But I'm not who I used to be...

Dan Hitz is the director of Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan, Inc. He is a Licensed Professional Counselor specializing in overcoming unwanted LGBTQ issues, sexual abuse recovery, and trauma. Dan is an ordained minister, EMDR trained, and a Clinically Certified Trauma Professional. He began his journey out of homosexuality in 1984.

What’s more, I am changing your name. It will no longer be Abram. Instead, you will be called Abraham, for you will be the father of many nations.

Genesis 17:5 NLT

There are times in Scripture when the Lord changes people’s names to reflect the work He is doing in their hearts. Their new name reflects their new identity. Sarai became Sarah. Jacob became Israel. Saul became Paul. There are others. These new names are a practical application of 2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” If you are in Christ, this includes you. You are a new creation. You have a new identity.

Walking this out is a process. There is tension as we live in the reality of justification, having the full righteousness of Christ applied to us through the grace and mercy of God, while living in the process of sanctification, experiencing the transformation process step by step in our lives. God no longer sees us as who we were. He sees us as He created us to be in Christ. I frequently tell my clients that our “old man”, our old sinful nature, has been crucified with Christ [Romans 6:6]; but he happens to be lying around the living room stinking the place up from time to time. Sometimes our old nature slips out and we end up acting or responding like we did in the past. This doesn’t negate the fact that we have the full righteousness of Christ. It doesn’t negate the fact that we are truly a new creation and that the old nature is gone by divine decree. However, it does illustrate the fact that sanctification is a process, and that we are learning to express our new nature more each day as we follow Christ.

One of the many challenges that many of us face in our recovery are the times when those close to us, those we hurt in the past, may continue to identify us by our old identity. It’s hard for them to see us as a new creation if they’re still recovering from the wounds we’ve inflicted on them. They may be afraid to drop their guard and trust that we are different out of fear that we will hurt them again. Sometimes we remind them of who we used to be just by being around them. It’s complicated.

During those times when people around us seem to identify us by our old name and nature, we need to remember to exercise patience and offer grace. Grace to those who were negatively affected by our behavior in the past. Grace to those who hold our old nature against us. And grace to ourselves as we continue our recovery and grow into our true identity in Christ. During those times it’s easy to get frustrated. We may even ponder giving up. Don’t. Take some time to step back and remind yourself of the new identity you have in Christ. Continue growing into the fullness of who God declares you to be. It is a process. May the Holy Spirit give you much grace in that process.

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© 2024 Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan, Inc. This article may be reproduced and distributed as long as no fee is charged and credit is given.

What Should I Do About My Regrets?

Dan Hitz is the director of Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan, Inc. He is a Licensed Professional Counselor specializing in overcoming unwanted LGBTQ issues, sexual abuse recovery, and trauma. Dan is an ordained minister, EMDR trained, and a Clinically Certified Trauma Professional. He began his journey out of homosexuality in 1984.

Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin. So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death.
Romans 7:24-8:2 NIV

Many people say, “Live life with no regrets”. To a large degree I agree with this sentiment. We should live our lives for Christ and our behaviors and attitudes should be clear evidence of the transformational power of Jesus Christ working in our lives. However, if we’re honest with ourselves, none of us have lived our entire lives as a reflection of God’s glory. We’ve all made mistakes. We all have regrets.

We’ve all carved deep ruts in our lives. As Christians, the good news is that some of those ruts are more like virtues than ruts. The moment we come to Christ, we should start establishing deep, godly habits and patterns of true Christlikeness. Essentially, good ruts… lifestyles… virtues… Unfortunately, we also have ruts that have derailed us and have become deeply entrench negative habits and patterns. By the time we get sick of some negative ruts, we may have lived far more years of our lives than we have left. We may or may not have time to undo all of the consequences of the negative ruts while we’re still here on earth. Even if we do, it’s going to take us a lot of years and a lot of hard work to get out of the ruts. The consequences may linger.

