{"id":109039,"date":"2023-04-01T07:35:53","date_gmt":"2023-04-01T11:35:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/discovergrace.com\/?p=109039"},"modified":"2023-09-19T15:51:22","modified_gmt":"2023-09-19T19:51:22","slug":"step-one-awakening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/discovergrace.com\/step-one-awakening\/","title":{"rendered":"Step One: Awakening"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was sitting at dinner with the weirdest family I had ever met. Their daughter\u2019s name was Denise, and against all odds, we were friends. I say \u201cagainst all odds\u201d because we couldn’t have been more different.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At sixteen years old, I was a high school dropout with major anger issues. Denise was a Christian with a major smile. My dad started hitting me when I was eight years old. Denise\u2019s dad started every meal with prayer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDo you want to come over for dinner?\u201d Denise asked one day.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOkay,\u201d I said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So there we were, bowing our heads so Denise\u2019s dad could pray. The whole thing felt super spooky to me. I kept looking around to see if everyone was okay. When he was finished praying, people started talking. Like just casually talking. No fighting. No screaming. No one standing up abruptly to throw a dish across the room. No ducking when the dish shattered against the wall right above your head.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It was totally bizarre to me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My eyes kept darting around the room, waiting for the fighting to start. And then suddenly, like a punch to the gut, I realized, \u201cOh my gosh, maybe these people aren\u2019t strange. Maybe they\u2019re normal, and I\u2019m the one who\u2019s really screwed up.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How to Respond to an Awakening<\/span><\/h1>\n

Every journey to freedom begins with a moment of awakening.<\/b> It might be a rock bottom moment \u2013 the day you lose custody of your kids, or a police officer wedges you into the back seat of his car. It might be a traumatic event. Or it might be something as simple as dinner with a different kind of family, one whose health magnifies your own dysfunction.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

No matter how it comes, a moment of awakening is a gift. It\u2019s tempting to shut your eyes and reject the insight, but if you can resist the urge to run, this moment can change your whole life. It\u2019s the genesis of your journey to freedom.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When was the last time you experienced an awakening? When was the last time some friction in your life produced a thought like \u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

I want more than this.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

I need to change.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Something is not right inside of me.<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

This is not the legacy I want to leave.<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t ignore that thought. Give it room to breathe. Sit quietly with it, suspend all judgment, and become curious. When we meet a moment of awakening with curiosity, we move toward \u2026\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

STEP 2: EXPOSING. Read the next article.<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was sitting at dinner with the weirdest family I had ever met. Their daughter\u2019s name was Denise, and against all odds, we were friends. I say \u201cagainst all odds\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":111557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,46,108,106],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-109039","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-counselors-corner","8":"category-magazine","9":"category-my-story","10":"category-spiritual-growth"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nStep One: Awakening - Grace Church<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/discovergrace.com\/step-one-awakening\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Step One: Awakening - Grace Church\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was sitting at dinner with the weirdest family I had ever met. Their daughter\u2019s name was Denise, and against all odds, we were friends. 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