Monthly Archives: March 2017

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Unresolved Issues and a Young Woman

The Young Woman:

Immaculately dressed. Black tights, dress, scarf, well applied makeup. Soft, well groomed hair. Mid-twenties. Pretty and sweet. Kind and gentle of heart.

The young woman was a mess.

Her past and her present were crashing in upon her. She had been married a few months but now her mate had left. As I held her in my arms while she sobbed, I could feel her pain. It was raw. The young woman clung to me as if we had know each other for years, but we’d just met. I was asking God for the right words.

She was a slight acquaintance of my teenage daughter.

The young woman knew of my daughter’s faith and needed someone to talk to. She asked if they could talk. My daughter invited her over. I could hear their discussion as I worked in the kitchen. The young woman needed counsel but my daughter had no experience in the topics being discussed. At this point I was also concerned for my daughter’s innocence should the topic detour too far into the sexual realm.

I sent a prayer up.

I asked God to remove my daughter somehow so I could talk with this young lady. Within ten minutes my daughter was unexpectedly called to work, and I stepped in. My daughter had already shared with her about my past and some of the pain I had endured, and that I was wise in the Lord.

I told her I was sorry.

That was all it took. Like a homing pigeon, she buried her head in my arms and sobbed. After the tears were spent, she started by asking me a lot of questions about my struggles with rejection and pain. I answered her questions as best I could. Like a sponge, she soaked up everything I said. The girl was open and all over the place. Then I asked her if we could talk about her, her marriage, and her past. She was willing.

I dove deep and asked the sensitive questions, about morals, personal history, and marriage expectations.

I asked how much she slept around before her marriage. A lot. So many that she’d lost count. Substance abuse? Yes, of course (head held down). Her desires? To make her parents’ proud. What she enjoyed? Dancing. Working. Helping people. School? Dropped out but wanted to return. What she needed? Someone to understand. Answers, to explain why it had fallen apart. How to recover and move forward when every day is difficult to get through. Her faith? She was a Christian but had not lived like one.

She’d disappointed her parents and caused them pain.

The man she married had seemed the answer. He was a new Christian. They could talk and talk. As a couple they went to church. They had tried to do it the right way. When distance between them began to grow, they went to their minister for counsel. Instead of it helping them, her mate withdrew and became hard to reach. He disengaged. She worked all day, and he sat around playing video games. I could tell she had expected her husband to meet her needs, and she had worked hard at being a good wife and trying to make him happy. She had believed he would respond and that she had found her soulmate.

But his needs were greater than her needs.

Her husband had lived with little love in his past. He couldn’t keep up the facade. He couldn’t give her what he did not have. What started out with sizzle and romance, died a short death. Now she was in a worse state than before, deeply wounded, betrayed, and destroyed. She did want a divorce, and she still loved him.

Most unresolved issues follow people.

This young woman was living a pattern that was cycling in and out of pain in an endless pursuit of happiness and stability. She was unaware of her own needs and in denial of her part or how she had buried her beliefs out of a great need to be loved and cherished. I tried to help her see that wholeness and healing is possible but it will not happen unless she takes charge, chooses to let God help her, and then takes steps to become healthy emotionally and spiritually.

I spoke the truth because she desperately needed it.

I gave her what I had to give. I knew her healing would be commiserate with her willingness to look at her unresolved issues and to see why she does what she does, and her ability to reach out to Christian people who could help her heal and grow. You can only change yourself. She needed to work on herself first. So I directed her away from trying to fix her mate.

I saw in her a gentle soul, hurt by life, and ripe for the next guy to use.

As I prayed with her I held her close, like a mother with a child. She needed more than I could give her. Her hug this time was even tighter. Her voice sounded hopeful. I gave her cds about pain and healing to take with her.

I wanted her to make it.

Often I see it in the person’s eyes, a lack of wholeness, a blank vacant look; that is the way it shows itself in people whom have given up their soul in the pursuit of being loved, wanted, and valued; the addictive cycle that ensnares and will not let them go until they choose to get off the hamster wheel. They end up being hurt, time and time again. It is like the proverbial dog chasing its tail. They are going at the thing backwards and losing their self-respect in the process. But it seems too steep of hill to climb.

Unresolved issues can evolve between family members, people in the workplace, in civic organizations, and between church members.

Like hers, areas of pain come from hurts that haven’t healed, needs that haven’t been met, and problems that have not yet resolved themselves. Psychologically, they have imprinted the mind with a message that is destructive to the inner person. The boatload of baggage remains there, buried deep inside.

One can bury it, one can deny it, but one cannot remove it.

God can. God sees your wounds and your broken heart. He sees your layers of protection that build in intensity and density over the years. He knows you are weary and heavy laden. God loves you. He wants to cradle you in His arms and help you regain your balance.

God can give you rest for your soul.

Yes, you can live under a constant weight of past hurts like many people are carrying, like a backpack full of rejection and hurt. Yet, you don’t need to, and why would you want to? God says, “Here, let Me take it. Give it to Me. I will help you. Trust Me with your wounds and disappointments.”

Until you give it to Him, God cannot help you.

It will take effort to do so. The process will involve a separation from the burden. The good news is that you don’t do it alone or in your own strength. God is there to help you, and He always shows up. Trust Him.

