The model of churches meeting once a week, and maybe a second time in small groups, is a good start.  But we need people alongside of us in our journey toward healing every day.  We regress very quickly when we don’t have others fanning the flame within us to be whole and fulfill God’s purpose for our lives.  We don’t have to meet in person, but it is a wonderful thing to experience every day the love and encouragement that we desire, even if only through online or text messages.

Stress happens every day to all of us. We may not be able to understand why another person gets stressed over one thing or another, but we do all understand what stress feels like.  It is inevitable to some degree, and healthy to some degree as well.  If we don’t have any stress, there is no motivation to change.  If we have too much stress, we can’t think.  But somewhere in the middle is the perfect mix of stress that motivates us to pursue unresolved issues and provides us the right amount of problem solving ability to accomplish it.

That continual companion of stress draws us all together, it is something we all have in common, and something which we can help each other face in a healthy way.  But the longer you avoid dealing with the sources of stress and simply try to eliminate the feelings of stress, the more entrenched the source of the stress becomes in our life, and the harder it becomes to disentangle and remove. For most of us, we stay so busy that it is easy to lay these things aside and never deal with them.

That is why continual contact with your support group helps you balance your daily responsibilities with your need for long term healing.  Checking in with your accountability partners every week doesn’t really cut it.  You need them accessible while you are facing a continual stream of stress, to warn you of pitfalls and encourage you to remember the truths you have realized.

I use the example of cancer treatment to people in recovery when they skip meetings and don’t work on their issues.  People with cancer, regardless of how hard it is, go through with their chemo and radiation treatment, because they want ALL of the cancer gone.  They don’t say, “Oh well, I just don’t feel like I need chemo this week – I’ll just skip it.”  They know it is a matter of life and death for them, and chemo is the priority in their week. Everything else revolves around it, or takes it into account as the most important thing for their health.

The same thing goes for meeting with and staying in contact with your support group.  If you really want to be healed, you have to keep moving forward, no matter how slowly, with your recovery process.  You have to realize that meetings are like chemo, they are necessary and required for you to live a healthy life.  And keeping in touch with your group is like taking the pills that are necessary for continued treatment.

Until you realize how serious the emotional sickness is, you won’t take the treatment seriously. However, it is possible to start the treatment before it is life or death.  Preventative medicine is best of all, dealing with your issues before they flare up in destructive ways.  Spiritual Community is the perfect place to take your medicine every day and continually work on your healing.

In the group I am in as I write this, we are using this site with its online group communications to keep the conversation going throughout the week.  I challenge them with questions, and they share their victories and struggles.  I make sure I contact them at least once a day to remind them to do at least one thing for their recovery every day.  Having someone available to celebrate with when something good happens is an awesome feeling, and having someone to minister to you when you are struggling can be life changing.

I am also challenging them to post once a day in at least one forum, because writing things out makes a huge difference. You can reread and better understand your thoughts. Plus, what you write can be encouraging and even revelational to the person who comes to the after you. You never know what God will do through your obedience and transparency!

RESET ASSIGNMENT:

1. If you found out you had a serious illness, what type of priority would you make the treatment, even if it would inconvenience you?  Do you think you would go to every doctor’s appointment and treatment and take all of your medicine?
2. Hopefully, if you are reading this, you have realized that you have emotional issues that are causing you stress that can rob you of your health, your finances and your relationships.  Are you ready to go to the doctor’s office (learn about your issues), go to treatments (meet with a support group) and take your medicine (check in with the support group on a daily basis)?