Today was our first day back at work at the Crisis Pregnancy Center that I work at. One of our clients is a 23 year-old woman that I have written about before. We are calling her Marie in order to respect her privacy. Marie is 28.5 weeks pregnant with a baby girl but is a crack cocaine addict. She has not taken care of herself at all during this pregnancy, but she and her baby girl are being bathed in prayer daily.

There is someone who wants to adopt this precious child and has been ministering to Marie as have a host of other women. The woman who wants to adopt this child is Lisa Harper and she has asked all of her many friends to send cards and letters encouraging Marie in hopes that she might feel God's love. Today, at the Center where I work 35 cards and letters came in from all over the country for Marie. As I sat and read the letters I was once again reminded of God's great faithfulness. Prayer warriors abound!

God is in all of our moments...and He wants to transform Marie's heart and the hearts of so many who are bound up in addictions. He created her and He loves her no matter what her past or her present hold...the promise is real she can have a better future, but she has to make that choice.

Why am I blogging about this? Why should I care so deeply about a girl who is addicted to drugs and refuses to stop even when it might be damaging an unborn child who has no voice? For one, I know what it is like to live with an addiction. For years I struggled with the demon of anorexia and over exercised. I hated that I lived in bondage to a scale and to the image that I perceived that I saw in the mirror...I could have died, but I wouldn't let go. I would try for a couple of days to eat a few more bites or cut back on the exercise, but then I would give in and revert back to what has become all too familiar. My mood was dictated by the number on the scale and the amount of exercise I was able to fit in.

I wish with all of my heart that I could Tivo those years...I wasn't the wife or mother that my family needed at that time and I hate that I lived in bondage for so long. I thought that I looked good, but in reality I looked horrible and I had no freedom. The scale and pounding the pavement owned me. Marie's addiction is a dangerous one...many people are being wounded in the process, but all addictions are dangerous and they are straught from the pit of hell. Marie gave up crack for 3 days last week, but the voices in her head convinced her that she needed the drugs once again.

As we begin a New Year I have seen lots of FB posts, Twitter posts, blog posts, newspaper articles about setting new goals and making resolutions for the new year. If the truth be told many people make resolutions and 30 days later they have long been forgotten.

I am not saying that change is not important. We all need to make changes in our lives from time to time. We also have to have the real desire to change...to realize that something is no longer working and want to change it. Change is always a process...it cannot happen overnight and I believe it cannot happen unless we realize that we need God's help in order to make lasting change in our lives. I read the following this afternoon and wanted to share:

Personal heart and life change is always a process. And where does that process take place? It takes place where you and I live everyday. And where do we live? Well, we all have the same address. Our lives don't careen from big moment to big moment. No, we all live in the utterly mundane.

Most of us won't be written up in history books. Most of us only make three or four momentous decisions in our lives, and several decades after we die, the people we leave behind will struggle to remember the event of our lives. You and I live in little moments, and if God doesn't rule our little moments and doesn't work to recreate us in the middle of them, then there is no hope for us, because that is where you and I live.

Those little moments of life are important because we live in those little moments and that is what shapes our lives. Most of us do not place enough value on the little moments in our lives and because we don't we fail to see God's grace in those moments. He extends His grace to us...to Marie...to all of those who feel like they don't measure up, but we have to want it. We have to want His freedom more than we desire anything else.

The Bible tells us that we are made in the image of God. His desire is to rescue us from our past and transform us into His likeness. His desire is for each of us to take back the moments that we are missing and begin the process of "taking off the old" and "putting on the new." Our bodies are the temple of the living God...how can we best honor Him?

As I sit here tonight I pray that as Marie reads these heartfelt cards and letters that she will be willing to accept not only God's mercy and grace, but the rehabilitation that is being offered to her as well. I am so grateful that God used a close up picture that a friend took of me to change the path of self-destruction that I was on. I wouldn't be here today writing this had I not really looked at that photo and been willing to change. The biggest blessing of it all was it brought me to the Cross...it made me hold onto Jesus like I never had and that has changed my life and given me the freedom that I never had and for that I will be forever grateful.