{"id":907,"date":"2016-09-08T20:42:51","date_gmt":"2016-09-08T20:42:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/?p=907"},"modified":"2016-09-08T20:42:51","modified_gmt":"2016-09-08T20:42:51","slug":"in-a-safe-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2016\/09\/in-a-safe-place.html","title":{"rendered":"In a Safe Place"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I cut out an ad a couple of weeks ago that I really liked. \u00a0I think it was for some sort of conference &#8211; my apologies to the conference leaders for not remembering. The ad said, &#8220;Learn how brokenness is the away to wholeness, mourning is the path to blessing, and emptiness is required to know true fullness.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That is right up my alley and could describe my ministry easily, certainly my heart.<\/p>\n<p>This week a dear friend loaned me her copy of Jan Karon&#8217;s latest book, <em>Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good.<\/em> I like that thought! Don&#8217;t we all want to be somewhere safe with somebody good?<\/p>\n<p>I have experienced a lot of wonderful places, safe places and I am blessed with many friends who are safe places for me. I love them and depend on them.<\/p>\n<p>The safest place to be &#8211; ever &#8211; is in the center of God&#8217;s will. Sometimes it is hard to discern where exactly that is. God doesn&#8217;t usually send us a bulletin or big sign pointing to it. Often we only know it is God&#8217;s will in hindsight.<\/p>\n<p>But there are some signposts. Does it line up with God&#8217;s Word? Are circumstances conducive and right? Do your counsellors (friends) agree? Have you been honest with them? If all three line up, it&#8217;s a good indication that that is where God is pointing. If even<span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"> one<\/span> is not aligned then you might want to back off and continue to pray. (And I know what I am talking about. I&#8217;ve made too many wrong choices and suffered the consequences.)<\/p>\n<p>Now when we make wrong, sinful, bad choices God doesn&#8217;t leave us there. He always gives us a second, third, forth&#8230;chance once we have repented. His specialty is restoration. I experienced that many times.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, there were consequences, but that does not mean God is mad at us. He&#8217;s not getting back at us. We set the consequence in motion as soon as we made the choice.<\/p>\n<p>God is full of grace and wants to help us make good choices! He wants us to be in a safe place!.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I cut out an ad a couple of weeks ago that I really liked. \u00a0I think it was for some sort of conference &#8211; my apologies to the conference leaders for not remembering. The ad said, &#8220;Learn how brokenness is the away to wholeness, mourning is the path to blessing, and emptiness is required to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":466,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,39,14,41,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-choice","category-forgiveness","category-god","category-olympics","category-safe-place"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>In a Safe Place - Safe Place with Ruth Graham<\/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:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2016\/09\/in-a-safe-place.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In a Safe Place - Safe Place with Ruth Graham\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I cut out an ad a couple of weeks ago that I really liked. \u00a0I think it was for some sort of conference &#8211; my apologies to the conference leaders for not remembering. The ad said, &#8220;Learn how brokenness is the away to wholeness, mourning is the path to blessing, and emptiness is required to&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2016\/09\/in-a-safe-place.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Safe Place with Ruth Graham\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-09-08T20:42:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ruth Graham\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"In a Safe Place - Safe Place with Ruth Graham","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2016\/09\/in-a-safe-place.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"In a Safe Place - Safe Place with Ruth Graham","og_description":"I cut out an ad a couple of weeks ago that I really liked. \u00a0I think it was for some sort of conference &#8211; my apologies to the conference leaders for not remembering. The ad said, &#8220;Learn how brokenness is the away to wholeness, mourning is the path to blessing, and emptiness is required to&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2016\/09\/in-a-safe-place.html","og_site_name":"Safe Place with Ruth Graham","article_published_time":"2016-09-08T20:42:51+00:00","author":"Ruth Graham","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2016\/09\/in-a-safe-place.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2016\/09\/in-a-safe-place.html","name":"In a Safe Place - Safe Place with Ruth Graham","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-09-08T20:42:51+00:00","dateModified":"2016-09-08T20:42:51+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/#\/schema\/person\/76d20e190c3b83823997a9f422b86975"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2016\/09\/in-a-safe-place.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2016\/09\/in-a-safe-place.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2016\/09\/in-a-safe-place.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"In a Safe Place"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/","name":"Safe Place with Ruth Graham","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Ruth Graham","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/#\/schema\/person\/76d20e190c3b83823997a9f422b86975","name":"Ruth Graham","description":"\u201cTransparent\u201d is the word most people use to describe Ruth Graham. No stranger to heartache, she seeks to provide a Biblical perspective to her journey of faith. She is warm and talks openly about her own need for a safe place as she journeyed through her husband\u2019s infidelities, her subsequent depression, her divorces, her teenage daughter\u2019s two unplanned pregnancies, another daughter\u2019s bulimia, her son\u2019s battle with drugs, grandson's special needs and returning to school at age 40. Although born into the \"famous\" Graham family Ruth did not feel she had a safe place to unburden the secrets of her life. She felt she had to project and image and wear a mask that she \"had it all together\". She had to meet others' expectations of her. It was not until a mid-life crisis did that she fully discover the unconditional love and grace of God. Her life's passion is to connect people to that same grace and love she found, no matter who they are or what sin. Ruth is an experienced conference speaker and Bible teacher. She has appeared on a variety of radio and television shows including: Good Morning, America, The Hour of Power, Focus on the Family, Moody Broadcasting, Fox &amp; Friends, CBN, Life Today and CNN. She has worked in publishing for over 14 years and is the founder of the Ruth Graham &amp; Friends Ministry. Ruth has three grown children and nine grandchildren. She lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Her life Bible verse is John 1:16.","sameAs":["http:\/\/ruthgrahamministries.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/author\/rgraham"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/466"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=907"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":908,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions\/908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}