A Treasure for You: The Treasures E-Devotional
Are You a Tweeter?
by Ashley Dodson
Are you a tweeter? Me too… In fact, I have tweeted in the middle of a Pilates class, as I begged God for mercy from the beautiful-Russian-ex-Ballerina instructor holding us hostage. I have tweeted during showers, weddings, dates, awesome conversations, accidentally from my purse, and yes, I have even tweeted in church (but I am sure it was because Holly or Philip had a brilliant point that required an insta-tweet).
You see, I love words. More specifically, I love to learn who people are, what and who they love, and what matters to them. What we say (and don’t say) determines what we do, so I try to listen carefully. Whether it’s Bentleys in Beverly Hills or fighting human trafficking, I value a deeper insight into, and understanding of, humanity. Because, as John Maxwell always says, “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.” Go ahead and tweet that. I’ll wait.
Aren’t you so glad that Jesus didn’t come to condemn the world, but to save it? Whatever people in our world care about influences our media, the arts, business, industry, ministry, economies and ultimately establishes our global condition. If we are to ever minister effectively to others, it will require that we operate less in judgment, and more in love. I am not suggesting tolerance; we are supposed to be in this world, but not of it. I am suggesting an aggressive, radical love that stands strong in what it believes, but has an enduring presence and a faithful heart that makes way for each individual journey.
I like that Jesus hung out with tax collectors, prostitutes, Samaritans, rough neck rowdy entrepreneurs AKA Disciples, traitors and thieves. I like that when he saw Zacheus up in that tree he didn’t scream, “You thief! You oppressor! How can you lay your head down and sleep at night!” Nope, he said, “Dinner at your place. Tonight.” I like when the woman at the well gave him a tough time about even wanting to talk to her that he didn’t say, “Listen woman, I am the Messiah, I know everything about the hot mess you’re in and if you know what’s good for you, you will do what I say. And can’t you see I’ve been walking a while? Get me some water!” Nope, he listened gently, spoke lovingly and revealed to her His character as He addressed the need in her heart through perspective correction. He offered her another way… His way…the Way. I hardly call what He did tolerance – I call it understanding where she was, where she had the potential to go, and speaking the truth in love.
How can I ever begin to minister to anyone without an understanding of the context from which they view life and make decisions? Jesus knew how to love because He took the time to listen to His Father, who revealed to Him understanding and insight from heaven. Then He took the time to listen to the individual as He encouraged them to successfully navigate the transitional journey of becoming more like Him.
I see myself in the rebels and outlaws. In the thieves and robbers, the thugs and traitors, the rough around the edges disciples, the forbidden women. In the lost, the broken, the forsaken. I am so thankful that He offers us new life, a fresh start, a beautiful invitation to join Him on the wildest History story ever unfolding. He is a God of freedom, second chances, new and seemingly small beginnings.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, a well-known American author said, “Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over.” This made me consider what it’s like to walk with Jesus. My journey with Him has called for tenacious persistence; however, it has also called for endless surrender. I am learning to master maintaining the constant ability to keep on keepin’ on, matched with the humility to begin again in various areas, at the same time. Life in general requires us to increase in capacity to handle thinking, believing, doing and loving on several different planes. This is what the Proverbs 31 woman, our Mother and Hero, our Blueprint from the Bible, was so great at. She had a super-natural ebb and flow, which kept her ready for anything in every season of her life. She also had capacity that kept her prepared not just for her life, but also her husband’s, her children’s and even in her local and global world, encompassing politics, economics, social awareness and spirituality. She knew how to live, and I imagine she knew how to let go, to roll her sleeves up and start again, whenever life called for it.
