Covenant Eyes – Internet Filtering and Accountability (Try it Free for 30 Days)

The Covenant Eyes Accountability Service monitors every website you visit and rates those sites for objectionable content. An easy-to-read report is regularly e-mailed to Accountability Partners that you choose. This enables you to be transparent with trusted friends or mentors about the temptations you face and the choices you make online. These weekly reports help you build a new connection with your friend and allow you to have deep and intimate conversations in your walk toward purity. The Accountability Service is available for Windows®, Mac OS®, iPhone®, iPod touch®, iPad®, and Android.

X3Watch – Internet Accountability

X3watch is an accountability software program helping with online integrity. Whenever you browse the Internet and access a site, which may contain questionable material, the program will record the site name, time, and date the site was visited. A person of your choice (an accountability partner) will receive an email containing all possible questionable sites you may have visited within the month. This information is meant to encourage open and honest conversation between friends and help us all be more accountable. X3watch is available for for Windows®, Mac OS®, iPhone®, iPod touch®, iPad®, and Android. Free and premium services available.

Tip!

Keep in mind that nearly every internet-ready device has parental settings that can be activated and customized. Check your manual for assistance.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I’ll never forget the day I was told the word cancer.

My friend and ministry partner Crystal Renaud was in town visiting for what was supposed to be a planning retreat and we were just heading to my doctor for what I thought was a blocked milk duct. I was about to stop breastfeeding my daughter and move on with the next phase of my life which was going to include heading back to school to get my counseling degree and working with Crystal to expand WHOLE Women Ministries as a whole. I was really excited about the opportunities that were coming up.

Crystal and I went to my OB/GYN who also was sure it was a blocked milk duct. I was told to put hot compresses on it and come back in two weeks for a checkup. But just before we left, he suggested we just head over to the hospital for a “quick ultrasound.” A very lengthy ultrasound led to a mammogram which led to Crystal and I being led into a very small room and I was asked the question, “Can I be honest with you?” Next the words….”we think you have breast cancer, in fact we’re almost sure of it.”

I felt the room go dark.

The weeks and months to come would be a blur. Testing, doctor visits, phrases like “it’s very aggressive,” “the tumor is large,” “chemotherapy,” “double mastectomy,” “radiation,” “removal of ovaries,” were things that were being thrown at me at rapid speeds. It was so emotionally overwhelming, but yet I didn’t even have time to process the emotion. Our family was in shock. My husband, who had been in the trucking industry since 1997, had to change jobs taking a pay cut so he could be home every evening to help me as I began this journey. My two boys (10 and 6) and my baby girl (20 months) had no idea what was happening to Mommy.

Right now, I am in the middle of chemotherapy treatment. I have one more round of chemo and then I will have a double mastectomy right before Thanksgiving. Then after the holidays I’ll be having radiation and then reconstruction surgery, and then finally either a hysterectomy or removal of my ovaries. And I’m only 34 years old. Since I carry the BRAC gene, treatment has to be aggressive and fast. And to top it all off, right after my start of chemo, my own mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and has since had a double mastectomy.

If you read all that and took a deep breath while thinking, “wow,” believe me, I still can’t believe it’s all real.

When I was asked to write a blog post for WHOLE because of breast cancer awareness month, I thought about what I could say other than just my breast cancer story. What did God want me to say?

I know that my story is still being written. Many of you know my personal story of how God has healed me from my past sexual addiction and now I use that story to help so many others who struggle. I really thought that was it. I thought I would just share that story and God would help me lead others into the path of recovery.

What I didn’t know was – my story wasn’t done, and He wasn’t done changing me.

When you stare your greatest fear (which in my case WAS cancer) in the face directly, you find out quickly about who you are inside. You quickly come to the realization how much you want to live, how much you love your family, how precious life is, how much more there is to do, how weak you really are, and how you really have no control. Because of my past, I was a very insecure person – always seeking others’ approval and acceptance. I had lost so much of my identity through my addiction, it took years of counseling/therapy/recovery groups to begin to learn who I was apart from that. I had to replace all the lies I believed about myself and my worth with the truth of God’s word and who He says I am. It’s been a long journey.