I was at the bedside of a close family member a while ago as she passed into eternity. She knew Jesus. She had some beautiful virtues beyond that which I can ever hope to possess. She had a very difficult life. She was very faithful in some of the huge trials that came her way. She also had many huge, challenging ruts. Some through no fault of her own. Others were built slowly through years by making poor decisions. They were deep. They were pretty evident. They made parts of her life extremely difficult. Through the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ she is now resting in His arms, fully loved and fully forgiven. Her decades old ruts are now a thing of the past. She is now fully transformed.

Thinking about her life caused me to focus on some of my own ruts that I’ve been wrestling with for years. Today I’m still dealing with some of the negative patterns that were present all the way back to my childhood, and some that formed in my adolescence and early adulthood. When I gave my life to Jesus, He filled in some of those ruts supernaturally. Others, He allowed to remain. Some of the ones He left I tried to avoid. Others, I kept reinforcing even though I knew I shouldn’t. Years later, as the conviction and consequences became clearer, I began to repent and work to overcome those ruts. I’m not sure I have enough years left to fully overcome some of them this side of eternity.

These are the nations that the Lord left in the land to test those Israelites who had not experienced the wars of Canaan. He did this to teach warfare to generations of Israelites who had no experience in battle.
Judges 3:1-2 NLT

The consequences of ruts don’t usually go away overnight. Jesus takes some of the earthly consequences away, but He leaves just enough that I have to continue working to overcome the ruts. I don’t see Him leaving ruts and their effects as punishment. I see them as a wise and loving Savior teaching me things I refused to learn early on. I see Him empowering me to endure and walk through the natural consequences of my ruts, as he teaches me to lean on Him for wisdom and equipping. He leads us through the process of replacing the ruts with godly virtues. In this process, we grow deeper in relationship with our Heavenly Father, and the family of God that He sends to help us in our journey.

This gets us back to the thought of regrets. Even though I do believe that we should live our lives with no regrets. I also agree with something I heard on TV a few years ago. I forget exactly who said it, but when I heard the statement, “If you don’t have any regrets you haven’t learned anything”, something clicked in my heart. Yes. We should live our lives so that we don’t have any regrets, but none of us are perfect. We will make mistakes. That is what the cross is all about. It is during those times of true conviction, sometimes even realizing the consequences of our actions, that repentance happens and change occurs. We may regret the consequences of our actions and realize the cost of our poor decisions. That brings regret. Jesus is the one who can meet us in our regrets, cleanse us of our sin, and empower us to live differently.

Regrets can also inspire us to make amends; to apologize and try to correct our mistakes and heal the relationships with those we’ve hurt. As we think about reconciling our relationships, we need to proceed prayerfully, own our part of the situation, and allow the Lord to work in the hearts of those we apologize to. Sometimes the people we’ve offended aren’t in an emotional place for us to approach them. In cases like this, we need to prayerfully repent to the Lord and trust Him to work in their hearts in His timing.

But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.
1 John 1:7-9 NLT

The statement, “If you don’t have any regrets you haven’t learned anything,” touched my heart in another way. I used to struggle intensely with condemnation. I knew cognitively that Jesus cleansed me of my sin and forgave me, yet I was struggling to forgive myself. That statement refocused my thoughts on the truth that regrets mean that we realized what we did was wrong and wish we would have done something different. Going forward, we can learn how to be different… how to be better. Instead of focusing on the failure and condemnation, we need to focus on the fact that we’ve been redeemed and are being transformed. The Holy Spirit is teaching us how to live life differently. Regrets and condemnation aren’t a virtue. They are a sign that we need to acknowledge our ruts, turn to Christ, and ask Him to change our hearts.

In times of temptation, the fallout that remains from our ruts can be learning tools and reminders that what we’ve done in the past didn’t work. That can help us avoid giving into temptation. In the areas where we’re still experiencing the consequences of our ruts, we can ask the Lord for the grace to deal with our thorn in the flesh… even if we’re the ones who willingly stepped on the thorn. He is gracious. He will give us the strength to live each day for Him. He will give us the grace to overcome our ruts and regrets and turn them into virtues.