Sometimes the answer is not to persist but to let go, to give up a method, process, system, a way of thinking and start over again. Letting go is not always failure; oftentimes, it yields a fresh way to live. The way I used to live was full of persistence, but there was no method to my madness. Giving up my ways to adopt all that Jesus Christ is and all that I am in Him was not only an incredibly gracious chance to start over, but the key to living fully. After all, He came not just that we would have life, but life more abundant. This might just mean hearing, Daughter, you can keep living that way or you can live a better way. Persist in becoming more like Christ and endure faithfully when that means letting go and starting again. When we seek first His kingdom, when our whole life is focused on being transformed more into the image of Christ, everything else in our hearts, lives, and dreams must be held lightly. Nothing is surety but surety in God.
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Ashley Dodson
Harmony Dust
PS. Don’t miss The Stiletto Project: Exhibit & Memoir Release Party on Feb 6th! www.iamatreasure.com
Monday, January 25, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Where Was God?
Where was God?
It was an incredible weekend for Treasures! On Friday night, we headed to the City of Industry where we gave out nearly 300 gifts to women working in strip clubs. Having a multi-lingual team definitely came in handy!
At one club, a volunteer made a connection with a Spanish-speaking woman who called us in desperation the next day. She said that she is fed up with working in the industry and being treated like a “whore” every night, but she feels like she has no other options. A volunteer is meeting with her tomorrow to offer her support and assistance.
At the end of the night, one of our volunteers from Jordan came across an Arabic-speaking strip club manager. When he realized she spoke Arabic too, he began to explain to her that he felt stuck working at the strip club. He wanted out of the business but couldn’t seem to find another job. He asked her if she would pray for him. She replied, “Just keep your eyes open like we are having a conversation” and prayed for him right there! He told her that he plans on coming to the church she attends and offered to help our team get into the other clubs he is affiliated with.
Saturday night was God Chicks Night of Freedom. I had the honor of sharing my story and had my first ever book signing! There wasn’t an empty seat in the house and one point during the service, Holly asked if anyone had an area in their life in which they needed freedom and nearly EVERY HAND IN THE HOUSE WAS RAISED! It was a night of freedom indeed!
Then, on Sunday, I had an encounter that blew me away. A girl at church came up to me and said, “I just want you to know that I always appreciated receiving your gifts. They meant a lot to me and all of the girls.” As it turns out, she had been working as a dancer at a local club for several years, receiving our gift bags! Today, she is out of the business and planted at the Oasis! It makes me wonder how many more women have had their lives impacted in such significant ways without us even knowing!
When I look back over my own life, I have asked myself “Where was God when I was going through so much pain?” The truth is, I can see Him in the people who showed up, just at the right time. It is my hope and prayer that when the women we are reaching look back on their lives and ask themselves, “Where was God?” they will see Him in the moments we showed up for them.
Love, Harmony & The Treasures Team
PS…
NEW SITE LAUNCHED! We launched a new site for the Scars and Stilettos book release. Read the first few pages, leave a comment, and check out the preface by Craig Gross and Foreword by Holly Wagner. www.scarsandstilettos.com
If you are in the LA area, please join us for our GIFT BAG ASSEMBLY on January 23rd at 10 am Oasis www.iamatreasure.com/events
Don’t miss THE STILETTO PROJECT Exhibit and Memoir Release Party! (See attached flyer)
Featuring the artwork of commercialized sexual exploitation and trafficking over-comers.
It was an incredible weekend for Treasures! On Friday night, we headed to the City of Industry where we gave out nearly 300 gifts to women working in strip clubs. Having a multi-lingual team definitely came in handy!
At one club, a volunteer made a connection with a Spanish-speaking woman who called us in desperation the next day. She said that she is fed up with working in the industry and being treated like a “whore” every night, but she feels like she has no other options. A volunteer is meeting with her tomorrow to offer her support and assistance.
At the end of the night, one of our volunteers from Jordan came across an Arabic-speaking strip club manager. When he realized she spoke Arabic too, he began to explain to her that he felt stuck working at the strip club. He wanted out of the business but couldn’t seem to find another job. He asked her if she would pray for him. She replied, “Just keep your eyes open like we are having a conversation” and prayed for him right there! He told her that he plans on coming to the church she attends and offered to help our team get into the other clubs he is affiliated with.
