“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3 “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.” Matthew 5:3 (MSG)

In Celebrate Recovery we define denial as, “A false system of beliefs that are not based on reality” and “a self-protecting behavior that keeps us from honestly facing the truth.” The truth is that denial is present in most all our lives, whether you are just starting out in recovery or have been in recovery a long time. Some of us know why we came to CR, we can name the habit or hang-up. Some may not know; they just know they are hurting and are looking for something to alleviate the pain. My favorite verse related to denial is found in Jeremiah 6:14 “You can’t heal a wound by saying it’s not there.” And the Message Bible is even more clear: “My people are broken—shattered!—and they put on band-aids saying, “It’s not so bad. You’ll be just fine. But things are not just fine!” I tell you what, Jeremiah got it right. There are many levels of denial, but we can share its commonalities. We may come to a point where we finally admit we have a problem, but we minimize it; we tell ourselves it really isn’t that bad. We develop defense mechanisms to blame, justify, and rationalize our behaviors, misplacing our destructive behaviors on to other people. There comes a day—at least I hope everyone has this day—when you finally admit you have a problem(s). That’s when we can get to the rest of Step One: admit we are powerless to control our tendencies to do the wrong thing. Admitting we are powerless is so counter-intuitive, it is perceived as weakness. One thing I learned in this process is if I didn’t admit my powerlessness I invariably continued to play God and I unnecessarily continued to prolong my pain and suffering. As we progress in our recovery, we can get caught in the denial game by not accepting the victories we gain through Jesus. We can get so busy—focused on what needs to be done that we don’t take the time to celebrate what God is doing in our lives. We talk over and over again in CR about keeping our recovery balanced. I have a deep gratitude for the miracles God is producing in my life and in my family’s life. Our program of recovery is called Celebrate Recovery for a reason; we celebrate what is found while we recover what was lost. At CR at Crossroads we are starting a new year of lessons and we are currently on Step One. If you’ve been thinking about coming to CR, this is a great time to try it. Please join us this Friday as we Celebrate our victories; it’s Birthday Night, one of my favorite nights in CR. We will celebrate God’s work in our lives with birthdays from 24 hours to 30+ years. If you haven’t experienced a good old fashioned God Celebration recently, come on by and join in the fun. Dana Cramer // Celebrate Recovery at Crossroads