Beautifully Broken

by Kimberly Jones-Pothier

Overview

This book will give you not only biblical truths of deliverance but also real life scenarios and practical applications that will forever change your future relationships. It is a love story about a broken girl and a holy God. Kimberly shows us that God really does restore. Beautifully Broken is where God does his best work. You will learn that your pain was not just about you but many who will be rescued as a result of your survival. Kimberly will show you how to turn your pain into purpose, your mess into your message, and how to get your healing amid the hell. The journey is not comfortable, but it definitely is worth every ounce of pain and discomfort, which will lead you to your purpose.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781504903394
Publisher:	AuthorHouse
Publication date:	04/23/2015
Pages:	158
Sales rank:	486,990
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.70(h) x 0.60(d)

Read an Excerpt

Beautifully Broken

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By Kimberly Jones-Pothier

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2015 Kimberly Jones-Pothier
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5049-0339-4

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CHAPTER 1

A Young Girl and Shattered Dreams

My Beginning

God, church and family, most days this was the complete order of my life. Born into a family of preachers, my entry into ministry was almost inevitable. Prior to serving as local pastors my parents were full time evangelists, preaching, praying, and singing throughout the entire United States and later in many Muslim dominated countries. Laboring not in vain, they have witnessed thousands of people experiencing salvation, healing and deliverance all over the world.

With the arrival of my brother and me, their ministry continued without hindrance. When I was born, my brother was two years old. Mom and Dad were in the midst of a revival. Mom went home to give birth while my dad continued evangelizing. Two days later my mom went into labor and my dad hurried home to be with us. It was not very long before we were all on the road evangelizing as a family. With two toddlers and a blossoming ministry, stopping or slowing down was never an option. Instead, we were right there with them.

We traveled across America, sitting in churches and tent revivals, spending weeks at a time in one city. Church attendance and participation was very important to the Jones family. Even as we grew into teenagers, the thought of missing church for any reason never entered our minds. Again, if Mom and Dad were there, so were we.

The Joneses were always seen together. Even if our parents went out for the evening, we would go with them. As a child, I remember my parents being very selective of my influencers. Honestly, my brother and I never had a babysitter. Mom and Dad had to approve the kids we played with and I would often become very agitated with them. My parents always provided me a safe place to call home and protected me from anything that would cause me harm, especially other people.

Not discounting the personal struggles I encountered, my childhood was not typical but it was great. Our everyday life was unusual to some but there were moments we did normal things. One of my fondest memories is driving fourteen hours to spend Christmas with my grandparents. My grandmother, whom we affectionately called Mawmaw, would cook for hours in preparation of our arrival. Her desire was for us all to enjoy our favorite foods. In my mind, I knew as long as I had the love of my parents and grandparents, life would be perfect.

As I look back I wonder how I could ever become so broken and distant from God. Even as a child, Satan was trying to steal my future by causing me to focus on the temporary instead of the eternal. Feelings of anger, shame and rejection began to manifest. We were a musical family and every night I would fall asleep listening to my favorite bands playing on a radio that was tucked under the covers because I did not like gospel music.

Jolted awake one morning at seven o'clock with worship music blaring throughout our home, I was furious. There was no place to go to get rid of this music. My dad had connected speakers throughout our home and I had lost control of this situation. This occurrence, however, did not stop my attempts at full control of my life and decisions.

Chosen Child

Most assured that I did not want to go to hell, at the age of seven I asked Jesus into my heart and was baptized. Not at all interested in the sort of spiritual experience my parents had, I thought just getting saved was enough. Trusting my parents to always be there for me even after making the poorest decisions, I had placed the burden of my natural and spiritual care on my parents. Yes, I had asked Jesus to save me but I had never pursued a personal and fruitful relationship with Him. Nor did I acknowledge His love or wisdom.

For many years I heard my daddy and other preachers talk about this amazing God and His unconditional love for us. After sitting through years of religious instruction in Sunday School and youth meetings, incorrectly I thought this kind of love was only reserved for the "good" Christian. If you ask me to explain why this preacher's kid was so trivial in spiritual things I could not give you a satisfactory answer.

However, in my heart, I always knew God needed or better yet, He wanted to be at the center of my life. He had a plan for my life that was finalized before I was ever born but I was so easily distracted by my desire to become a success. Choosing instead to do things that were contrary to His will and moving farther and farther away from God, I could not see His divine hand keeping me protected. As a result, my journey through life took me down a road filled with potholes of hurt, dangerous curves of habits and multiple speed bumps of heartache. Truly I had created my own storms and got mad at God when it rained.