Saturday night was God Chicks Night of Freedom. I had the honor of sharing my story and had my first ever book signing! There wasn’t an empty seat in the house and one point during the service, Holly asked if anyone had an area in their life in which they needed freedom and nearly EVERY HAND IN THE HOUSE WAS RAISED! It was a night of freedom indeed!
Then, on Sunday, I had an encounter that blew me away. A girl at church came up to me and said, “I just want you to know that I always appreciated receiving your gifts. They meant a lot to me and all of the girls.” As it turns out, she had been working as a dancer at a local club for several years, receiving our gift bags! Today, she is out of the business and planted at the Oasis! It makes me wonder how many more women have had their lives impacted in such significant ways without us even knowing!
When I look back over my own life, I have asked myself “Where was God when I was going through so much pain?” The truth is, I can see Him in the people who showed up, just at the right time. It is my hope and prayer that when the women we are reaching look back on their lives and ask themselves, “Where was God?” they will see Him in the moments we showed up for them.
Love, Harmony & The Treasures Team
PS…
NEW SITE LAUNCHED! We launched a new site for the Scars and Stilettos book release. Read the first few pages, leave a comment, and check out the preface by Craig Gross and Foreword by Holly Wagner. www.scarsandstilettos.com
If you are in the LA area, please join us for our GIFT BAG ASSEMBLY on January 23rd at 10 am Oasis www.iamatreasure.com/events
Don’t miss THE STILETTO PROJECT Exhibit and Memoir Release Party! (See attached flyer)
Featuring the artwork of commercialized sexual exploitation and trafficking over-comers.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Chasing other Lovers
A Treasure for You: The Treasures E-Devotional
Chasing other Lovers
I believe that one of the deepest desires of the human heart is for true intimacy. To be fully known and fully loved. Yet in my own life, for so many years, it seemed that the harder I chased after love, the more it eluded me.
My memoir, Scars and Stilettos, tells my story. Growing up, I never had a clear picture of what healthy love looked like. Abandoned by my father before I was a year old, sexually abused at the hands of multiple people—my picture of intimacy was completely skewed. I was so desperate for anything that resembled love, at the young age of 14, I slept with the first boy who came along and told me he loved me. He broke up with me soon after and raped me repeatedly over the course of the next year. Filled with hurt and shame, I remember thinking, “Is this what love looks like? Surely love can’t hurt so bad?”
The next relationship I became involved in quickly became emotionally and physically abusive. Still I stayed. Because “to him who is hungry, even what is bitter tastes sweet” (Proverbs 27:7). Although the relationship was bitter and painful, I preferred it to the alternative—being alone.
It was that relationship that led me into a world of selling myself in strip clubs. So desperate to keep my boyfriend from leaving me, I attempted to buy his love with the money I earned while dancing for other men. Once again, my skewed view of love brought me pain. For the next few years, I lay awake at night hoping, praying even, that if I tried hard enough, if I chased him long enough, he would love me one day.
How could I know what True Love looks like if I had never experienced it? It wasn’t until I began my relationship with God that I began to that it is patient. It is kind. It is not easily angered. True Love always protects.
It is no wonder that we crave intimacy so deeply. We were created for relationship. In Genesis, we learn that it was Eve’s eating of the forbidden fruit that brings separation between God and humanity, separation from our perfect intimacy with God. Eve has access to everything she would ever need to fill the longings and desires of her heart, yet she still chooses forbidden fruit. How often do we fall to the same temptation and create fracture in our relationship with God? How often do we try to fill legitimate needs in illegitimate ways?
For years, I chased after men, looking to them to fill me. Nowadays, I tend to turn to chocolate. Just last week I was having a frustrating day and the first thing I did was grab a piece of my favorite, dark organic chocolate. The chocolate was delicious, but it did nothing to ease my pain. My prescription was insufficient.
