Karen Tripp will be the guest speaker at the Lafayette High School ring ceremony. Call the high school for more information.

Karen Tripp LMFT will be discussing Struggling with Loneliness: Finding Connections as a CarePartner on Monday, April 4th at 7:00 PM.  Sponsored by The Gateway Chapter of the MS Society, CarePartners of anyone with Multiple Sclerosis welcome. There will be a short presentation and then time to ask questions and learn from the experiences of others in the same situation.  For more information about how to listen in, call Allison at 314–446-4184.

As an active American family, we have made regular visits to the neighborhood urgent care.  Thus we have a collection of casts, braces and splints to heal the hurts.  But the contraption that confounds me the most is the walking boot.  If you find yourself in agonizing pain from damaged muscles and ligaments, just slip your foot into this Velcro laced boot.  Suddenly,  the pain is reduced and you are up walking practically like nothing happened.   But do you know what you discover after weeks or even months in the boot?  Your foot has grown weaker, not just your hurt muscles but your healthy muscles too.   I guess that’s the price we pay for relieving pain.

But who wouldn’t try to relieve pain?  Pain relief is a high priority not only for physical pain but emotional pain too.  A broken relationship, a disloyal friend or an abusive family member can bring searing pain that can last for months, years or even a lifetime.  Too often the response to being hurt emotionally is to wrap the pain in anger.  Sometimes anger  feels SO good.  Being hurt feels weak and vulnerable but anger can feel empowering and rejuvenating.  But like wearing a walking boot, the longer you wear your anger around your pain, the more you come to rely on this false sense of strength.  The tendency is to hold tighter to your anger because if you let it go, you might find other parts of your life have grown weak.  Like your faith.

Here’s the truth: Your anger is not protecting you.  It’s diminishing you.

When you are receiving strength from your anger, you are not receiving strength from your God.   To receive strength from God, you need to have faith that God can heal you even from an unforgivable hurt.  How?  Through you forgiving the one who hurt you.  Colossians 3:13 says “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”  I don’t know about you, but this is the last verse I want to see when I am so hurt and angry that I can’t even be in the same room with the person, much less look at them.  This verse screams for me to do something that’s impossible for me to do.  Let’s face it, forgiving an unforgivable hurt comes only from Christ living within us.

Even knowing Christ is with you, this type of healing is difficult to picture.  What if you could look back at the pain in your life knowing that it did not overcome you but God led you to overcome it? What if you could see Jesus dying on the cross not just for your sins but for the sins of the person that hurt you?  What if you were healed of an unforgivable hurt- would you still need your anger?

The time has come to shed you anger like an injured foot is ready to shed its walking boot.  Don’t let your anger keep you from the glorious healing God has in store for you.  Free of anger, free of hurt…free indeed.

Do you know the story of the woman that washed Jesus’ feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair and anointed His feet with expensive oil?  Love that story.  Love this song.  Cece Winans pours her whole self into this song about a woman that gives everything- her past, her shame, her fear- at the feet of Jesus.  Cece does an amazing job of revealing not only the heart of this woman at Jesus feet but our heart as we lay at His feet as well.  Look at the lyrics:

And I’ve come to pour
My praise on Him
Like oil from Mary’s alabaster box
Don’t be angry if I wash his feet with my tears
And I dry them with my hair
You weren’t there the night He found me
You did not feel what I felt
When he wrapped his love all around me and
You don’t know the cost of the oil
In my alabaster box

Who are we to judge others and who are we to judge ourselves?

Listen to Cece Winans belt this song out from the depth of her Spirit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YksTJKm9hQ4

Irish Gold is the first book in Andrew Greely’s series about a beautiful, dynamic heroine Nuala Anne McGrail.  She is born and bread in Ireland where she meets a young Chicago-Irish guy named Dermont.  Being a Greeley novel, mystery from the past comes back to haunt the young couple as they discover dangerous reasons why Dermont’s grandparents left Ireland decades before.  Bad guys show up and the plot gives some great twist and turns as Nuala reveals her talents not only at solving a mystery but sensing the spiritual world.  It seems so normal you’ll wonder why you’re not sensing things from your boyfriend’s dead grandmother.