And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.
Philippians 1:6 NLT

Photo of man courtesy of Karabo Mdluli via www.unsplash.com. Photo of woman courtesy of Getty Images via www.unsplash.com. © 2023 Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan, Inc. This article may be reproduced and distributed as long as no fee is charged and credit is given.

The Road Less Traveled

Tom and Donna Cole are co-directors of Pure Heart Ministries International. They have shared the message of God’s transforming love in over 43 nations. Tom started his ministry experience at Reconciliation Ministries and served as Executive Director from 1994 to 2003. They have four children and six grandchildren with another on the way!

And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

1 Corinthians 6:11 NKJV 

My life would take a dramatic turn in November of 1986. Before that day I was a deeply broken and lost man. I had been actively involved in the gay community in Detroit for seven years. I had secretly been involved sexually for the 7 years before that. And I was miserable. I thought if I just embraced who I really was, and give myself fully to it, I would find true happiness and fulfillment. My friends and family that knew about my homosexuality embraced me and accepted me. But deep down I was suicidal and miserable. I drank and did drugs regularly. I kept searching for the right man to love. But in that search I became sexually addicted as well.

Then in November of 1986 I was introduced to Jesus Christ through the precious witness of a woman I worked with. I went to church with her and her family and gave my life to Christ at the end of the service. I knew I was different from that moment on. Shame was broken off as I realized Jesus forgave my sins. But that was just the beginning of my journey. I would spend the next 6 years dealing with the root issues of my same-sex attraction. I was saved, but Jesus is all about transforming us into His image. And that takes time. In the midst of this process I met and became best friends with Donna, a former lesbian. Two years into that process we both realized that we had fallen in love. We married on Christmas Day of 1988. Does marriage heal homosexuality? Not even close. We both were still very broken in our first years of marriage and much healing would still need to occur for us to walk in victory over our brokenness.

God is faithful. If we lean into Him, and trust His ways, He will bring about our transformation. It may not be in the timeline that we desire. But He will change us in so many ways. I leaned into God and recognized that I was a weak man. In my weakness God became my strength.  I did not overcome same sex issues in my own strength. I didn’t have strength to do anything. Slowly, but surely, I found my attractions diminishing. I began to see men the way God intended. I sought out deliverance, healing and godly counsel on this journey. I attended church services and worship nights. I read the Bible voraciously. I would spend hours in my room just worshipping Jesus. I built healthy friendships. I love that we get to partner with God in the process of sanctification! I also had to renew my mind. I had spent so many years focused on an unhealthy view of men. My mind was so polluted by my past. I memorized scriptures that dealt with temptation. I did deep studies in the Bible concerning His will for my sexuality. I read books and testimonies of others who had overcome. I joined with God in the process.

I honestly give all the glory and credit to God for the last 37 years of transformation. Is life hard sometimes? Absolutely! I’ve known grief intimately. I’ve battled temptation with God at my side. I’ve had conflict in my marriage, with my children and with friends. But I have always continued to lean into Christ through prayer, worship, solitude and through studying His word. I heard a worship song that said “If you don’t quit, you win”! Profound and true words! I think that is the key to true transformation.

My wife and I are coming to the Detroit area in July and will be sharing our testimonies at Great Lakes Church in Sterling Heights Sunday, July 23rd at 9:00 AM. Come and join us to hear us share our stories. We will also be doing a Pure Heart weekend conference July 28th and 29th in South Lyon. The weekend addresses the primary wounds we all have received in life. It’s a healing experience for everyone. This is not just about homosexuality. It’s for each and every one of us. Please come and join us, and bring a friend.

For more information about Pure Heart Ministries, visit them at www.pureheart.rest.

