past wounds and isolation–for any seductive stranger to have at.  Lives, families, and churches are suffering for it.

God calls us to much more.  He calls us to healing (Matthew 11:28), to intimacy with Himself (Isaiah 54:5), to community with one another (Hebrews 10:25), and to love our spouse with the passion and desire that He feels and displays toward us (Ephesians 5).  There is no room in that call for a spiritual laziness that leaves the heart open to the spirit of the age with its greed, selfishness, immorality, and impurity–all manifestations of idolatry (Colossians 3:5).

How to guard against the temptations of the “stranger”?  Exhilaration, of the healthy sort.  The exhortation to be “exhilarated always” with spousal love (Proverbs 5:19) means more than just the occasional date night or shoulder rub; it means a tenacious pursuit of each other as you courageously open your whole hearts to each other and God.  To what effect?  A growing intimacy with both your spouse and the Triune God reflected in your sacrificial “one flesh” union; oh, and an increasing rampart against temptation.  For those of us who call ourselves servants of Jesus Christ, there shouldn’t be anything strange about that.