The real trouble comes when our prescriptions become our addictions. It’s when that piece of chocolate leads to binge eating, leads to obesity and compromised health. It’s when social drinking becomes I-just-need-a-glass-of-wine-to-take-the-edge-off, becomes excessive drinking, becomes alcoholism. It’s when a full social calendar becomes a lifestyle so bogged down with running from one appointment to another that we barely have a moment to catch our breath. Our prescriptions for our pain can become our addictions.
Ultimately, it is these insufficient prescriptions and addictions that stand in the way of the one thing that can truly satisfy—an authentic, unhindered relationship with our Creator. I believe that God is calling each of us to surrender the fragmented pieces of ourselves so we can experience true intimacy and love.
God is wooing you and I— hoping that we will give up our other lovers—whether they be man, woman, food, money, sex, busyness, beauty or something else. He knows the hollow end of those affairs. He knows that none of it will fill you like He can. The deepest longings of our hearts can only be truly satisfied by being fully known and fully loved by Him. There is no substitute—there is no filler—there is no other lover worth chasing.
Love, Harmony
,
PS. You can order my new memoir, Scars and Stilettos at www.iamatreasure.com/store
Chasing other Lovers
I believe that one of the deepest desires of the human heart is for true intimacy. To be fully known and fully loved. Yet in my own life, for so many years, it seemed that the harder I chased after love, the more it eluded me.
My memoir, Scars and Stilettos, tells my story. Growing up, I never had a clear picture of what healthy love looked like. Abandoned by my father before I was a year old, sexually abused at the hands of multiple people—my picture of intimacy was completely skewed. I was so desperate for anything that resembled love, at the young age of 14, I slept with the first boy who came along and told me he loved me. He broke up with me soon after and raped me repeatedly over the course of the next year. Filled with hurt and shame, I remember thinking, “Is this what love looks like? Surely love can’t hurt so bad?”
The next relationship I became involved in quickly became emotionally and physically abusive. Still I stayed. Because “to him who is hungry, even what is bitter tastes sweet” (Proverbs 27:7). Although the relationship was bitter and painful, I preferred it to the alternative—being alone.
It was that relationship that led me into a world of selling myself in strip clubs. So desperate to keep my boyfriend from leaving me, I attempted to buy his love with the money I earned while dancing for other men. Once again, my skewed view of love brought me pain. For the next few years, I lay awake at night hoping, praying even, that if I tried hard enough, if I chased him long enough, he would love me one day.
How could I know what True Love looks like if I had never experienced it? It wasn’t until I began my relationship with God that I began to that it is patient. It is kind. It is not easily angered. True Love always protects.
It is no wonder that we crave intimacy so deeply. We were created for relationship. In Genesis, we learn that it was Eve’s eating of the forbidden fruit that brings separation between God and humanity, separation from our perfect intimacy with God. Eve has access to everything she would ever need to fill the longings and desires of her heart, yet she still chooses forbidden fruit. How often do we fall to the same temptation and create fracture in our relationship with God? How often do we try to fill legitimate needs in illegitimate ways?
For years, I chased after men, looking to them to fill me. Nowadays, I tend to turn to chocolate. Just last week I was having a frustrating day and the first thing I did was grab a piece of my favorite, dark organic chocolate. The chocolate was delicious, but it did nothing to ease my pain. My prescription was insufficient.
The real trouble comes when our prescriptions become our addictions. It’s when that piece of chocolate leads to binge eating, leads to obesity and compromised health. It’s when social drinking becomes I-just-need-a-glass-of-wine-to-take-the-edge-off, becomes excessive drinking, becomes alcoholism. It’s when a full social calendar becomes a lifestyle so bogged down with running from one appointment to another that we barely have a moment to catch our breath. Our prescriptions for our pain can become our addictions.
Ultimately, it is these insufficient prescriptions and addictions that stand in the way of the one thing that can truly satisfy—an authentic, unhindered relationship with our Creator. I believe that God is calling each of us to surrender the fragmented pieces of ourselves so we can experience true intimacy and love.
