How to Get Past Disappointment , livre ebook

Harvest House Publishers, Inc. - Michelle Mckinney Hammond

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115 pages

English

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Mistakes. Regrets. Love lost. Dreams delayed. Acknowledging everyone experiences disappointment, bestselling author Michelle McKinney Hammond explores the biblical "woman at the well" story to reveal the mercy and relief available through Jesus. Michelle explores this woman's life-changing encounter with Jesus to encourage readers to find the hope and blessings God offers during and after troubling times. Women will discover that...disappointments make it easy to miss blessingsopening their hearts to Jesus allows them to see overlooked truthsGod's love helps them face hurts and forgive when necessaryreleasing what they want and choosing God's way opens a new path of hopetransformation brings pleasure to them and to GodStudy questions and affirmations give readers opportunities to assess where they're at and, when needed, make adjustments to attain the authentic joy and freedom of living in God's will.

Informations

Publié par	Harvest House Publishers, Inc.
Date de parution	01 février 2011
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780736940993
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0554€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

How to
Get Past
Disappointment
Michelle McKinney
Hammond

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON
Unless otherwise marked, scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible , 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. ( www.Lockman.org )
Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version , NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
Verses marked ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Verses marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189 USA. All rights reserved.
Verses marked MSG are taken from The Message. Copyright by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Ste 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920. www.alivecommunications.com
Cover photo Linden Lasema / stock.xchng
Cover design by Koechel Peterson Associates, Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota
HOW TO GET PAST DISAPPOINTMENT Copyright 2011 by Michelle McKinney Hammond Published by Harvest House Publishers Eugene, Oregon 97402 www.harvesthousepublishers.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hammond, Michelle McKinney.
How to get past disappointment / Michelle McKinney Hammond.
p. cm.-(Matters of the heart series)
ISBN 978-0-7369-3786-3 (pbk.) 1. Christian women-Religious life. 2. Disappointment-Religious aspects-Christianity. 3. Samaritan woman (Biblical figure) I. Title. BV4527.M4185 2011 248.8 43-dc22
2010029891
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other-except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 / BP-NI / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To those who thought they could never love again, smile again, hope again - think again. There is hope for your life! Follow your pain around the bend and look up truly all things come to pass.
Acknowledgments
To my dear Harvest House family. Thank you for always making me feel at home and giving me room to grow.
To all of those who have walked with me through the tears-you know who you are. I couldn t have made it without your prayers and care. I love you high, deep, and wide.
Contents
Acknowledgments
A Place Called Hope
Part 1: Who Am I?
1. Your Heart Condition
2. True Thirst
3. In Search of Identity
Part 2: Who Is He?
4. It s Not About You
5. Encounters
6. A Refreshing River
7. Comparison Shopping
8. Temporary Measures
Part 3: What Do You Want?
9. Irresistible Offers
10. The Truth
11. Quiet As It s Kept
Part 4: What Is Worship?
12. Turning the Corner
13. Seeing the Light
14. Meeting the Messiah
Part 5: What Is True Nourishment?
15. Free to Let Go
16. Released to Hope
17. Fulfilling Destiny
Part 6: Your Life Today
18. What Does Your Life Reflect?
19. Cool Waters
Refreshing Reminders
31 Thirst-quenching Meditations
Michelle McKinney Hammond
Other Books by Michelle McKinney Hammond
This is for all of those who have made the long walk to the wrong well and found it empty. Turn again and walk toward the sun. A stranger awaits
Hope breaks forth from its prison
like a butterfly stretching its wings to fly.
It shakes off its coat of death
experiencing new life
Rising past disappointment
and all that threatened to keep it bound
It soars to meet its maker
the author and finisher of its faith
and heaven applauds
the victory has been won
A Place Called Hope

