Essential Bibles/Essential Bibles (1998).iso/Win/UNZIPED/WHOIAM/hlom.ZIP/news2.txt

Text File | 1997-02-10 | 12.7 KB | 258 lines

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                    HEALING FOR THE HEART NEWSLETTER
Vol. 1 Issue 2                                            February 1997
            Published by Healing Love Outreach Ministries,Inc.

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                      *FROM THE DIRECTOR'S DESK*

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HLOM will be celebrating its 1 year anniversary next month and what a
year it has been.  When this ministry was planted in my heart little
did I know the impact it would have on so many lives-not just in the
USA but around the world.

When I felt impressed to place the ministry on the Internet, I knew
little about it or how to go about placing a ministry on it. And even
if it was possible...I wasn't at all sure if it would work or be
effective.

Well it didn't take long for my questions to be answered.  Email
started coming in..people started requesting help and it hasn't slowed
down since.

All I can say is to God be the glory!  Because without Him this could
have not been accomplished.

Thank-you for your prayers, your letters of encouragement and
appreciation as well as your financial support.  We look forward to
an even greater year ministering to more hurting women and seeing
lives changed.

Be Blessed
Carrie

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                *Lucky One: The Story of Kelita Haverland*
                 by Barbara Chabai

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    Singer/songwriter Kelita Haverland has weathered several
lifetimes' worth of tragedy; yet she turned adversity into an advantage
to share her music ministry and message of hope with others.

    Kelita, who knew she wanted to be a performer at age four, has
just released an autobiographical album of country and gospel.  Lucky
Ones reveals the pain felt in Kelita's own life: sexual abuse in
preschool, and later, between the ages of 11 and 17, her father's
suicide, her young mother's untimely death from breast cancer and her
brother's fatal heroin overdose at age 27.  As an adult, she went
through the anguish of leaving a bad marriage.

    "It's a very personal album, and yes, I'm truly putting myself
"out there" for the world to see," Kelita said.  "But I think it's a
big step for me to come to terms with all that's happened in my life.
It's about who I was, and who I am becoming."

    The little girl who once sat under her rural Alberta farm's
yard light imagining that it was her spotlight, tapped into her own
musical ability shortly after her father took his life.

    "I can remember the day I wrote my first song vividly," Kelita
said.  "It just moved out of me.  It was really special, like somebody
had given me a wonderful gift."

    Music was a mainstay in her life as she grew up, especially
when tragedy struck again.

    "My mother died when I was only fifteen.  It was pretty rough.
Again, I wrote songs and poetry to help explore my feelings," Kelita
said.

    After years of performing in everything from church choirs
to a youth gospel band to dramatic arts troupes, Kelita recorded her
first album.  It brought the then-pink tufted singer some minor
celebrity status in Canadian country music circles, garnering four Juno
Award nominations (Grammy equivalents), and the Canadian Country Music
Association's Vista Rising Star Award.  She was pleased with her
degree of success, but somehow felt strangely unfulfilled.

    One night in 1989, Kelita and her band were returning from a
show at four in the morning.  Suddenly, their van hit a patch of black
ice, rolled into the ditch and was totaled.  Kelita considers it
nothing less than a miracle that she was able to walk away "without a
scratch."

    That accident was no accident, Kelita figured.  She was
convinced that God was giving her another chance to minister to others
through her gift of music.  Kelita rededicated her life and her musical
talents to Christ, putting herself in His hands.  She spent the next
few years touring with United Nations peacekeeping tours, entertaining
troops stationed overseas.  But it wasn't until the release of Lucky
Ones, aptly titled for her second chance at life, that Kelita felt like
she was doing the work that God meant for her.

    Kelia's compositions now reach far beyond the surface of simple
entertainment.  Her introspective ballads are heartbreaking in their
honesty, yet uplifting and filled with a gentle healing quality.  No
secrets of the past are left unspoken: abuse, grappling with
vulnerability, coping with a dysfunctional family, and finally, finding
strength in Jesus Christ.

    Unlike some other Christian artists, who distance themselves
from these themes in order to maintain a pristine image, Kelita feels
that wearing her heart on her sleeve will give others the message of
hope and healing through a Higher Power.

    "If you're hurting, dealing with garbage from your past, the
first thing you have to do is be honest with yourself and let it out,"
Kelita said.  "My message is, 'If we have the Lord, we can get through
anything.'"

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Barbara Chabai lives in Winnipeg, Canada with her husband and two year
daughter.  She is a freelance writer who has been published in Today's
Parent, Winnipeg Parent and Home Sweet Home and other local papers in
her community.

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SAMPLES
Please go to http://hlom.org/khmusic.html to hear samples from
Kelita's album.  Lucky Ones is currently only available from
Peg Music in Canada. For more information call [phone].

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            *OBTAINING THE GOLD STAR*
                 by Anonymous

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    I am not the most organized person in the world.  As a matter
of fact, I probably rank very high on the "Most Unorganized List".
I detest confusion as much, if not more, than most, so why is my life
always a tangled web of chaos?  I ask myself this over and over, on
my journey to become the perfect mother and wife.  I desire to wear
that gold star with the words "Mother of the Year" imprinted boldly on
its shiny surface.  You know the star I mean, the one no one can give
me but myself.  You see, every magazine in the world could boast of my
most compelling motherly attributes, but here, in my own heart and
mind, I would still be the largest failure. Now, how can I reach that
place where I can be happy with who I am and what I've done?

