October 24, 2006

Virtuous Women's Retreat

Good Morning Ladies. I pray that you are having a blessed day in the Lord today. As Lori shared my name is Angela Willingham and I am the Executive Director of New Beginnings Health and Fitness Ministries, Inc. http://mynewtemple.org/home.html.

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to the Virtuous Women’s Retreat. I would also like to take a moment to express my thanks to God and to Sis. Lori for affording me this awesome privilege of sharing with you. I know that they could have chosen anyone, so I do not take the opportunity to share with you forgranted or lightly.

For those of you who don’t know, New Beginnings Health and Fitness Ministries, Inc., was founded in 2003 under the direction of Mr. Carroll Roberts, to address the holistic fitness needs of members of The Body of Christ. It is our desire to see people fit from the inside out including mind, body and spirit. At New Beginnings we believe that no lasting outward change can take place without there first being an inward change. For more information about New Beginnings go to our website, which you should be able to see on your screen right now. If you cannot the address is http://www.mynewtemple.org/home.html.

If you are ready to get started I would like to open with a word of prayer.

Prayer
God, I thank you for the awesome opportunity that you have provided for these awesome women of God to be ministered to and encouraged on this week. I pray God that every need that they have spiritually, physically, relationally and emotionally is met this week. I pray for their schedules to be balanced so that they will have the time they need to attend the retreat and also to take care of the things that you have assigned their hands to do. I pray that as you encourage them, they can and will be an encouragement to others, so that this retreat spreads even farther than those that are on-line to participate. I pray for every workshop, speaker and participant to receive and deliver what you have ordained for such a time as this. I pray for Sis. Lori as you continue to guide her that this retreat will give you honor and glory and that your will, will be done in her life in the lives of the participants and in every workshop. I pray that you will use Lori mightily in the kingdom. In Jesus Name. Amen.

New Beginnings Testimony
At the age of 15, I found myself pregnant, believing that I was in love and would live happily ever after like the people in the Danielle Steel novels I had grown accustomed to reading. Maybe you never read romance novels, but at age 15, I did and I was a romantic.

Well, I don’t have to tell you that at age 15, I really did not know anything about love and what I read only lead me astray. My life did not work out the way the characters in Danielle Steel’s novels did. They fell in love and got married in less than 300 pages. A couple of days reading. Well it didn’t work that way for me. By my 21st birthday my son's father and I were no longer in contact with one another. In my mind and in my heart, he had failed me. He had rejected me. I was to young, emotionally and spiritually immature to realize we were not in the will of God.

By the enemies deductions I should have been finished. I should have been done. The promise for my future cancelled. I wanted to be a lawyer. There was no way that was going to happen. I had to settle for something that wouldn’t take as much time in school. I had to work so I really shouldn’t have made it. I should have been somewhere with a few more children and the same hurtful situation or worse surrounding each of their births. Well the devil is a liar.

In Romans 8:28, the bible says, 28 And we know that God causes everything to work together[a] for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. Yes, everything. Every mistake, every plan b that we have chosen, God can and will work them out for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose, not our own purposes. What the enemy intended to stop me, a pregnancy at age 15 is now a young man of almost 30, with no children, a double masters and a heart for young people. Ladies, God did not send another man to take his father’s place, God was and is his father, so I have to encourage you if you find yourself as a single parent to stop looking for father’s for your children.

Let God work out your life the way he wants to. God worked this out for my good. Every time I look at or talk to my son and see what God has done I am in awe even more of God.

Does that mean that there were not some difficult times? No!

Does that mean that I did everything right? No! There were mistakes that I made along the way that I had to repent to God and apologize to my son for and you may have to apologize to your children for some bad choices as well. I encourage you not to be to proud to do it.

Does that mean that I had it all together? Finally, No!

What it does mean is that God has a Plan A for our lives and that many of us have gotten off track and settled for something less that his perfect plan for us. In Jeremiah 29:11-14, the bible assures us that God has a plan. It says 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. 12 In those days when you pray, I will listen. 13 If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. 14 I will be found by you,” says the Lord. “I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes. I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you and will bring you home again to your own land.” God knew which mistakes we would make. He knew which wrong turns and paths we would take, but he assures us that when we pray he will listen. If we seek him out he can be found by us and no matter what we have done he will draw us back to himself.

In John 10:10, bible says 10 The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life. There are things that have happened in your past just like mine. There things some that you caused yourself and others that you had no control over. The enemy intended to kill you and to kill your purpose through that abortion, failed marriage, through that unplanned and undesired pregnancy, through that drug addiction, promiscuity, extra marital affair, the molestation you experienced as a child at the hands of someone that you should have been able to trust, the rape, the gossip that was spoken over you and your family, the adoption, when you either gave up a child or were given up as a child. You don’t know where the child is and you don’t know who your parents are. Because you don’t know who your parents are you think that you don’t know who you are.

You are a child of the king, In Psalm 139:13-14 the bible says, 13 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know. In essence God is telling us through his word that he knew we would make mistakes. He has not thrown us away as people might. He does not see us a damaged goods, something to be cast out because we are no longer able to stand under the light of perfectionism. He never expected us to be perfect. He desires for us to be obedient. To submit our wills to his will and to allow him to live through us. We may have made some mistakes. We may have made a lot of mistakes. We may still be making mistakes as we are listening to this workshop, but no matter what you have done you have a Father in heaven who knew you in your mothers womb. A God that knew every mistake you would make and still loves you. If you have strayed away out of the protection and care of God you need to know that you have a father who is standing with outstretched arms waiting for you to come home. He will welcome you, not with speeches and I told you sos, but with the love of one who already knew where you would be today.