Religious Restriction

Spend one hour with me and you will know that I absolutely hate religion and all of its man-made rules and guidelines. Religion can leave people injured and it places God in a box limiting what He is capable of doing in and through you. My parents were influential members of an organization that restricted women from using their gifts in ministry. Taught to sing or be silent, God said otherwise and I felt a tug in my heart to preach the word of God.

Some days I would spend hours singing and preaching to my Barbie dolls. One afternoon, at the age of four, my mom overheard me saying, "My daddy doesn't believe in women preachers, so I guess I will just have to sing." It was as though I thought I had to discard one gift and settle for functioning in the other. But God had a specific plan for my life.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

(Jeremiah 29:11)

Satan is such a loser! In an attempt to discredit the call of God on my life, Satan always reminded me of my struggle with memorization and the inability to retain information. He would constantly tell me you are nothing, you are a failure. He always tries to manipulate what God has said to us about us. The most dangerous weapon he uses is six inches between our ears, the mind. When he can get inside our head and change or control our thinking and thought patterns, we will miss everything God has already said about us because of a momentary distraction. Now I have learned to be less concerned about what Satan says about me and more focused on what God has ordained for me. No longer was I going to settle!

Once I accepted this call on my life to preach, I had to get into position to hear His voice clearly about my future and what He had for me. No longer was I listening to the reason why I could not, but for the first time I was hearing all the reason why I had to walk in my purpose. My future was not limited to just singing but God had ordained me to be a heart healer. Now I travel the world singing and preaching. All the glory belongs to Him. I just get to reap the reward and the benefits.

My discontentment with religion did not stop then. At a very pivotal moment in our family and my parents' ministry, I observed church people mistreating my mom and dad. Hearing my mom weeping because of the rejection she had experienced by the people who supposedly loved them was a memory I was not going to soon forget. Witnessing this terrible tragedy happen to the most loving people on the planet bothered me and as a consequence, I carried the resentment for people and religion into all of my relationships.

Deal with that Devil

During the traumatic times in our childhood, we were open to the still small voices of evil spirits. When we heard them, we thought they were our own thoughts, since we had no wisdom yet to consider otherwise. The demonic forces plants feelings of rejection, causing us to become shameful and self-rejection, self-hatred, and bitterness are then produced.

Then the spirits set up a protective mechanism against these feelings, usually in the form of blame shifting. Inadvertently, becoming blind to our faults and the unveiling of our true feelings seems to only bring us more shame. For this cause we hold our feelings inside and learn to act like nothing others say or do really bothers us. As a teenager I would say, "When I grow up, no one will tell me what to do." These very words set the direction of my life and became a hidden agenda into adulthood.

The Lord had given my parents wisdom on how to deal with me and my lack of respect for the things of God. The way in which they handled the music was ingenious and done with wisdom that came only through prayer and fasting. God had shown them how to deal with the problem spiritually. My parents were not reactive, instead they became proactive. They did not fight me in the physical but in the spiritual.

Mom and Dad knew there was a unique gifting and calling upon my life. When they set those speakers up in the house and played worship music, it was not for my present but it was a setup for my future. The Bible tells us to not be ignorant concerning the wiles of the enemy. They both recognize the enemy was after their baby girl and he was not going to have her without a fight.

They recognized Satan and his schemes and tactics, now so do I. Anything that is contrary to the Word of God was assigned to assassinate me and my dream. The Bible is full of promises to refute the lies of the enemy. God also has given us spiritual weapons to fight against these spiritual attacks on our emotions. With these weapons I take authority over my emotions daily. I am fighting for my family and you, my awesome friends. I do not fight against my flesh but those spirits that try to rule and reign in my life.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (Ephesians 6:12)

We are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus. No longer will I allow the enemy to cause me to settle for anything less than the best of what God has planned for me! The power of God lives on the inside of me and I can speak my divinely designed future into existence.

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." (Romans 3:23-24)

Saved by Grace Not Works

To our family, being saved had always been about works and how we appeared to those who were members of our organization. If you looked and acted holy enough, you would go to heaven. If you had no desire to wear makeup, jewelry, or slacks, you were accepted by your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. The security of our salvation existed almost solely in our appearances. Acting and looking holy enough was your ticket to heaven.

At a conference I heard a pastor describing the men and women who were actively part of our organization. He stated that the men looked like they had stepped out of Esquire magazine but they ugly up their wives. My mom really did look older than Dad because she always wore her hip-length hair piled up on her head. Even so, my mom never complained and was a true example of a godly wife.

