May I introduce you to Karen Rabbitt? She wroteTrading Fathers: Forgiving Dad, Embracing God, a memoir of her journey from brokenness to wholeness. It reveals the sexual abuse she experienced at four years old at the hand of her father. The abuse, the mixed messages, messed with emotional security.
Has suffering brought you hurt and confusion?
Suffering is deeply personal. Quick fixes don’t last. They may compound the pain. Logical explanations may offend you. Bible verses fall flat. You need help with the emotionalproblem of hurt. You need someone to listen, not judge.
Do you know that the path to your heart comes through your mind?
Truth matters. God reveals truth about himself, you and me, the world, evil, suffering, and redemption in Scripture.
Karen found out truth matters the hard way.
Immediate Healing?
When Karen became a Christian as a young adult, she expected immediate healing. It didn’t happen. She felt hurt, again. She asked God, “Where were you when I was abused?” Have you asked God this question?
Karen continued to experience shame, depression, and emotional instability. Only when she allowed God’s truth to penetrate her mind and soul could she find comfort, understanding, and a compassion to help other hurting women.
God challenged her to do the seemingly impossible: forgive her father.
Forgive the Abuser?
You may have a story of abuse too. Or you may have experienced a different hurt. Rejection? Abandonment? Never being good enough?
As Karen sorted out the differences between her heavenly and earthly fathers — and discovered that truth matter and the heart can heal — so can you.
God is good.
He is just.
And powerful.
Loving.
Compassionate.
Forgiving.
Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Col. 3:13, NIV
Hope!
Do you know the true God? The heavenly Father who doesn’t just give advice. He gives himself!
God tells us that trials and suffering have a purpose. When you hurt you try to make sense out the the suffering. This is normal. We want relief.
The only path to real relief for your real hurt is this:
Choose to align your worldview with God’s timeless truth: Scripture. As you believe Scripture and act on your belief — loving God with all your mind, all your heart, and all your soul — you will find peace and contentment. You will know hope.
God can fix your friendship. Here are two ways to help. And one way you shouldn’t.
During high school my two best friends and I ate lunch together, talked on the phone every evening, and shared quirky inside jokes. Yep, best friends until senior year. The summer before senior year, they met boys.
College boys.
While the couples whooped it up, I felt forgotten, hurt, and lonely. I don’t think my friends meant to hurt me. Still, they picked him and him and I was dust in the wind.
Has a friend hurt you? How do you fix your friendship? Should you?
With God’s power you can mend a broken friendship by one of two ways. (In one case, you shouldn’t. . .unless the Holy Spirit nudges you to fix it.)
1. Cover with Love
If the wound is not deep, or you feel compelled, then cover an offense with love.
I was able to do this with my two high school friends. They didn’t mean to hurt me, and I had other friends to hang with. But I still missed them and the way it used to be. I had to let go of my dream that we’d continue as best buds through graduation.
Love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Peter 4:8
So when you can and as the Holy Spirit empowers you, let the hurt go. Let love cover the offense. Letting go can lead to restoration.
2. Confront with Love
Years ago, serving as a women’s ministry director, my team and I made a decision to switch the day of our morning Bible study for several good reasons. At least we thought so.
However, one women was angry with our decision and phoned each women in the bible study, complaining about the day change and me. I felt hurt and angry.
Eventually, she and I talked privately. We confronted one another in love. I apologized that the change took her by surprise, that I should have communicated better with everyone. She apologized for gossiping.
Our friendship was never the same. We became careful around each other, fearing more hurt. It was as mended as could be at that time.
Solomon said, “Better is open rebuke than hidden love,” and “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.” Proverbs 27:5,6.
And When You Probably Should Run
Let’s say the offense was huge, bigger than the Grand Canyon, and you no longer trust her. An obvious example: She bedded your husband and is happy she did. A less obvious example: She tells lies about you and you confront her, but she does not repent and continues her lying.
When there’s no remorse, you can forgive the offender but you can withdraw for the destructive relationship.
Here are helpful scriptures.
Proverbs 18:24 — “One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is afriend who sticks closer than a brother.”
Psalm 41:9 — “Even my close friend, someone I trusted, one who shared my bread, has turned against me.”
Most of All, You Need. . .
Jesus!