Photo of sunrise courtesy of www.unsplash.com.
Photo of Tom and Donna courtesy of www.pureheart.rest.

© 2023 Pure Heart Ministries.

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Tom and Donna Cole will be sharing their testimonies at Great Lakes Church on Sunday, July 23rd at 9:00 PM. They will also be doing a question and answer session at 6:00 PM. Great Lakes Church is located at 39051 Dodge Park Rd, Sterling Heights, MI 48313.

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Tom and Donna will be doing a Pure Heart weekend conference in South Lyon at The Barn on July 28th and 29th. The eight lessons of Pure Heart are based on the Beatitudes from the Gospel of Matthew. There will be worship, teaching and ministry times following. This is an experiential weekend. Come expecting to have God heal and transform your heart. Tom and Donna have ministered Pure Heart to many thousands of people. Testimonies continue to come in from many years ago that Pure Heart changed their lives and that they have had lasting change.  You can register online at https://www.pureheart.rest/events/july-23-24-2023-in-south-lyon. The exact address will be given when you register.

Jesus Heals the Brokenhearted: Empowered through Relationship

This newsletter is based on a teaching Dan Hitz presented at New Hope Assembly of God in Taylor, Michigan on March 5, 2023. Dan is the director of Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan, Inc. He is a Licensed Professional Counselor specializing in overcoming unwanted LGBTQ issues, sexual abuse recovery, and trauma. Dan is an ordained minister, EMDR trained, and a Clinically Certified Trauma Professional. He began his journey out of homosexuality in 1984.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

Luke 4:18-19 NKJV

Jesus was reading from the book of Isaiah in Luke 4:18-19 when He proclaimed that He has come to heal the brokenhearted. Those verses are among my favorite in Scripture. In the original language, the term “brokenhearted” means shards of glass as if you broke a mirror. That’s what many of our hearts are like – jagged shards of glass. Jesus came to heal our shattered hearts.

Dan at about five years old

I had a lot of shards of glass in my heart when I came to Christ in 1984. I was born to a paranoid schizophrenic mother who molested me before I entered kindergarten. The abuse started up again in middle school and lasted until early high school. My dad was a nice guy in general, but I shut my heart off to him when he was having a rough day and scolded me for asking too many questions. Since I shut my heart off from him, I couldn’t receive the masculine infilling that fathers are meant to give to their sons. That left me vulnerable to an older boy who abused me when I was about five or six. He made it fun at first. When he wanted me to do things I didn’t want to do, it turned coercive and shaming. I was raised in the church. It was confusing when what was talked about at church didn’t match up with what was going on at home. I knew right from wrong. In middle school, I realized that I liked the boys more than the girls. That was a problem. The abuse from my mother was threatening and aggressive. I wanted to have a normal family, but I was afraid of women. My high school and college years were full of dual attractions. I tried to have a girlfriend, but I wanted a boyfriend more. I desperately wanted a male to fill the huge masculine void I had in my heart. That didn’t work. Eventually I became bulimic. I couldn’t eat enough to fill up the void. Sexual encounters with men couldn’t fill up the void. I was truly empty.

When I got saved in 1984 the bulimia fell away instantly. Jesus began to fill the void. I didn’t need to binge anymore. I was excited and thought that the homosexual attractions that I loved and hated would instantly go away too. I was full of shame and condemnation when they didn’t. Jesus did indeed come to heal my broken heart, but He does things His way not ours. He calmed my fear of women enough to bring me a beautiful wife. She is still my wife today, some 38 years later, but even marriage doesn’t cure same-sex attraction. Only Jesus heals the brokenhearted. After about 15 years of trying to fix myself my way, I finally surrendered to God and asked Him to do whatever it took to heal my heart His way. That was the beginning of a challenging journey of recovery. A journey of learning more and more about God the Father’s heart, Jesus my Savior, and the Holy Spirit who leads me to all truth. The more I open my heart and surrender to the Lord, the more He transforms me into His image. He continues to empower me to stand as the redeemed man of God that He knit together in my mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13). Her mental illness and demonic oppression couldn’t destroy the Lord’s plan for my life.