But now in the face of a cancer diagnosis, more is revealed about my heart. God had asked me to not just trust Him with my past (which included my hurts and my beliefs about myself), but now to place my very life into His hands. My future. And I thought giving my past to Him was hard! There was so much more at stake handing him my future: Would I have to completely lose everything about myself – the parts of my body that make me a woman? Would I never be able to have any more children? Would I live to see my 40th birthday? To see my baby girl walk down the aisle? To watch my boys become men? To hold my grandchildren? To sit beside my husband when we were old on the porch swing of the house we just moved into this past December?

Yes, this indeed was much harder.

I had to make a decision right after my diagnosis. I prayed and said, “God, if I do this you have to speak to me and give me something to hold onto.” I woke up the next morning and immediately words from Psalm 91 came to my mind and I had to run and look it up. I read it in the Message version and the words literally were leaping off the page at me. It was a promise. Something I could hold onto. At that moment, I made the decision. I was placing it ALL in God’s hands. No, my heart and emotions didn’t feel it yet, but I made the decision with my mind and I said it out loud. At that moment, it was like I took off a pair of glasses that I had seen the world in for 34 years and I put on a new pair. They were not rose-colored for sure, but it was a whole new way of viewing the world.

I now see opportunities every day to show love, I see through rude and manipulative people to the heart of their brokenness that makes them that way, I see the value of pausing and just looking up at the great big blue sky and realizing how small I am, I see that God can do more with me in the moments of silence and rest than He can when I moved through my day running 100mph. I see my Heavenly Father as someone who can be trusted, not like all the people who have lost my trust through my lifetime for whatever reason. When I look in the mirror the old me would see a bald, sick woman who has cancer. Now, I see a beautiful child of the King who is allowing her Father to shine through her life like a ruby – His light hitting her brokenness and illuminating the darkness around her. Everything is redefined.

You don’t have to be diagnosed with cancer to have this moment for yourself.

Whatever you’re dealing with that’s keeping you from being changed from the inside out, more than likely is keeping you that way because of fear. It’s in the process of surrender and the pain you may have to walk through is where the healing is. We get hung up in the past and all its mess, or we dream of what it would look like on the other side when it would all go away. But what about the middle? The actual process. What’s stopping you from surrendering? It’s until we step up to the fear – nose to nose, eye to eye and speak your decision out loud – that’s when change will come.

I’m not sitting here waiting for my cancer to be cured. See, cancer WAS the cure.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Read more about Jenny’s journey on her blog HERE.

Brittany is the newest member of the WHOLE Women Ministries Volunteer Staff and has taken on the role of our Social Media & Donor Relations Manager. She will be overseeing content creation on all of our social media accounts as well as pouring lots of love and appreciation on our wonderfully generous donors.

Please take a moment to learn more about Brittany below and warmly welcome her into the WHOLE/DGM family.

BRITTANY BISHOPP

Brittany currently resides in the suburbs of Chicago, IL, but is originally from Washington State in the Pacific Northwest where she plans to reside again at some point in her life. She came to know Christ at the young age of 3, but then fell away from the church in her early teens. When she was 16, God called her back into His arms and she has been walking in faith with Him ever since.

Brittany went through her own experiences with pornography & masturbation addiction and has been in recovery ever since joining the DGM community. She had always felt called into ministry and realized shortly after joining DGM that her passion was to share Christ with the sex industry and those who struggle with sexual addiction and pornography addiction. Brittany also leads a Bible Study small group at her house that focuses on community and growing deeply in love with Christ.

She is also the owner and main photographer for Eleven:One Photography which receives it’s name from Hebrews 11:1. She plans on incorporating her photography skills in her missions trips that she has coming up in 2014 with XXXChurch and Serve Seattle. She also does a ton of cool mobile photography and can be found on Instagram at @brittanybishopp.

In her spare time Brittany enjoys hanging out with close friends, getting tattoos when she can afford it, getting awesome songs stuck in her head and serving the body of Christ whenever she can.

