Jesus in our hearts, parents in our bones?

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May 16th – update:

Hi all,

If you have not read it before, please do check out Christina’s blog below.

We have three more Sunday sessions about Emotionally Healthy Spirituality to come:

June 11th – Discovering Healthy Rhythms for our lives – Andy speaking.

June 25th – Becoming an emotionally mature adult – Christina speaking

Christina’s original blog:

Ian Simkins recently posted this on his Instagram account,

“The problem is, for a lot of us Jesus may be in our hearts but our parents are in our bones. Many of us have habits and patterns we’re completely unaware of. Or we think that what we do doesn’t really matter.”

I read this quote while preparing for our upcoming Sunday Series: Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. This quote fits in perfectly with our purpose in teaching this material. We are doing this series once so that we can all pull that figurative full length mirror in front of ourselves and examine our hearts, minds, and behaviours. In his book ‘Emotionally Healthy Spirituality’, Peter Scazarro writes,

“Emotional health and spiritual maturity cannot be separated. It is impossible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature.”

Scazzero uses the image of an iceberg to describe the limits of what can be seen and understood by just looking at the surface. This is not just a reference to how we see others, but also ourselves. Many of us have been busy surviving and striving for whatever is supposed to come next. Meanwhile under the surface there are thought patterns, experiences, and habits that we have yet to examine. It can be intimidating to take this journey, to reach for a new depth in our emotional and spiritual life.

Please let me encourage you, you will not take this journey alone. In the weekdays following each Sunday teaching, our Connect Groups will be discussing the topics presented. Using the Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Workbook, you will be able to look at examples from scripture and share your own story alongside others in a safe environment.
If you are not part of a Connect Group yet and would like to be, please email me (stina@gmail.com), so I can help you get in touch with a connect group leader in your area.


The first two parts of the series will be on February 5th and February 19th. Please check the newsletter for more details. Let me give you one more word of encouragement. As you pull that full length mirror in front of yourself and start to take a look at all the different parts of you, remember that Jesus stands there with you. He already knows all of you. There is nothing that you will discover that will shock him or influence his love for you.


So we ask the Lord, just as David did in Psalm 139:
“Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.”


Below is the prayer from Ephesians 3 that we read together during our first service of 2023. Take some time to read it and pray it over yourself and your Connect group. May we all be, “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Ephesians 3:14-21 New International Version.

Christina

Update on next talk dates:

Next talks on Emotionally Healthy Spirituality:

April 16th – ‘Journey through the Wall’: Helen speaking

April 30th – ‘Enlarge our souls through grief and loss’: Andy speaking