Has how you see yourself in that memory been how you have seen yourself throughout your life? Give a couple of recent examples

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3. Often, how we see ourselves in our earliest childhood memories is the role that we play throughout our lives. Write down what role you think you played in your family of origin and explain how love and affection may have been withheld from you if you did not play that role.

E. The role you may have pinpointed for yourself, a role you may no longer wish to play, may be the role that is causing you the anxiety that is leading you to act out in your Unwanted Sexual Behavior.

F. If you are interested in knowing more about what is called Family Systems Theory.

Please check out the following resources…

1. Recalling Our Own Stories by Edward P. Wimberly. (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1997).

2. How Your Church Family Works: Understanding Congregations as Emotional Systems by Peter L. Steinke. (Bethesda, MD: The Alban Institute, 1993).

3. Old Wine in New Skins : Centering Prayer and Systems Theory by Paul David Lawson. (Lantern Books, 2000).

III. Reinventing our Lives

A. In the end, we feel drawn toward acting out sexually when the world around us makes us feel as if it is not OK to be who we are and that in order to receive love we need to be someone whom we aren’t. Again, this is _______________ love.

B. If conditional love is the cause for our acting out sexually, then the solution to our unwanted sexual behavior is the conversion of conditional love into

____________________ love. In other words, we need to take the conditional love that exists in our lives and change it into or replace it with unconditional love.

C. During the next four chapters we will be discussing in greater detail what we call our Four Recovery Targets in achieving and maintaining sobriety, which represent this conversion of conditional love into unconditional love.

They are…

1. Recovery Target #1: Psychological Examination of Feelings.

2. Recovery Target #2: Seeking, Establishing, and Engaging in Community.

3. Recovery Target #3: Truth, Trust, and Territory.

4. Recovery Target #4: Development and Exploration of Genuine Faith.

IV. Journal entry ideas.

A. What is the story you were told around you being born? Is it a positive or negative story?

B. What is your nickname? Does it have a positive or negative inference? Is your nickname tied to the role you feel you are expected to play in your family or elsewhere?

C. Journal some thoughts on how you feel you can start to take ownership and change both your birth story and your nickname. See if you can reframe the core stories you tell about who you are and where you came from into positive stories.

CHAPTER 10 – FILL IN THE BLANKS:

1) emotional, 2) conditional love, 3) self-differentiation, 4) role, 5) conditional, 6) unconditional.

Digging Deeper

2 Corinthians 1:3

Focus:

True Intended Father

When you think about God do you see him more as a Father or a Judge? Is God’s response to your sin immediate distance and anger or heartbreak and affection? The way you see and understand God makes a huge difference in the way you lean on him for help in your journey.

A close friend has spent most of his life with a false picture of God dictating his life. When he was young his father helped place these pictures in his mind. His father physically and sexually abused him and was the source of all sorts of pain in his life. He believed that If God was a father then he must be like his earthly Dad. For years he struggled with God because he

couldn’t understand how a loving God would allow him to experience such pain and abuse. One afternoon he was crying out to God and he finally blurted out this question, “God, where were you when my Dad was beating me?” The answer was silence. Later while reading 2 Corinthians 1, it became clear. “If God is a merciful, loving Dad, then when I was being abused God was weeping for my pain.” It is not that God is absent or like my earthly father – he is full of love, full of compassion, and his heart breaks when we experience the hurts, abuse, and pains of life.

Is your image of God consistent with 2 Corinthians 1:3?

Scripture:

2 Corinthians 1:3, “All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort.”

1) What are the two main characteristics of God the Father listed in 2 Corinthians 1:3?

2) The term Father occurs approximately 260 times in the New Testament and 117 times in the book of John alone. Why do you think the bible references God as a Father so often?

MERCY: The purpose of mercy, as intended in this 2 Corinthians 1:3, is that Father God is the ultimate source of mercy. It is his compassion extended to those who have sinned. This mercy does not condemn but promotes growth in the midst of the problems, guilt, and sin we

experience.

COMFORT: God is prepared to use every variety of comfort that exists to help you in this life.

The word comfort also refers to encouragement. God the Father is your cheerleader giving you the encouragement necessary to keep fighting and to keep pressing forward in the journey.

3) How have you experienced God’s mercy and comfort recently?

4) Read John 1:18, What does he say about the relationship between Jesus, the “unique one”

and God?

“No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us.”

If Jesus and God are one then the characteristics of God are also the characteristics of Jesus.

Read the below scriptures and find comfort in God the Father’s work in your life.

John 5:17, “But Jesus replied, “My Father is always working, and so am I.”

John 5:19, “So Jesus explained, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does.”

John 5:26, “The Father has life in himself, and he has granted that same life-giving power to his Son.”

John 5:30, “I can do nothing on my own…”

John 6:32, “Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, Moses didn’t give you bread from heaven. My Father did. And now he offers you the true bread from heaven.”

John 6:37, “However, those the Father has given me will come to me, and I will never reject them.”

Continue reading through the book of John and notice the amazing picture of God the Father that is described. God is your true intended Father who is full of mercy and comfort and He is someone you can lean on and trust today. Fight against fears of rejection, judgment, and wrath – run to God the Father for the comfort and encouragement you desperately need.