*********************************

Five Keys to Forgiveness
Renee Fisher

I’m here to tell you that you need to let it go. Forgiveness is key.

Maybe your fears are right–maybe you’re not good or strong enough to forgive. But God is. Instead of indulging in your fears and hesitation any longer, choose reconciliation over despair, forgiveness over hatred, and freedom over bitterness. Jesus stands there waiting to help you take that first step of faith over the past.

Let Him help you take away your number-one fear. Because, believe it or not, you can forgive!

Here are 5 keys to help you process through any unforgiveness in your life.

1. Forgiveness is personal.

It can feel like you’re ripping your own heart out of your chest. Even the thought of it can make you anxious–and if you’re anything like me, anxiety is your spiritual barometer. It makes you ask questions…questions like, “Are you living the way you should? “Can you stop blaming others even if it’s not your fault?” “Are you doing to others as you would wish them to do to you? Are you really?”

2. Forgiveness is not the end of your story.

But, you might be asking how? I don’t know your story, and neither have I walked a mile in your shoes. But we do have another example to learn from. What I appreciate most about the life of Job is that he wasn’t afraid to duke it out God and his friends who claimed he was guilty.

“These men–Job’s friends–had offered correct statements about God (yes, sometimes God does allow us to suffer as a result of our straying from His law), but none of them led Job to a place of repentance or a greater acknowledgement of God” (63).

Whoa. Just whoa.

I can’t take credit for this thought, actually. My husband Marc is the one who pointed out this little tidbit. We can be correct about God in our thoughts, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t in danger of His anger.

Yes, God can handle our anger.

No, forgiveness is not the end–a greater knowledge of God is.

3. Forgiveness is not based on luck or circumstance.

Forgiveness stems from the all consuming, loving, and unending power of Jesus Christ. He forgave us for all time. Once and for all, He took our past, present, and future. Technically speaking, Jesus didn’t mean we are to forgive seventy times seven times–or 490 times. God doesn’t want us to keep track how many times others sin against us. Rather the numbers prove that forgiveness counts. Once God forgives, the slate is wiped clean. He removes our sins as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12).

4. Forgiveness is like a symphony.

In music composers put rests between the notes. The rests are periods of silence that give the music rhythm and meter and prevent it from being a jumble of sounds. When we take the time to pause and make a confession, our life suddenly starts to make sense again. How can you discern God’s voice if you don’t stop and take the time to listen? How will you ever forgive if you don’t take the first step of stopping to recognize your own brokenness? I love how forgiveness allows the Christian to take time to pause, pray, and confess.

5. In God’s Kingdom, forgiveness reigns.

We don’t like to view God as someone who lets bad things happen to good people. Our society simply has no tolerance for suffering. God is here to show you in mighty, mighty ways that there is room for repentance. In God’s Kingdom, forgiveness reigns so why not extend the gift of forgiveness today?

Adapted from “Forgiving Others, Forgiving Me.” © 2013 Harvest House Publishers. If you would like to know more about how to forgive others including yourself, please feel free to check out Renee Fisher’s new book on Amazon that released on August 1st.

Renee Fisher, the Devotional Diva®, is the spirited speaker and author of Faithbook of Jesus, Not Another Dating Book, Forgiving Others, Forgiving Me, and Loves Me Not. A graduate of Biola University, Renee’s mission in life is to “spur others forward” (Hebrews 10:24) using the lessons learned from her own trials to encourage others in their walk with God. She and her husband, Marc, live in California with their dog, Rock Star. Learn more about Renee at www.devotionaldiva.com and www.forgivingme.com.

• REGISTER
  • Pre-Conference
  • North America
  • International
• SPEAKERS
• SPONSORS
• HOSTS
• CONTACT
• DONATE

Becoming Myself is a hope-filled book for anyone who wonders if her life will ever change—if she will ever change. In Stasi’s most intimate book yet, she shares her own struggles with self-worth, weight, and her past as she shows how God is faithfully unveiling who we truly are. For me personally, this has been a valuable read.

You can download Chapter 1 and/or you can order your own copy today (releases August 1, 2013).

And enjoy what Stasi has to say below.

