Layer by Layer

Onions. They look so innocent in their thin paper-like outer covering. If you’ve ever removed the outer skin and cut through one, you are not at all surprised by what happens next. Uncontrollably, you feel the burn. Your eyes begin to water. The deeper you cut into its layers, the more intense the burn until you are crying big tears!

Many people, however, are surprised—confused even—by the intense mental and emotional process of forgiving. We tend to expect, and sometimes actually receive immediate peace when we make the first step in choosing to forgive someone. Another false expectation is that of instant “finality” to the situation.

Surprise and confusion set in when later that day, or upon waking the next morning, we are hit again with hurt, sadness, or anger. The liar takes his queue to speak, “You didn’t really forgive. You’ve taken it all back. You must start all over again.”

In that moment, we misunderstand our continued need for healing from Jesus in these now raw places where we have chosen the most courageous act of forgiving. Remember, a person’s sin against us is the taking of something that cannot be returned by the offender. Only Jesus can return our security, trust, innocence, or joy. (click here to read "It's Not What You May Think")

We grieve what was lost and stolen by another another's wrong action. Grief is painful and intense. The deeper we walk into our wounded heart, the more intense it gets.

Inviting Jesus to go with us and heal our broken hearts will inevitably bring us to the choice to forgive. By forgiving, we choose to turn from the person who wronged us to the One who can heal and restore us. When we do, He is then able to do His work and “close up” that layer.

But then He takes us deeper, and another layer of our wound is revealed. There, more healing must take place. More truth must replace the lies we’ve believed. More needs to be restored. And another opportunity to forgive presents itself.

“At that point Peter got up the nerve to ask, “Master, how many times do I forgive a brother or sister who hurts me? Seven?”

Jesus replied, “Seven! Hardly. Try seventy times seven.”

(Matthew 18:21-22, The Message)

This conversation between Peter and Jesus is usually understood to explain how many times we forgive someone based on how many times they continue to hurt us. I also believe it can apply to how many times we forgive a single hurt as we continue to sift through our grief and loss.

The next time you are surprised by your emotions and thoughts after choosing to forgive, remember the onion. Forgiveness over even a single issue is rarely a one-time, final event. Layer by layer we heal, and layer by layer we forgive.

Who's Vengeance is it Anyway?

Why is it that some people are easier to forgive than others?

Our relationship with an individual and the amount of damage from their offense(s) has bearing on the ease or difficulty. This is different for each of us.

For example, in my life I could forgive my parents easily for any wrong toward me as a child. First, because I longed to please them and did not want to be a disappointment to them. Secondly, because I loved them deeply and desired a healthy relationship with them as an adult. (not to mention the awareness of my own imperfections as a parent!) On the contrary, a woman I know struggles deeply to forgive her parents because of the severe abuse and neglect she suffered at their hands.

The abusing pastor from my teen years was the most difficult for me. In part because of the process I went through emotionally in the years following his abuse—the explanation of which belongs in another subject in another post. But, mostly, the reason was due to the amount and depth of damage done to my own life and the life of my family.

Often, an insatiable appetite for vengeance grows where we are unwilling (and even unable) to forgive.

Weeks after taking the first step of choosing to forgive my greatest offender (before I felt like it), I penned these words in my journal after some serious time in prayer with God:

“[God] helped bring the depths of my heart to the surface. Part of me wanted him to see what he’s done, be held accountable, and see all the damage he’s caused in my life. I also got to thinking, I have suffered so much—me, my marriage/husband, my kids—I’d like to see him suffer. [Then] God’s still voice said to me, “He already is suffering. He has been suffering because of his sin—whether he realizes it or not, he already is suffering.”

In case you missed it, dear friend, hear it again. Those who hurt you, those you long to hurt in return, already are suffering because of their sin. (unless they have come to repentance and turned completely from their sinful ways, Act 3:19; though even then they may still suffer consequences)

“But your sins will eat away at you from within and you’ll groan among yourselves.”

(Ezekiel 24:23b, The Message)

“Many times he delivered them, but they were bent on rebellion and they wasted away in their sin.”

(Psalm 106:43, NIV)

“Then the evil desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully matured, brings forth death.”

(James 1:15, Amplified)

Those who remain unrepentant and deny their sin against you are already suffering.

“Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY,’ says the Lord.”

(Romans 12:19, NASB)

Enough said. That arena belongs to God. And we need not get in his way or take matters into our own hands—as hard as that may be sometimes (and lest we sin ourselves in doing so!).

For those whom we find it more difficult to forgive, we must call upon the help of the Lord, who promises that vengeance is his and that he will repay their sins.