When I was fifteen, after much prayer and intense study, my dad introduced the message of grace to our family. Prior to disrupting our holiness lifestyle, dad spent countless hours studying the Bible and he read an innumerable amount of books by authors who had researched the importance of grace in a Christian's life. Soon he understood more and more of Paul's teachings in the New Testament on the works of the flesh and how we cannot live well enough or work hard enough to earn God's forgiveness.

He recognized that we could only be made righteous by what Jesus Christ did for us when He took our sins in His body to the cross. He had seen many leading with double standards. They would leave their religion and all its legalistic standards at home when they went on vacation. However, my parents always made sure that what we professed publicly is what we lived privately. So after weeks of prayer and research, Dad taught us this most important Biblical subject. He summarized grace as the divine love and protection bestowed freely on people.

We were trying to fully understand the grace message. My dad, the prolific and wise orator that he is, thoroughly explained how we could never live holy enough to be saved. He helped us to understand the purpose of Jesus, Calvary and the cross. I remember a vacation in Florida when we met a family from one of our local churches. They looked totally different on vacation because they were not dressed according to the church guidelines. They were so nervous when they saw us and began apologizing for their looks. What a Bible lesson for us as my dad showed us grace on that day. He told that family that we were so happy to see them and he loved them no matter how they dressed.

One evening a family meeting was called. Mom and Dad discussed and announced their intentions of leaving the organization in which they had been faithful members for many years. Because our organization did not teach about grace, my parents knew that we would be unequally yoked if we remained as members. They always cooperated with the belief system of the group and would never have brought dissension by staying actively involved in leadership positions while knowing in their hearts that they believed differently. This decision proved to be a pivotal and life changing moment for our family that not only affected them but my brother and me also.

My mom had always been a devoted wife to my father. She was a woman who lived in complete submission to her husband and lived according to the beliefs of our church. When our standards of holiness began to shift, I watched my mom go through months of indecision and introspection. For eighteen years, my mom had not worn make-up, cut her hair, worn jewelry or slacks. The mark of a dedicated Christian woman in our organization at that time was to be seen and not heard. She was a silent bystander and wife.

After submitting to this lifestyle for so many years, this would be a life altering change and she wanted to hear the voice of God to know that all of these changes aligned with the word of God. Her only desire was to be found pleasing in the sight of God. She was finding a true, personal relationship with Jesus Christ for herself. Looking back today, I now know that the Christian woman who emerged after this monumental lifestyle change fell in love with the Word of God and determined to only be led by the Spirit and not the traditions of men. As a woman, I respect her desire to hear God.

The ultimate game changer during that season for our family was on Valentine's Day. Our dad bought my mom wedding rings. His gift was bittersweet for all of us because we had never before been allowed to wear any kind of jewelry. My mom realized that this would be an outward sign that we truly were changing. This one gesture, that so many consider to be routine, was momentous to the introduction of our new life under grace. The decision to embrace the message of grace would not only affect the Jones family, but thousands of men and women who would need my father for spiritual covering and mentoring.

We had only lived one way and it was according to very strict guidelines. We lived by the Articles of Faith of our church and knew, to stay in good standing with our organization, we could not deviate from any of the teachings. My parents did not allow us to watch television. I still remember my mother checking up on me as I played with my neighbor's children. She knew I would yield to the temptation of watching their television if given the opportunity. The day that a television was brought into our home is still a memorable event in my life. Because of the lack of a television, my brother and I became captivated by it. Even then, my parents set guidelines as to what programs we would watch and when. The world as I had known it for so long was quickly changing and the process was not easy. For the first time I was allowed to cut my hair, wear short sleeves and even pants. I remember being thankful that I was now able to fit in and look more like my friends.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Beautifully Broken by Kimberly Jones-Pothier. Copyright © 2015 Kimberly Jones-Pothier. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword, ix,
Introduction, xiii,
Part 1: my beginning,
Chapter 1: A Young Girl and Shattered Dreams, 1,
Chapter 2: Don't Live Out Your Labels, 17,
Chapter 3: Twice Married ... The Wrong Way, 31,
Chapter 4: Sometimes the Bottom is the Only Way Up, 47,
Chapter 5: When God Sets You Free, You are Truly Free Indeed, 61,
Part 2: my present,
Chapter 6: Wholeness Births Peace and Success in God, 73,
Chapter 7: Conquering Hell in High Heels, 89,
Chapter 8: Marriage God's Way, 101,
Chapter 9: Get Up, Get Out, 113,
Chapter 10: Your Future is Calling, 127,