Blessings,
Crystal Renaud
Founder, WHOLE/DGM

*****************************

Many women feel like a failure as a woman. I know that oftentimes I do. A failure as a human being, really. It has underscored just about everything I have done and everything I have been kept from doing. But I am not a failure as a human being or as a woman. In some core place deep within, I know this. I fail, yes. But I am not a failure. I disappoint. But I am not a disappointment. Yet when I find myself struggling again – losing the battle for my beauty, my body, my heart – I can sure feel like a failure in every way. And isn’t that true for every woman? Don’t we all have secret places where we are not living in the victory we long for, and that colors how we see ourselves? Doesn’t it go on to become a barrier between us and the people in our lives? A wall separating us from the love of God?

Or is it just me?

I didn’t think so.

Sometimes we feel hopeless to ever change, simply because our personal history is filled with our failed attempts to change. Where was that angel who is supposed to be guarding our tongue and preventing those harsh words from lashing out at our children? Where did that fruit of the Spirit go empowering us to be self-controlled and pass by the donut section? God has not given me a spirit of fear, so why am I so consumed with worry over my children, my finances, my future? If the fear of man is a snare, why do I still find I am terrified of exposing my true self and then being rejected? My addiction and bondage to food has been revealed as a liar and a thief, and yet in the moment of pain, too often I still turn to it.

God knows.

God knows.

He has not turned his face away. The very fact that we long for the change we do is a sign that we are meant to have it. Our very dissatisfaction with our own weaknesses and struggles points to the reality that continuing to live in our weaknesses and struggles is not our destiny. Read those two sentences again. Let hope rise. Why are you struggling with the things you do? There is a reason. It is found in the life you have lived, the wounds you have received, what you have come to believe about yourself because of them and not having a clue as to how to bear your sorrow. It is also because of who you are meant to be.

It is not too late. It is not too hard. You are not too much. God’s mercies are new every morning. There is mercy in his eyes right now.

*****************************

Stasi Eldredge leads the women’s ministry of Ransomed Heart and is the co-author (with her husband, John) of Captivating and Love & War. Her books have sold nearly 3 million copies.

Stasi and John have three sons and live in Colorado Springs, Colo.

_____________________________________________________________________________

I’m going to talk about something severely uncomfortable today if not a bit risqué, so here is your warning in advance. It is a secret discomfort we ache for. A seduction we shove under the covers and pretend doesn’t exist, where it continues to lure us, to ensnare us, to deliver what we oh so often think we need or deserve.

Masturbation. I’ve said it.

(If anyone has been struck by lightning, please contact the nearest emergency center immediately)

I find it interesting and nauseatingly hypocritical that men in the church maintain this unspoken liberty to confess their addiction to playing with themselves, while the women bury it with layers of frilly chatter and vague innuendos. I can only recall once in my past discussions when another chick openly stated, “I have a problem with masturbating”.

I thought she had been heroic. In six words, she unfolded the exact compulsion that called to me night after night. Had there been freedom within our gender circle for such a confession to begin with, perhaps she wouldn’t have seemed so brave- just honest.

So lets talk about it. We are done running to the sink to wash our hands clean and pretend it never happens.

I can’t remember when I first produced a curiosity about masturbation. That’s where it begins for many of us. For others, it is taught by an entitled adult who can’t keep their hands or their thoughts to themselves. Some learn it from a screen late at night. Whenever the story began, today that is not the priority, however essential reflection on it may be. It seems that now, we have an ever increasing number of sisters who are not only addicted to a behavior they do not fully understand, but are terrified to step into the light about it.

If that number includes you, then I long for you to know this: You are not alone. You are not filthy. You are still valued.

For years the temptation was an ever present companion. There was never anyone to hold me accountable for it was an undisclosed addiction, after all. I fully believed and still do, that sex is an experience designed for marriage alone. But my faith in that truth didn’t keep the habit at bay any more than my belief in Christ did.

I’ve come to realize that I am a creature of self-justification. And like many other unsightly choices in my past, masturbating was no exception. “I deserved to”. Do you know how hard it is to keep your hands to yourself while dating? What was I supposed to do with all that pent up energy after a freaking awesome and reasonably chaste make-out session?!