Courage and Will

The hard step of forgiveness:

“A real step of courage and will. We must forgive those who hurt us. The reason is simple:  Bitterness and unforgiveness set their hooks deep in our hearts; they are chains that hold us captive to the wounds and the messages of those wounds. Until you forgive, you remain their prisoner. Paul warns us that unforgiveness and bitterness can wreck our lives and the lives of others (Eph. 4:31; Heb. 12:15). We have to let it all go.

’Forgive as the Lord forgave you.’” (Col. 3:13)

(Captivating, pp. 103-104)

I know what some of you are thinking…”There’s just no way I can forgive.” “Easier said than done.” “It’s easy for God to forgive.” “I don’t feel like forgiving yet.”

Some of us are waiting to feel something first, as though forgiveness means we should have some ushy-gushy feeling of releasing the person. That’s how I thought when I faced the decision of forgiving my greatest offender.

Undergoing prayer counseling several years ago, walking through every relationship of my past and dealing with the spiritual issues surrounding each one, we came upon forgiveness. Sharing the thoughts above, among many others, I sat waiting in silence, trying to feel forgiveness and release. That is when the prayer counselor said, “It’s not about a feeling. Forgiving is an act of the will. Feelings come later.”

With her words there was a sense of relief. I had a choice to make, an act of the will. Step one, you could say. If I waited for feelings to come first, they would never come! But if I wanted my heart to follow, I had to choose to forgive.

Forgiving is not saying the wound didn’t matter, rather, the opposite. It is saying it did matter, and it hurt me deeply. What you did was wrong, and I release you to God. I will not be your captive any more. (Captivating)

It took a while for my heart to catch up, but I found it to be true that as long as I was unforgiving, I was bound to my offenders and to the messages of their wounds. Not only does the act of forgiving release the person to God, but it also releases our own heart!

Bitterness and anger no longer controlled me. It stopped spewing itself upon my family. Greater depths of healing were freeing my heart daily through the courageous act of forgiving. And I was no longer a prisoner to my offenders.

Who are you struggling to forgive? Will you take the first step today? Ask Jesus to give you the courage.

There is much more to explore and sift through here, and we will. But today, choose to trust God with all your fears and questions as you take step one:  choose to forgive. (It's not what you may think...)

Dear Sisters (and Brothers)

We had a massive interruption to life this week--death is like that. It doesn't ask your permission, or wait for a "convenient" time. It sneaks up on you like a thief. With no warning. That's what we experienced this week when my sister lost her husband suddenly and unexpectedly.

We are no stranger to such tragic losses. Yet, because we've seen and felt the mighty hand of God hold us up, heal us, and restore us, walk with us and talk with us in past tragedies...we again hope against all hope, as we are told in Romans 4:18.

The passage here is speaking of Abraham, when his and Sarah's bodies were as good as dead. Yet, God had promised them a baby! In their old age! It was ludicrous. It was crazy. It required a hope against all hope, a belief that did not waiver (v. 20). It was an "impossible" time.

Those things which shake us up in life, those things which leave us wondering what in the world we will do and what in the world/how in the world will even God accomplish anything here--those impossible places call upon us to hope against all hope, believing God like never before. We become desperate.

Desperate for Him to speak.
Desperate for Him to move.
Desperate for Him to act.

What has interrupted your life? What is your impossible? For what are you desperate right now?

In hope against all hope believe that God will do for you as He has promised. Get in His Word, the timeless words of God in the Bible, and learn what His promises are. Hope, pray, and believe they will be true for you.

****

I will return to our topic of forgiveness very soon, as I am still staying close by my sister's side right now. You can read the first part of this topic here. It is a continuation of the heart-healing series which began in the December archive.

Melissa Pickens' Thin Place: Slave No More ~ Mary DeMuth

Today my story appears on author Mary DeMuth's website as I share details of my rescue from "slavery." Come meet the Hero of my story and find Him the Hero of your own! (click on the title above to view)

It's Not What You May Think

I wish I could say that forgiveness has always come easy for me, or that it always comes easy even now. But that is not so. Granted, it comes more “naturally” in some areas than in others, and as I learn and grow and mature, it certainly gets easier (in all areas).

It is notable that the very topic of forgiveness is a touchy subject for some. Like many other issues, there are times it has been mishandled, misunderstood, and lorded over the hurting without compassion or understanding. As a result, in our quest for healing and freedom, we’d sometimes like to avoid the forgiveness issue.

But if we are to be truly free, we must come to understand and embrace the act of forgiving.

Don’t stop reading please! For those who followed the beginnings of my blog posts on healing and restoration, you know we’ve been dealing with very real and deep wounds (at the bottom of this post you will find the links to all posts pertaining to the subject). Some of us may feel that to forgive is to relieve the offending person of any responsibility and somehow sweep their offense under the rug. That is not the aim here.