  • First, come to Jesus. His arms are open wide to all who will come.
  • Second, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ will forgive your sins. Read John 3.
  • Third, trust Jesus to help you. Christ is trustworthy.
  • Fourth, tell Him your troubles and ask Him to help you.
  • Fifth, read Matthew 11:28. Center your thoughts in what he offers you.
  • Sixth, seek godly counsel. Find someone who is knowledgeable in Christian truth.

God is trustworthy and kind. He will help you.

Comment: If you live in the Chico area, The Growing Place is a place I recommend for Christian counseling.  Transformational Prayer Ministry aka Theophostic Prayer Ministry is also highly recommended.

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Divorce is Not the End

I couldn’t believe it, it couldn’t be true. Not their marriage, but it was their marriage. You could have knocked me over with a feather. Her husband left her after decades of marriage. As active, go-to people in their church, it did not seem possible.

A mutual friend told me.

I wondered how she was doing but didn’t know her well enough to inquire. I worried about her, because it is very hard to be left by a mate, and it is especially hard when you are active in the church.

Instead, she called me.

She reached out to me, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was being called by God to help her. She came over. We talked through the whole afternoon. Some of the struggle came out. There were surface reasons, of course, but that didn’t make it any easier. The signs were there, like they usually are, but she wasn’t looking for signs.

Then—it was over.

Huge was the hurt. Gone was the future, their future. Present was the reality. They tried a counselor but that was marginal. Her husband wanted out. When someone wants out, it is hard to stop them.

Everything changed.

People in the church were distant. She needed them to be present, but it was awkward. They did not know what to say or how to minister to her. She thought despairing thoughts on occasion, but then she pushed those thoughts aside, knowing they were destructive.

She was determined to find a way.

We talked through a lot of subjects. I did not know what to give her. But the words flowed. I explained concepts like thoughts v feelings, the Keys to the Kingdom–binding and loosing, unhealthy souls v healthy souls, unmet needs, unhealed hurts, unresolved issues, the need for God to change us and heal our hearts, and whatever topic came up. Resources in my mind were spoken out to her.

She wanted to learn.

She was in God’s word and growing. On her own, she came to see her life realistically. Through wisdom and insight, my friend could now see she was expecting others to meet her emotional needs rather than looking to God to fill the void and her need for acceptance and love. That in itself was huge.

Not long ago the divorce was final.

She and I talked about it. I have walked with her through the journey, sharing insights that I have gained through my own struggle with travail and a broken marriage. In the past, we were casual acquaintances whose paths rarely crossed. Then our meetings became frequent, meaningful and deep. She and I have been meeting for over two years now, ever since the time she first reached out to me, when I made a commitment to God to be a hands-on support, spiritual resource, and friend. What a blessing she has been to me.

The woman grew and grew.

It was totally amazing. I saw her grasp kingdom truth in marvelous ways that made a great difference in her life and soul. God became real to her. He became her closest friend. Even her physical countenance changed over time. Her eyes became bright, her features soft. She looked younger and angelic. Her inner self started to come to the surface with a beauty called radiance.

When a broken heart plunged her into brokenness, she made the right choice…to seek God.

My friend intentioned to become whole. In her times of brokenness, she looked for ways to heal. She chose to become wise rather than bitter. A book on gratitude helped her focus on being thankful for the little things. A journal offered emotional therapy as she wrote about positive and negative experiences, and it morphed into a praise journal. She joined a divorce care group and found the subjects helpful and applicable. She decided to look for the good in each day. That was hard to do but she would not give up.

God was healing her.

My friend’s view of life expanded from that of rigid, high expectations, to that of acceptance and grace-giving, less to dictate and more to support others. For her, concentrated prayer became a way of reaching out to God, rather than a list of worries and wants. She prays for me, lots and lots, and it touches me and supports me in ways that mean a lot.

Slowly but certainly, she was finding her way back.

A new her was being birthed. The secret to her freeing was that she was able to acknowledge her own self-issues. Her spiritual eyes became open to areas of weakness in her spiritual walk. Then she went about the business of dealing with them. I’m so stinking proud of her. I feel like a mother with a child who receives top honors for achievement.

She dared to look in the mirror.

  • Like her, we are broken when we leave the excuses and justifications aside.
  • We are broken when we give up and quit striving.
  • We are broken when we realize there are somethings we cannot fix by ourselves.
  • We are broken when we have exhausted our internal resources.
  • We are broken when we are at the end and can’t go the distance anymore.

Brokenness doesn’t need to be an end, it can be a beginning.

The problem is, we will not get ourselves out of the way until self lets us down and all feels helpless. It is at that point we know in our hearts, we must make a choice. We will either fade and disappear into black hopelessness or we will turn to and embrace the only One who can help us. God meets us there. A person can curse God and die to living, or embrace God and live to freeing. There is no other choice when you are broken.

That is why brokenness is a good thing.

It forces us to take a look at our whole self, physical, spiritual, and emotional. People whom have been broken, and who in their broken place sought God with no holds barred, are different than all other people. In the process of finding God as enough, they become soft on the inside and strong on the outside. Their mind becomes clear and their bent to self-protect lessens. They begin to act more as Jesus acts. Their life is impacted in its deepest inner being.

My friend, do you know what it is to be broken?

It is a helpless feeling. Yet, it is a place of letting go. It is an opportunity to grow and change. God reaches out to you and you can reach back. God is invested in your life. He knows what brought you to this place where you are alone without props and privileges. God desires to move you from this broken place to one of health, strength, and wholeness, through a renewal process.

Like my friend, God has a plan for you.

Awaken.