I once read that when a woman creates a habit of touching herself, she teaches herself what she likes, and therefore how to easily reach orgasm. Sounds pleasant, but unfortunately the ramification is that when this is learned, she then robs her husband of that very experience. Whatever he does until he figures it out will result in loss of patience, irritation, disappointment, and distance.

My early marriage was no exception- Sex became about what he wasn’t doing, instead of it being him who was doing it.

My ritualistic use of masturbation as a crutch for my own lack of self-discipline acted as an unseen and destructive wedge in our bed. The very man I had saved myself for was the person I became the most exasperated with.

So did I apologize and share with him all my tricks?

Of course not, that would require being kinky and authentic.

I stepped into the arms of other men, whose beds existed in the safe seclusion of novels. If my husband couldn’t catch on in a timely fashion, my own imagination could suffice. At first I thought I could contain myself to the freedom within my own mind… it would be enough. I had promised myself as well as the Lord, that I wouldn’t masturbate anymore once I was married. I told myself I wouldn’t need to; it was a tool to tide me over until my wedding night.

Wrong again. Novels and mind games are never enough. Eventually the need to take matters into my own hands returned and with it, a renewed division between myself and the man who was supposed to be my only lover.

Turns out the only lover I really had was myself.

And what a cruel and lonely relationship that is to be in, because Sex was never designed to just encompass the pleasure it can deliver. It isn’t a means to an end.

Sex requires two people to go on a journey of awkward exploration. A bond isn’t merely formed from a release of endorphins, but from a common purpose. A partnership dedicated to discomfort and silliness, vulnerability and acceptance.

God never crafted us to be without desire. Most of us are horny as all get out but are just too embarrassed to admit it. Have you ever read bits of Song of Solomon? It’s pretty dirty… but that book was inspired by the same God who created you and I. The problem isn’t that we want; it is how we choose to remedy the wanting.

There is nothing wrong with the chemical ratio pounding through your veins. There is nothing wrong with your hands. What is wrong is when we opt to combine those two very powerful resources for instant gratification instead of trusting His promises will be worthwhile later on.

Paul puts it so clearly in 1 Corinthians:

“Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body.” (1 Corinthians 6:18)

Sexual sin, not an annoying libido, is an injustice against our own bodies… especially when brought about through masturbation. Because masturbation is a choice that only offers self-pleasure while withholding it from our partner, present or future. It is selfishness come to fruition through our sexuality. It turns something ravishing, originally intended to be shared, into a twisted parasitic treasure. You are too intoxicating to remain caged away by your own remedies. When masturbation and its deep rooted hooks are brought into a sacred commitment, it doesn’t help to unlock us- it chains us to a decaying shadow of who we are and what could be discovered with our spouse.

So what do we do about it? I’ve been too honest to start lying to you now. I don’t have a perfect answer. But I do know the simplest one: “Run from sexual sin” (1 Corinth. 6:18)

Literally Flee from it.

For me, it was eradicating all of the books that seduced me more than my husband did. I physically threw them out, or deleted them. It was taking a fast from music that didn’t encourage thoughts regarding my marriage. It was refusing to go to bed without him there beside me, or the door wide open.

I can’t free you from the hold masturbation might have in one blog post, but I can try to offer another path. A road that doesn’t lead to shame and bondage. One that doesn’t involve hiding the mistakes you’ve made, or how lonely they can be. I want to offer a picture painted with honesty and grace; security amidst arousal.

God gave you that incredible appetite for one very lucky man. Don’t blow it on secrecy and denial. Because there is one thing an open door can offer that a closed one never will: Freedom.

As in freedom to one day be as wonderfully freaky as He made you to be.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Kait Wright is an educator stylist by day in Nashville TN, but after some much needed heartbreak, she launched ALF a couple years ago (around late 2010). A Lovely Forgotten’s mission is to become a community of women who persistently inspire the discovery of our identities in Christ, challenging each other to live it out, especially in the darkest corners of life.