Do you remember this hymn? Let’s the words wash over you and comfort you. I also included a link to the music.
Isn’t loss hard? It mocks you and sneers at the wholeness you seek. Loss keeps you wondering, Did I deserve this? How will I survive? A few of loss’s grotesque faces:
Has someone treated you like a throwaway — a parent? a spouse? The loss of acceptance.
Have you grieved the loss of a child or other dear one? The loss of what could have been.
Have you turned to an addiction to cope? The loss of dignity.
Wholeness blesses your mind, body, and soul. The One who blesses gives you grace and goodness. This wholeness comes in new, fresh ways of living beyond your broken heart: not just surviving day by day but living life to its utmost, overflowing.
Hasn’t loss messed with your plans? Don’t you need practical, hands-on hope?
This is the eight post in the four-week series, “Mending a Broken Heart” blog series. On Tuesday: a BONUS post and book giveaway. Keep your eye out for it. You won’t want to miss the chance to win Kc’s book and sign up for my FREE webinar “Hands-On Hope for Life’s Losses.”
Read the other posts in this series here. Leave a comment or two or a bunch. The more comments you leave, the greater your chance to win Kc’s book. Look inside the book here.
Choosing to Forgive
Kc lived loss. Her parents gave her to her aunt and uncle at age 2. She cried. Through childhood and beyond, she ached for love, desiring a hug and an “I love you” in her new, cold home. She first tried to win their approval and love. Later she drowned her pain in men and work and vodka.
On her healing journey, Kc finally asked her mom about her life. She learned that her mom was married at age 15 to Kc’s dad, Albert, a bar owner. She became pregnant at 16 and, “like bullets shot out of a gun,” there were five children.
After I’d talked with Mom, I remembered, ‘Honor your father and your mother that you may have a long, good life in the land the Lord you God will give you’ (Exodus 20:12, TLB).
The Lord told me, ‘Forgive her.’
I did and started calling or writing her every month.
God’s plan for me had taken a bend in the road. Even though I had been given away, Mom could have aborted me. She chose life for me.
I don’t remember hugging her until I was sixty-eight and Mom eighty-eight. It was sweet–me on my knees, Mom in her wheelchair. I received that hug, first and last. I never saw her again. Mom passed away a few months later.”
How to Forgive a Deep Wound
Doesn’t forgiveness seem like you’re letting the other person off the hook? That you may be denying your pain?
Forgiveness in a pivotal stepping stone on the pathway to wholeness. Easy? No. Never.
A wound brings on an assortment of emotions: anger, fear, love, grief, jealousy, happiness. Think of a circumstance that wounded you. This circumstance brings on an inner emotional response. What emotion do you connect with the pain? Your emotion triggers a response.
When Kc felt abandoned by her parents (the circumstance), she felt sad (her emotion). Her initial response was to cry. As she grew older, she tried to please her aunt and uncle (her emotion: fear). This response to her pain didn’t mend her wound either. After high school, she married and became a mom, driven by a fear she was unlovable. To assuage her painful emotions — primarily fear, sadness, and anger — she drank booze to numb.
At last — about 20 years after she became a believer in the Lord Jesus — Kc sought her mom, who had rejected her, and forgave her.
While there’s no easy formula to forgiveness, this act of grace requires two choices: to think right and to act right.
1. Think Right
Emotions flow from our thoughts. The Bible teaches us to “to take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5) and to renew our minds as we consider God’s mercy (Romans 12:2). As God reveals that our thinking does not line up with his, as revealed in scripture, you and I must repent (or, feel sorry for out sin and change direction).
Where your deep wound lies you’ll often find sinful emotions that led from sinful thoughts. You may think that your relative or even God was unfair, even evil. Consider your thoughts and emotions in light of scripture.
Feel angry? You may want your goals more than you desire God’s. Afraid? You may lack trust in God’s ability or goodness to help you. Sad? You may have allowed confusion to supplant God’s truth in your heart. Open your Bible and read passages that apply to your circumstance. Don’t know where to begin? Read the Gospel of John or Philippians. Ask God to open your heart to the truths he wants you to see.
2. Act Right
True repentance requires a willingness to follow God’s will. God’s will regarding forgiveness is clear: Forgive. Listen.
Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have again one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”
Think about it. When Jesus submitted to the Father’s will and became sin on the cross and died than rose again, he not only defeated death, he also showed that forgiveness is possible and best. Jesus died for every sin–past, present, and future. His forgiveness extends to adulterers and murderers, liars and child abusers, rapists and serial killers. . .to whomever believes on the Lord Jesus and receives the gift of salvation.
Wholeness, Finally
Kc achieved heart wholeness and healing when she accepted God’s forgiveness for her sins and then lived the Christian life, extending the grace of forgiveness to others, including her mom.
Isn’t there someone you need to forgive? Don’t you need God’s grace to forgive?
Kc was brought up in the church but did not have a personal relationship with Jesus until after her second divorce. She told the Lord in prayer, weeping and clutching her uncle’s Bible: “I’ve made such a mess of my life doing it my may. I forgot how much you love me. Forgive me.” God gave her the strength to pen a memoir and the hope to guide those who are hurting and without hope to the Mender of Broken Hearts.
Kc is married and lives in Washington State. She is a grandmother and the mom of two adult sons, one of whom died of cancer and is now with the Lord.
A Few Questions
1. Who do you need to forgive? Write down their names.
2. What do you lose when you forgive? What do you gain?
3. Are you willing to forgive the person or people who wounded you? If yes, forgive them now. Remember, forgiveness doesn’t mean that the other person’s actions were okay. Let God handle it. He can. He will.
God can help you fix a broken friendship. Here are 2 approaches.
During high school my two best friends and I ate lunch together, talked on the phone every evening, and shared quirky inside jokes. Yep, best friends until senior year. The summer before senior year, they met boys.
College boys.
While the two couples had fun fun fun, I felt forgotten, hurt, and lonely. I don’t think my friends meant to hurt me. Still, they picked him and him and I was dust in the wind.
Has a friend hurt you? How do you fix your friendship? Should you?
With God’s power you can mend a broken friendship by one of two ways. (In one case, you shouldn’t. . .unless God tells you to fix it.)
1. If the wound is not deep — or you feel compelled — cover an offense with love.
I was able to do this with my two high school friends. They didn’t mean to hurt me, and I had other friends to hang with. But I still missed them and the way it used to be.
1 Peter 4:8 reads, “Love covers a multitude of sins.”
So when you can and as the Holy Spirit empowers you, let the hurt go. Let love cover the offense. Letting go can lead to restoration.
2.Here is the other practical step the mending a friendship and it is tough: Confront with love.
Years ago, serving as a women’s ministry director , my team and I made a decision to switch the day of our morning Bible study for several good reasons. At least we thought they were good.
However, one women was angry with our decision and phoned each women in the bible study, complaining about the day change and me. I felt hurt and angry.
Eventually, she and I talked privately. We confronted one another in love. I apologized that the change took her by surprise, that I should have communicated better with everyone. She apologized for gossiping.
Our friendship was never the same. We became careful around each other, fearing more hurt. It was as mended as could be.
Solomon said, “Better is open rebuke than hidden love,” and
“Faithful are the wounds of a friend.” Proverbs 27:5,6.
The one time you probably shouldn’t fix a broken friendship:
Let’s say the offense was huge, bigger than the Grand Canyon, and you no longer trusted her. An obvious example: She bedded your husband. A less obvious example: She tells lies about you and you confront her, but she does not repent and continues her behavior.
I pray that God helps you fix your friendship. Life is hard enough. You need the support of friendships.
Mike and Carol Brady had the perfect family. . .on TV! As Thanksgiving nears, you may spend time with family you don’t like but you want to bless. How do you bless your “enemy”?
Today on REFILLS online radio (2pm Eastern, 11am Pacific), you’ll hear HOW to bless a family member you may consider your “enemy.”
Whether a sister, an in law, your dad, or other family, this “enemy” hurt you somewhere along the way.
A thoughtless word.
A misplaced jealousy.
An apology that never came.
Sad but true, we often hurt the people closest to us.
How do you bless someone who has hurt you? Or should you even bother?
Join me for 30 minutes of biblical insights and real, interactive conversation on a topic important to you. There’s tons of in the REFILLS chat room too.
To listen to the on-air show or to the archive, click this link. (The archive is available just minutes after the show.) To find out HOW to join the chat, go to my radio page and follow the directions at the bottom.