The characters are so realistic you feel like they live down the street.  They make mistakes, say stupid things yet some how blunder into finding keys to the mystery as well as keys on how to love each other.  It’s set in Ireland, which I love.  Greely makes Ireland sound like a rainy paradise to discover Irish folklore and renewed love.

This book is a great escape on a snowy day or on a sandy beach.  http://www.amazon.com/Irish-Gold-Nuala-McGrail-Novels/dp/0812550765

“Satan wants to pollute our thoughts with fear or hatred or despair.  These things are toxic to trust, to confidence in our Lord.  Praises directed toward God, on the other hand, are toxic to Satan.”

Karen Tripp will be speaking at the SPOHNC (support for people with oral head and neck cancer) on Friday, Feb 25th from10:00 am to 11:am.  The topic will be a look at the impact of stress on the cancer journey.

Dr. Jason Li (Missouri Baptist Cancer Center) will discuss the latest treatments for those affected by a kidney cancer diagnosis.  Karen Tripp LMFT will discuss the impact of stress, relationships on the cancer journey and a registered dietitian will answer questions about healthy eating.

When: Tuesday, February 22 ● 6:30 – 8:30 PM
Where: Cancer Support Community, 1058 Old Des Peres Road
St. Louis, MO 63131
RSVP 314-238-2000 or www.cancersupportstl.org

When I was in grad school, I was broke.  I lived over a garage, worked on campus and stacked up school loans faster than I could count them.  For food, I ate salami sandwiches.  And not just an occasional salami sandwich.  I ate salami sandwiches for days.  On Sunday, I would go to the grocery store and buy a loaf of bread and a package of salami.  With the mayo from the week before, I ate a salami sandwich for lunch and another one for dinner all week long.  Breakfast was always cereal.  By the weekend, I was so happy to see my nice, employed boyfriend.  Why?  He’d buy me a real meal.  Maybe even with fruits and veggies and- dare I hope?- desert.  It’s true that man cannot live on bread alone but you throw in a package of salami and you can at least make it to the weekend.

You know, as broke as I was, I never went hungry.  The salami sandwiches filled me up but I wouldn’t say I was really satisfied.  Of course after weeks and then months of salami intake, you start to forget what eating a nutritious, satisfying meal was like.  Only when I thought of the dates with my boyfriend would I get hungry for a better life.

In Luke 15, Jesus told a parable about a lost son that became hungry for a better life.  After squandering his inheritance from his father, the now starving son took a job feeding pigs but there was no food for him- not even pig food.  Finally he realized that if he went home to his father’s house, even as a servant, he would eat better than he was with the pigs.  When he arrived home, his father welcomed him not as a servant but as a beloved son and threw him a feast.

This parable is about a starving Christian returning home to God, our Father.  The key for the young man to turn towards God was hunger.  God’s table has not just massive dishes of grace and mercy but joy and peace, strength and guidance and so much more.  If only each of us could experience the hunger for the treasures God has for us at His table.  Instead, we’re too often satisfied with salami sandwiches.  They’re filling, but certainly not satisfying.

If you are like me, instead of hungering for God’s word, you’re filling up on You Tube and I Tunes.  Instead of longing for worship and fellowship you’re munching on reality shows and common gossip.  Instead of yearning for time in the presence of God, you’re filling your minds with grocery lists, to-do lists and an endless list of worries.

God wants you to hunger for things that draw you closer to Him. The treasures of life with God can begin to be found in your Bible, your church and your prayer life.  A little salami in your diet’s not a problem, but don’t settle for the mundane.  Ask God to give you a hunger for the vital, dynamic, life He has in mind for you.  Living with such a hunger is having a life fulfilled.  Amen.

I love a high action, mystery books with a dose of spiritual warfare and the beginnings of a romance to boot.  That is what Mark Andrew Olsen delivers in The Watchers. Abby Sherman is a sweet young lady that loves the Lord and unexplainably is the center of the rage of wealthy men all over the world.  Why?  She has developed a spiritual gift that sends not only evil men but demonic forces against her.  In enters Dylan Hatfield, macho mercenary sent to kill the innocent girl.  Through lightening quick action scenes and toe curling suspense, the plot unfold as the spiritual battle reveals itself one mysterious step at a time.

If you like books you can’t put down, The Watchers is the book for you. http://www.faithfulreader.com/authors/au-olsen-mark-andrew.asp