God could have taken my homosexual attractions away instantly, but He wanted to teach me to be completely dependent upon Him. He wanted to teach me to “ fight the good fight for the true faith.” (1 Timothy 6:12 NLT) This seems to be His way. As revivals are popping up around the world, there will be some who will be instantly delivered from sins that have defeated them for years. There will be many more who will enter into the battle of Judges 3:1-2 NLT, “1 These are the nations that the Lord left in the land to test those Israelites who had not experienced the wars of Canaan. 2 He did this to teach warfare to generations of Israelites who had no experience in battle.” When we’re surrendered to sin, we aren’t fighting. The Lord specifically left some enemies in the Promised Land in order to teach those who had not formerly fought any battles, how to fight. It seems He also leaves enemies in our Promised Land to teach us to fight. The only way to be successful in the battle is to know the heart of the Father. The only way to know the heart of the Father is through relationship.

The idea that homosexuality or transgender identities are sinful isn’t very popular in our culture today. Unfortunately, it isn’t popular in many Christian denominations either. Jesus was pretty clear about God’s design for sexuality. “‘Haven’t you read the Scriptures?’ Jesus replied. ‘They record that from the beginning “God made them male and female.”’ And he said, ‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. ’” (Matthew 19:4-5 NIV) God ordains physical sexual expression to be exercised solely within the marriage covenant between one biologically born male and one biologically born female. He created us as male and female, not non-binary, gender fluid, or transgender. There are some people who have ambiguous genitalia or chromosomal abnormalities; however, these are scientifically verifiable and observable anomalies. They are not subjectively determined through emotional perception.

Many LGBTQ advocates will claim that homosexual attractions and transgender identities are biologically fixed and unchangeable. They claim that if we try to get counseling to change our orientation or to embrace our birth gender, we’ll become suicidal. That isn’t what the research shows. Multiple peer reviewed studies report the opposite. A study conducted by Joseph Nicolosi and others in 2000 found that even those who didn’t experience a significant shift in their sexual attractions reported improvement in their emotional well-being.1 Jay Greene, Ph.D., senior research fellow in the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy, found that transgender affirming treatments actually increase suicide risk. 2 You can read more about what research shows regarding change allowing therapy for unwanted same-sex attraction and gender confusion online at https://recmin.org/s/Research-for-SSA-and-GD-221202.pdf in the article “What Does Research Conclude About Counseling for Unwanted Same-Sex Attraction and Gender Dysphoria?”

The Bible gives us hope for transformation in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 NLT:

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 NLT 9 Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, 10 or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God. 11 Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

What does the journey out of sexual brokenness and into sexual wholeness look like? My own journey has led me through several seasons of Living Waters, professional therapy, and countless hours of prayer ministry. It requires us to open our hearts to the Lord and safe others and be honest about our desires, our wounds, our sins. It requires us to deny our flesh, take up our cross, and follow Jesus (Matthew 16:24). Denying ourselves – our fleshly desires – isn’t easy. That is one of the many places where we learn to fight. It is one of the many places where we need to accept the Lord’s invitation in Isaiah 1:18 NKJV, “‘Come now, and let us reason together,’ says the Lord, ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.’” Reasoning implies disagreement, or at least a debate of ideas. When we are tempted, emotionally distraught, or struggling in the battle, the Lord invites us to reason with Him. He wants to hear our heart. He wants relationship. He ties that time of reasoning to our victory in the battle over sin. Relationship with Him transforms hearts that are stained like scarlet into hearts that are purified as new fallen snow.

dan receiving prayer at the leaders’ day during restored hope network’s HOPE 2022 conference.