Yes, it may seem difficult to have to turn away from some of your comfortable bad habits, but you need to know that we can do this together. Don’t try to figure out how you are going to do it. If you do that you will never allow it to happen. Our minds are not big enough to fathom a God that loves us in spite of because we are so accustomed to the conditional love that we have received from people. Proverbs 3:5-6, says, 5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. 6 Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.

I never thought I would be in the place that God has me right now. I have held various positions with in the church. I know that this has been a time of God training and teaching me what I would need to know to carry out the assignments that he has for me. Whatever you have or are going through is building character in you as well. The things you are going through are equipping you for where he is taking you. Remember there is a purpose and plan for all of us. Things may seem difficult, but it is okay, because we know the one who is more than able to do exceedingly and abundantly beyond all that we can think or imagine. We cannot even imagine all that God has in store for us.

We may struggle, but is there anything too hard for God? Jeremiah 32:27, assures us that they are not, 27 "I am the LORD, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?

Is your past too hard for him to overcome?

Is your marital struggle too hard for him to overcome?

Is your struggle with your children too hard for him?

Is your job or financial situation too hard for him?

Well ladies let me share the rest of my new beginnings testimony with you. At age 38, I found myself thinking I had it all together. I was the manager at my job and in an elevated position in my church. Everything on the outside looked good. But I am here to tell you that looking good on the outside is not good enough. God wants us to look good and be fit on the inside as well. The sad part is that I did not know I was broken. I did not know I was suffering from a spirit of rejection. I did not know that I was still carrying baggage from when I was disappointed at 15. But the plan that God has for my life required that all of that be stripped off of me.

You may have noticed that the logo for New Beginnings is a butterfly. That is what God gave to our founder Carroll Roberts. I never thought I would find myself as the Executive Director of a fitness ministry. The last thing I wanted to do was work out. But here I am and today I understand why. My brokenness was wrapped up in that cocoon and like a butterfly God was waiting patiently to unravel it and allow the beautiful butterfly to emerge.

Many people who knew me back then comment on the change. Ladies I am free. Free to dream. Free to love. Free to share with you from my mistakes and the places God is continuing to take me. From my previous state I would never have done that. You may want to know how I got here and I can tell you it was radical obedience. Some of the things God asked me to do made no sense to me at the time. Example: I had to go back and close some doors on my past. He brought the men I had thought I was so in love with back to my life for closure. One of them that I thought was the most wonderful thing walking he allowed me to see he was a cheater. He did not know how to be faithful. Was that what God wanted for me? The door closed.

My son's father got involved in drugs and was never able to help provide for our son. I had some anger and unforgiveness issues to say the least. I had to be released from him, but I have to tell you that it was a process. I found myself apologizing to him for the things I had said and done. Yes, I said apologizing to him. Remember the Proverbs 3:5-6 scripture, because it will be key if you really want to please God. When I was able to say, God if it is your desire I will commit to love and be in relationship with this man God releases me from that as well and another door closed on my past. The anger and unforgiveness is gone. Thank you God. A lot of what God took me through makes a lot of sense to me now. I desired to be married. God could not allow me to go into a marriage with previous attachments in tact.

On my 45 birthday God gave me the gift of forgetting. I can no longer even remember my relationships with these two men. I tried and my memory bank is blank. The husband God has for me will get me without the baggage I was carrying and the memories of other men. I have such a desire to marry the man that God has for me and to know that God has cleaned the slate for him to be able to have me in a pure state is awesome to me.

Your situation may not look like mine, but I encourage you to take the time to allow God to minister to your spirit and show you the things he wants to remove. To show you the things that hinder your growth and relationship with him. Remember Proverbs 3:5-6, and do whatever God tells you to do. I assure you it will be worth it. Will it be painful? Yes. I cried a lot, but I am grateful for the tears now because they were tears of cleansing and my future depended on them. I would never have been able to be this transparent with you if I had not allowed God to deal with me. Your testimony may help someone else.

The theme scripture for Temple Time is 1 Corinthians, 6:19-20. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says, 19 Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body. Ladies if I have not learned anything else, I have learned that my life is not my own. I belong to God, every experience I have had belongs to him and everything thing that he has turned around for my good belongs to him and is to be used as he sees fit to build up the body of Christ and to draw those who do not know him into relationship with him.


I challenge you to allow him to go in and show you the things he wants to change. At New Beginnings we believe that the key to successful weight loss is the same as the key to successful life: God the Father, Faith, Prayer, Study of the Word, Supportive Family and friends. Maybe you don’t need to lose any physical weight, but the bible says in Hebrews 12:1 1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. Strip off the weight whether it be spiritual, physical, emotional or relational that you might be able to come forth as the beautiful butterfly God created you to be and run the race that God has set for you.

Now we have worked out spiritually and I want to challenge you to work your bodies out physically by going through a exercise routine you have established for yourself or going to our website and working out for at least 20 minutes three times per week.

Have a blessed day.