    I have attempted several routes to obtain what I like to call
"The Personal Star".  Allow me to depict what I have encountered,
since I am almost certain that you have visited the same places.
I home school my two elementary aged children.  Some time ago I
decided to undertake organizing my desk.  Mind you, this is quite
the undertaking for one such as me, but never the less, I stepped out
on my journey.

    While thrashing myself for my disorderly conduct,
I filed though the most tremendous pile of papers you have ever seen.
We are talking the paragon of paper piles, complete with scrap
notes written previous to my birth.  Of course, I had to continually
take breaks to encourage (actually scream at) my children to do their
school work.  Then there was the dog, an 18 month old Dalmatian who
makes "Ricochet Rabbit" appear slow moving.  He decided my heap of
papers needed to be spread out and shred a bit.  Have you ever
attempted to make a neat pile out of wrinkled, damp,
half chewed papers?  It  doesn't work.  At this point I realized I
needed a half hour break to really tell myself what a lousy mess I
was.  Now, six months later, that same assemblage of wrinkled
calamity still sits on my desk, but it now has a catastrophic
pile which has grown along besides it.  Okay, so the desk thing
didn't work, that's all right, IÆll attempt organizing the closet.

    As I opened the closet door, the landslide of outdated
dresses and shoes pouring over my feet immediately told
me I was on the wrong path.  So, without hesitation, I managed to
shove everything back in, shut the door, and jump directly into
scourging myself.  That is the whole point anyway, isn't it?
That's why I attempt these things, so  I can have just cause to
torture myself.  After several hours of merciless siege, I pulled
myself together to get started organizing someplace else, but by
that time I was so exhausted that I curled up into a ball on the
bed and threw myself a big party.  I really needed a party,
especially one of this type:  pity.

    After letting my brain have the horrid abuse only I could
give to myself, I came to a realization.  I just don't cut it.
Did you ever come across that light bulb?  It jumps up and slaps you
in the face every time you hit a point of hopelessness, kind of like
an ice cold gust of arctic air.  There is no joy in that sudden
insight, only an empty unfulfilled feeling.  Maybe, if I had
gotten done what I started out to do, it wouldn't have hit.  Maybe,
if I could just gather the strength to be a good mom, like everyone
else, I could have had that peace.  Or maybe, just maybe, all the
organizational skills on the planet couldn't have kept me from it.
Perhaps what I really desired had nothing to do with being organized.
Wow, what a thought.  Could I have possibly gone about achieving
that star in the wrong way?  Can it be that beating and scourging
myself would not make me happy with myself?

    I tested it.  I thought about the time I was the most angry
with my husband.  The time I really wanted to wring his neck.
The night he forgot to lift the toilet seat.  As I relived the
fury, I asked myself two questions.  Would I have been happier if
I scourged him the way I scourge myself?  Would I have loved him more
if I spewed out all those verbal abuses at him?  Both answers were no.
First, I would never have the audacity to pour that much venom out on
any human being (other then myself), and second, my love for him
didn't cease in all my anger. So if this cycle doesn't work to make
you happier with the person your angry with, it can't work to make
you happier with yourself.  Is it viable that I should deal with
myself using the same mercy and understanding I use when dealing
with others?  This can't be true, it can't possibly be that simple.
I'd have to give myself a break. Actually, I could use a break
from the torture, even if I deserve every ounce of it.

    As I struggled with these foreign thoughts, the Lord
graciously painted a picture upon my heart.  I saw the stripes
Christ bore across His back, the scourges He took.  It was then I
realized all my efforts were in vain.  The abuse I inflicted on
myself had already been inflicted on the Lamb.  He bore my
shortcomings, and it is wrong of me to bear them again.
All the scourging I deserve for my "disorderly conduct" has been
taken, and paid for.

    Amazing, God not only forgives murderers and adulteresses,
but also unorganized, undisciplined people such as me.  I asked
Him to take my scourging stick, and assist me in becoming more self
tolerant.  That sounds odd, doesn't it?  Self tolerant, it means
letting Him deal with my ungodly attributes, instead of dealing with
them in my own abusive way.

    So, what about the gold star?  Let it go, anything you
can give to yourself isn't worth it, whether it be gold or
pain.  Besides, I would probably lose it in all this clutter anyhow.

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EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Carrie Anderson ([e-mail])
EDITOR: Dominica Anderson ([e-mail])

If you need prayer, send your requests to: [e-mail]
To request our writer's guidelines, e-mail: [e-mail]
To subscribe/unsubscribe to this newsletter, e-mail: [e-mail]
To view previous issues please go to http://hlom.org/newsarchive
Visit us at http://hlom.org

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If you would like to take part in this outreach to hurting women, by
your financial contributions, please send it to:
Healing Love Outreach Ministries, P.O. Box 823, Broken Arrow, OK 74013
All gifts are tax-deductible as allowed by law.
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    Copyright 1997 by Healing Love Outreach Ministries,Inc.

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