God is wooing you and I— hoping that we will give up our other lovers—whether they be man, woman, food, money, sex, busyness, beauty or something else. He knows the hollow end of those affairs. He knows that none of it will fill you like He can. The deepest longings of our hearts can only be truly satisfied by being fully known and fully loved by Him. There is no substitute—there is no filler—there is no other lover worth chasing.
Love, Harmony
,
PS. You can order my new memoir, Scars and Stilettos at www.iamatreasure.com/store
Friday, January 1, 2010
Scars & Stilettos by Harmony Dust
Scars and Stilettos: The Transformation of an Exotic Dancer by Treasures founder, Harmony Dust is AVAILABLE NOW!
Check out what Holly Wagner, Craig Gross, Nancy Alcorn, & Sheila Weller have to say about this book...
“You will want to get a copy for every person you know… Once you start this book, you will not be able to put it down. You will laugh, you will cry, you will be encouraged, you will fall in love with God all over again.”
-Holly Wagner, Author and Founder of God Chicks
"Harmony’s story is compelling evidence of how far the love of God reaches to heal broken lives and restore all that has been stolen. Scars and Stilettos is a must read for anyone who lives in despair and believes there is no way out. Harmony, as the founder of Treasures Ministries, has been a guest at Mercy Ministries to share her story with our residents, and the impact was great. Her life is now devoted to reaching out to those who are still living in the circumstances that she came out of, literally loving them to Christ. Harmony is living proof that in Christ, old things are passed away and all things are new.
-Nancy Alcorn, Founder of Mercy Ministries
“The thing that blows me away about Harmony's story is that she showed back up. How easy would it be to never step foot in a strip club ever again. The pain, the memories, the past was all right there but she decided that this was not about her but the hundreds of women that remained in the clubs.”
-Craig Gross, Founder of XXX Church
"I met Harmony Dust three years ago, and discovered she was that rare, inspiring thing: brave, smart, compassionate, stirringly optimistic -- a young woman who had pulled herself out of years of a spirit-destroying life and was helping other young women do the same. Now, in the often wry and always self-aware voice...Harmony tells her own story. It's the real deal."
- Sheila Weller, award-winning journalist & author of New York Times bestseller, "Girls Like Us".
Order your copy today at www.iamatreasure.com/store
Bulk rate discounts available
-The Treasures Team
Check out what Holly Wagner, Craig Gross, Nancy Alcorn, & Sheila Weller have to say about this book...
“You will want to get a copy for every person you know… Once you start this book, you will not be able to put it down. You will laugh, you will cry, you will be encouraged, you will fall in love with God all over again.”
-Holly Wagner, Author and Founder of God Chicks
"Harmony’s story is compelling evidence of how far the love of God reaches to heal broken lives and restore all that has been stolen. Scars and Stilettos is a must read for anyone who lives in despair and believes there is no way out. Harmony, as the founder of Treasures Ministries, has been a guest at Mercy Ministries to share her story with our residents, and the impact was great. Her life is now devoted to reaching out to those who are still living in the circumstances that she came out of, literally loving them to Christ. Harmony is living proof that in Christ, old things are passed away and all things are new.
-Nancy Alcorn, Founder of Mercy Ministries
“The thing that blows me away about Harmony's story is that she showed back up. How easy would it be to never step foot in a strip club ever again. The pain, the memories, the past was all right there but she decided that this was not about her but the hundreds of women that remained in the clubs.”
-Craig Gross, Founder of XXX Church
"I met Harmony Dust three years ago, and discovered she was that rare, inspiring thing: brave, smart, compassionate, stirringly optimistic -- a young woman who had pulled herself out of years of a spirit-destroying life and was helping other young women do the same. Now, in the often wry and always self-aware voice...Harmony tells her own story. It's the real deal."
- Sheila Weller, award-winning journalist & author of New York Times bestseller, "Girls Like Us".
Order your copy today at www.iamatreasure.com/store
Bulk rate discounts available
-The Treasures Team
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