W e all relate to thirst. The empty, yawning feeling you have inside that longs to be filled-filled with love, with accomplishment, with satisfaction and fulfillment. And yet so often it seems the very thing we pursue eludes us, teasing and taunting our hearts. Carrots are dangled just before our eyes to make us try, try again, only to be disappointed again and again until we refuse to try any longer or, worse, settle for the in-between.
Yes, somewhere between what we don t have and what we long for is a compromise that bides us over for a little while. But then what we truly want peeks around the corner of our longings to remind us that the dream hasn t been realized. We die a little with every reminder of this painful fact and search for ways to endure in spite of our disappointment in ourselves, in others, and even in God. We bolster our hearts and set our faces forward for the long haul and continue on
We all come with our own special carry-on bag of survival tricks. Some people hide behind hectic schedules. Some engage in endless flirtations to distract from what they truly want. Like a wanna-be singer who hides behind the light show and the dancers onstage hoping we won t notice her tuneless delivery, we camouflage our true feelings. Scores of successful women flaunt their achievements while secretly mourning the lack of love or children in their lives. On the other side of the fence, many women flaunt their homes, husbands, and children while secretly coveting the achievements of women in the business world.
Disappointment is an ancient emotion. Truly there is nothing new under the sun. The Samaritan woman mentioned in John 4 could have been a woman living in our time. Perhaps she wouldn t have met Jesus at a well; it could have been a water cooler instead. The matters of the heart she struggled with are the same issues we deal with today. She can be the perfect study for us in how to refresh our faith and embrace new beginnings-while putting the past in the right perspective. Why not take the time to read her story before delving into this book? This will be a great overview to prepare for our journey together.
We all have pieces of fruit we feel we ve been denied. And the serpent-the devil in disguise-makes sure we are frequently reminded of what we lack (or think we lack). Taunting us to agree with him that God is holding out on us. Pushing our attitudes over the edge until we land in a place that takes us further away from the place called Hope. And yet God promises there is hope for our lives. How we find it among the debris of disappointment remains a mystery to many. But rest assured, my dear sister. If God said it, it is so! Hope is only a prayer away!
P ART 1

Who Am I?
W hen you look in the mirror who do you see? What does your reflection tell you about you? More importantly what do others read when they look at your face, your posture, the way you carry yourself? Our lives are written all over our faces. The choices we ve made wear on us, drawing their wrinkles, creating furrows and laugh lines, telling their stories. The texture of our skin, the tension around our lips, the light (or lack of light) in our eyes reveals things we might never voice.
The glare of some of our choices and the consequences we ve invited into our lives can be overwhelming at times, causing us to burrow deeper into a space that provides temporary comfort at best. But in this place is also something very dangerous-the absence of truth. Though the truth hurts it is also what brings the clarity we need in order to be free. We need truth. The absence of it creates bondage. Yet our hearts are deceitful. They shrink from the truth in favor of pride, yet God waits. He waits for us to come to the end of ourselves and our various disappointments and failings. He waits to extend His mercy when we throw up our hands and surrender, confessing what we know and what we do not know. In those moments the truth can lie buried under the layers of way too many experiences we ve stuffed to a place called I ll deal with it later in the name of survival.
As God looks into our hearts the Holy Spirit does a deep and intimate search into the hidden places within and brings the things we harbor to light. Perhaps this is why we avoid encounters with God at times. Isaiah the prophet said it best. Sharing that he saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted the year King Uzziah died, Isaiah declared that he was a man of unclean lips and that he lived among unclean people (Isaiah 6:5). You see, when we truly draw close to God and see Him as He truly is, we also see ourselves as we truly are. All filters are removed. Not only do we see who we are, but we also come into the knowledge of what God requires of us. This which causes us to measure our ability to fulfill the call He places on our lives, and we are found wanting. All that we lack comes to the forefront, causing us to focus on the deficit within our souls. In the face of a holy God we are exposed, and all that we are and are not is revealed. Sometimes it s not a pretty picture. Who we perceive ourselves to be bears weight on how we respond to situations and people around us. Our self-perception often causes us to settle for standards below God s will for us based on what we believe we deserve.
Our conversations often reveal who we really are by revealing what we think. The Bible tells us that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. It unveils the things that lurk within us that we know or perhaps have not acknowledged. Yet they are there, manifesting themselves in every area of our lives. Our interactions with others. The way we love or hate. What we eat. Where we go. Who we associate with. The things we allow in our lives to go unchecked or uncorrected. The cycles that are repeated because we walk in denial of our part in