Guest speaker for Kiwanis meeting on August 23rd was Dr. Ronnie Pace, recently moved to Winn Parish from Alaska. He grew up in Baton Rouge and associates himself with LSU and the purple and gold. Some of his family was from Union Parish. His grandfather worked as a contractor in our area and surrounding areas building hospitals. His grandfather built a camp on Saline Lake and it became a gathering place for the family. Dr. Pace felt as if his identity was wrapped up in this lake house. After his grandparents died his mother sold the camp. He said he told his wife that no matter where they lived if the camp came up for sale he was going to buy it. When the camp came up for sale they were living in Alaska. That began a 5000 mile road trip to Winn Parish.
He has been a psycho-therapist for 40 years. People are stuck and don’t know how to move forward. The greatest psychological need is to believe we have value. Our value comes by what God thinks of me not from anything we can do ourselves. People get caught up in the performance trap. There is a fear of failure. The approval of certain others makes me feel good about myself. The difference between conviction and guilt is that conviction allows you to focus on what needs to be changed and guilt just brings shame and makes you feel down. He used the example of Peter and Judas in the Bible. There is failure because society gives us false ideas about our value.
Pace’s ministry is to restore people in the church back to faith. As a psycho-therapist you cannot impose your values on others. We need to see the value in loving other people. Loving others is the most important thing we can do. We should be motivated by the value that God holds for us and realize that God is so much more than us.