Latest / WholeHeart Conversations / Stones Of Remembrance
Transcript
- 0:07Constance Lavonice: When someone is receiving counseling, coping strategies are developed in coordination with a therapist for the client to practice at home and in between counseling sessions.
- 0:20Constance Lavonice: A therapeutic toolkit is a collection of coping strategies that helps build emotional resilience and promotes mental wellness.
- 0:31Constance Lavonice: The toolkit is metaphorical in most cases, but sometimes an individual creates an actual physical container of objects, reminders, prompts, to help calm a distressed mind or body during challenging moments.
- 0:53Constance Lavonice: It's having tools to help you ground yourself in the present moment and shift your mental state and mood, such as deep breathing from your diaphragm, smelling your favorite essential oil, keeping a gratitude journal, or just processing your emotions by journaling, looking at a picture of someone you love, listening to calming music, hugging your pet, engaging in an activity that makes you laugh or relieve stress, rereading a letter that made you smile.
- 1:40Constance Lavonice: There are so many individualized options to include.
- 1:45Constance Lavonice: God gives us a spiritual strategy, and it's called Stones of Remembrance.
- 1:55Constance Lavonice: Welcome to Whole Heart Conversations, a place for Christian women to grow spiritually, heal emotionally, and live whole.
- 2:07Constance Lavonice: I am your host, Constance Lavonice.
- 2:11Constance Lavonice: In the book of Joshua, chapter four, after the Israelites had crossed the Jordan River on dry ground, God spoke to Joshua and told him to select twelve men, one from each tribe, to take on their shoulders twelve stones to place in the middle of the Jordan River to become a forever memorial of God's power when the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord as it crossed the river.
- 2:52Constance Lavonice: In verse 24, it reads, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, so that you may fear the Lord your God forever.
- 3:10Constance Lavonice: God wants us to know that He is omnipotent, powerful, faithful and good, so that we may reverence Him forever.
- 3:26Constance Lavonice: God instructed the Israelites at that time to place a visual reminder of God's miraculous power, a date and time where they saw God's works.
- 3:42Constance Lavonice: God is always working in our lives.
- 3:47Constance Lavonice: The question is, are we noticing it?
- 3:51Constance Lavonice: What are your visual reminders of the blessings and goodness of God in your life?
- 3:59Constance Lavonice: Is it a picture of your family, your spouse, your children, your friends?
- 4:06Constance Lavonice: Is it a college degree that you obtained with God's help against the odds?
- 4:15Constance Lavonice: Is it a scripture that you wrote on a card that carried you through a difficult time?
- 4:22Constance Lavonice: Is it a good report you received after praying?
- 4:28Constance Lavonice: An encouraging letter written that God prompted someone to write to you?
- 4:35Constance Lavonice: Is it feedback that someone gave you that helped you shift how you saw yourself?
- 4:43Constance Lavonice: Was it that unexpected hug from a child or a friend when you really needed it?
- 4:53Constance Lavonice: When we're able to recall the good things in our lives, it provides hope and encouragement that counters the negative events that we experience.
- 5:08Constance Lavonice: When we fill our hearts, our innermost being, with the knowledge of God's power and goodness, there is a spiritual shift that helps us to see beyond ourselves and our own resources to what God, the creator of the universe, is doing in our lives.
- 5:34Constance Lavonice: God is always at work in our lives.
- 5:39Constance Lavonice: Look for the spiritual application.
- 5:46Constance Lavonice: My husband and I have noticed hell damage to the roof of our home.
- 5:54Constance Lavonice: And we had a contractor come by and we filed a claim with the insurance company and they sent someone out to inspect.
- 6:03Constance Lavonice: And after the inspection, they told us that they didn't see any damage and advised my husband that if your contractor, our contractor, can find a single loose shingle, they would reassess.
- 6:19Constance Lavonice: However, less than 24 hours later, they closed our file.
- 6:26Constance Lavonice: So the temptation was for us to look at the person at the insurance company and make accusations or see him as the bad guy.
- 6:41Constance Lavonice: I pictured David and Goliath.
- 6:43Constance Lavonice: We, the single homeowners versus the big insurance company with all the money, the millions and millions of dollars that they receive from homeowners each year, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand dollars a year for twenty plus years, and holding back when there's a need.
- 7:13Constance Lavonice: But we remembered that we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and against powers.
- 7:25Constance Lavonice: And even though we walk in the flesh, we don't war according to the flesh, because our weapons of warfare are spiritual in nature.
- 7:36Constance Lavonice: So we are not dismayed.
- 7:40Constance Lavonice: We know the God that we serve, we keep a visual record, a mental image in our minds, words spoken to us by God, journal entries of the goodness and blessings of God, pictures.
- 8:00Constance Lavonice: We know that God is the same God yesterday, today, and forever.
- 8:07Constance Lavonice: We rest in that knowledge.
- 8:11Constance Lavonice: What knowledge are you resting in?
- 8:15Constance Lavonice: What are the spiritual applications for the challenges in your life?
- 8:20Constance Lavonice: What have you seen God do in your life?
- 8:24Constance Lavonice: What are the stones of remembrance?
- 8:28Constance Lavonice: What are the memorial stones that can help you ground yourself in the present moment?
- 8:36Constance Lavonice: Calm a distressed mind or body, or shift your mental state or mood during challenging moments.
- 8:46Constance Lavonice: This week, if you haven't already, I encourage you to start remembering the incidences of God's goodness and faithfulness in your life.
- 8:59Constance Lavonice: Reflect on.
- 9:01Constance Lavonice: How has God helped me?
- 9:04Constance Lavonice: How has God revealed Himself to me?
- 9:08Constance Lavonice: What good things have God done for me?
- 9:13Constance Lavonice: What has He delivered me from?
- 9:16Constance Lavonice: You can start with your birth.
- 9:19Constance Lavonice: You're here, you were born.
- 9:22Constance Lavonice: He has a purpose for your life.
- 9:25Constance Lavonice: Or your salvation experience and what it means.
- 9:30Constance Lavonice: Or something as simple as, I smiled today.
- 9:36Constance Lavonice: Because even in our grief and difficulties, we have moments when we smile or are happy.
- 9:45Constance Lavonice: Pay attention, make note of it, write it down, take a picture, place it in your mind.
- 9:57Constance Lavonice: So when you're tempted to be depressed, anxious, discouraged, fearful, or overwhelmed, reflect on the stones of remembrance, the visual reminders, even if it's only in your mind, of the power, faithfulness, and goodness of God in your life.
- 10:27Constance Lavonice: Recall it.
- 10:28Constance Lavonice: If you're alive, God has a plan and purpose for your life.
- 10:35Constance Lavonice: If you have a salvation experience, you have a new identity.
- 10:41Constance Lavonice: Look for the spiritual applications in your life.
- 10:45Constance Lavonice: It builds resilience.
- 10:48Constance Lavonice: Because as Christian women, spiritual resilience has a transformative effect on our soul, mind, will, emotions, and body.
- 11:01Constance Lavonice: Father God, I pray that each person listening will be able to develop their own stones of remembrance of your power, goodness, and faithfulness in their lives that will carry them through all the challenges and joys of life and build spiritual resilience that will have a transformative effect on their emotional, mental, and physical health.
- 11:34Constance Lavonice: Thank you so much for joining.
- 11:37Constance Lavonice: And if this message blessed you, subscribe and share it with a friend.