The battle is won through relationship with the Lord. Sometimes that relationship occurs as we meet with Him one on one. Other times, our relationship with the Lord is developed as He meets us through His body – through other Christian brothers and sisters. The thought of honest, vulnerable relationship can be frightening to those of us who have been abused in relationship. That’s one of the areas where we may need to reason with the Lord and ask Him to help us know who to trust, and how to trust. We are wounded in relationship, and the Lord brings us healing in relationship. That’s Jesus’ heart for those who follow Him. Towards the end of His earthly ministry, He gave us a new commandment, “‘Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.’” (John 13:34-35 NLT) Learning to love and trust others takes work. Often, it’s part of the battle. It takes relationship with the Father to learn to trust, forgive, and love.

The Lord has brought me a lot of healing through my individual prayer times with Him; yet, He has brought me far more healing as He flows through other imperfect people in the Body of Christ. He has brought healing from the father wound through the older men in the church who have spoken into my life. He has brought healing from sexual abuse through safe men and women who have sat with me in the pain of the abuse and walked with me to Jesus. He has healed me from the mother wound through relationships with safe, godly women who prayed for me and spoke words of encouragement. None of these people brought healing through human effort. They were godly vessels who allowed the grace of God to flow through them. None of them were perfect. Neither am I. Sometimes we offend each other. As we learn to rely on God and walk in humility, we learn to work through our differences and forgive one another. That brings further healing and further victory. Victory through relationship.

Through the years, the shards of glass in my heart have become smoother. Many of the broken pieces have been joined back together. This is a lifelong process. Jesus has healed the wounds of abuse from my mother by meeting me in the memories – in the pain – and cleansing me with His blood. In one memory, I could see Him picking me up after the abuse and wrapping me in a white blanket. He held me lovingly and comforted me. In another memory, I felt like I could never be cleansed of the dirtiness of the abuse. The Lord moved in and I could feel the power of the Holy Spirit pushing the shame and dirtiness out of me from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. Years after my father passed away, the Lord helped me to open my heart back up to my dad, at least in my memories of him. He showed me ways that my father did reach out to me and speak truth and empowerment into my heart. The older I get, the more I appreciate my earthly father. The Lord has healed the pain of being abused by the older boy as He brings many safe men into my life that I can be honest and vulnerable with. These are godly men who know me in my strengths as well as my weaknesses. They don’t take advantage of my brokenness, but walk with me to Jesus where I can receive even more healing. The Lord has given me the family that I truly wanted deep down in my heart. My wife is my best friend. Our family has had its challenges through the years. We have had tragedy. We have had blessing. Through it all, my wife and I have walked to Jesus for His help. Rather than being defeated by the challenges of life, He has empowered us to stand strong in the battle and find our strength in Him. He continues to give us beauty for ashes (Isaiah 61:3). He truly does heal the brokenhearted.

Everyone’s healing journey is different. Some challenges may continue in your life that haven’t continued in mine, and vice versa. Whether the Lord calms the storms in your life, or walks with you in the raging storms, He is faithful. He will never give up on you. In the words of Philippians 1:6 NLT, “And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”

If we at Reconciliation Ministries can help you in any way, call us at 586.739.5114. We offer biblically based professional therapy, prayer ministry, mental health coaching, and support groups to help you on your journey.

References:

1 Nicolosi, J., Byrd, A.D., and Potts, R.W. (2000) Retrospective self-reports of changes in homosexual orientation: A consumer survey of conversion therapy clients. Psychological Reports, 86, 1071-1088.

2 Green, Jay. (2022) Puberty Blockers, Cross-Sex Hormones, and Youth Suicide. The Heritage Foundation June 13, 2022. Retrieved from https://www.heritage.org/gender/report/puberty-blockers-cross-sex-hormones-and-youth-suicide on 12/19/2022.

Photo of broken mirror used under license with www.shutterstock.com. Photos of baptism and man in blue shirt courtesy of www.unsplash.com.

© 2023 Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan, Inc. This article may be reproduced and distributed as long as no fee is charged and credit is given.