In the aforementioned posts on healing and restoration, it has been explained that when we are wounded (both other and self-inflicted), something is lost, stolen, or given up. Innocence. Joy. Security. Trust. Just to name a few.

Realizing our loss, we often hold the person who wrongfully took what was ours responsible for giving it back. The problem is they cannot. The reason is we are not talking about material possessions, but rather, the sacred. These are things only Jesus can give back to us.

“I [the Lord] will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten…” Joel 2:25

How many years have we spent demanding the “locusts” in our lives give back what they’ve eaten?

A person’s sin against us is the taking of something that cannot be returned by the offender. Lord knows I’ve wanted to grab hold of some of my offenders and shake the living hound out of them, demanding they give back what they’ve taken! But forgiving is to release them—and to no longer demand from them the debt they owe. It is recognizing they cannot return what has been stolen, and turning to the only One who can.

Understanding this makes forgiving easier for me.

Over the next few posts, I will share openly from some of my personal journals as we explore the ins and outs of forgiveness—the next vital step of healing.

From Slavery to Freedom (this has been reworked and rewritten!)

What Band-Aids Won't Heal

The Proven Offer

When "Partial" Isn't Good Enough

One Size Does Not Fit All

The One Who Knows the Steps Holds the Key to our Heart

The Truth Will Set You Free

To Experience

When my three girls were younger, they had a large assortment of small dolls and more accessories than you could imagine. Several large tubs full. In the world of pretending, they were inevitably drawn to create the perfect wedding, complete with the perfect bride and groom. Today, the older two love reading books with great adventure and purpose, and, more importantly to them, two characters destined to fall in love.

As a child, I was more apt to be riding bikes, climbing trees, and racing the guys in the neighborhood on my 4-wheeler! But I had a strong affinity for horses. I was drawn to their strength, and daydreamed often about the intense love a girl and her horse seem to share. I longed for that experience. I ached for it.

Whether we were a girly-girl or a tomboy, our desire for romance found a way to express itself when we were young. Now that we are women, it finds its way into the movies we love and the stories we enjoy. It’s the sigh of our hearts in The Proposal when Andrew realizes his love for Margaret, and returns for her after she runs away, and when Edward returns for Elinor in Sense and Sensibility. It is Jack and Rose in Titanic out on the bow of the ship.

I’m well aware that for most of us, our hearts have been mishandled, maybe even abused and misused. We may have buried this longing, or even abandoned it altogether. But it cannot be fully silenced. Can you at least see that you long for this?

We want to know that we are the center of someone’s attention. Do you see me? Do you delight in me? We want to know fully, and to be fully known. To know beyond any shadow of doubt that we are, indeed, loved. This is written on our hearts by the One who created us in His image! 

While man was intended to love a woman in this way, the fulfillment of our longings for romance doesn’t have to wait for a man. God wants us to know that HE loves us this way! He wants you to know that you are the apple of His eye. (Psalm 17:8, Zechariah 2:8) Yes, He will sometimes love us, romance us through a man, but He also longs to bring this to you Himself.

Now, in order to understand this and embrace it, we must remove the religious veil and see the heart of God as Lover. The Lover of our Souls. Jesus refers to himself as the Bridegroom (Matt. 9:15; Matt. 25:1-10; John 3:29), which simply means fiancé. “Lover.” This metaphor is an invitation to the kind of relationship and intimacy Jesus longs for with us. (Stasi Eldredge, Captivating) If your heart fills with question and hesitancy in this, as mine once did (given my wounded heart), it just means there is healing for your heart here.

For most of my life, I felt like I had to be doing everything “right” in order for God to love me. Consequently, I lived in a hopeless state of believing I was a constant disappointment! Sometimes we feel He loves us because He “has to.”

A few years ago, during a time I struggled to understand how God loves me, I brought my anguish before the Lord. In the quiet with my eyes closed, He gave me a vision of myself as a newborn baby. Having felt the intense, almost inexplicable love for my own children as newborns, I could sense Him smiling in deep delight over me then. Pictures of my childhood flashed, and once again I could feel the love of God smiling over me.

Then He brought to mind a picture of myself in the present, as a woman. It felt as though the lights had gone out. I had no problem believing He loved me when I was a baby and even as a young child…but as a woman? How could He love me the same now? With all my failures and weaknesses?

Paul prays for us in Ephesians 3:18 that we would be able to understand the love of God. How high and deep, how wide and long it is for us! God wants us to believe His love endures all things, even our failures and weaknesses, and that it will never fail us even then. (1 Corinthians 13:7, 8)

But how will we know?

To understand God’s love is to experience His love. All day long my husband can tell me that he loves me; but if he never puts actions to his words that show his love for me, if there is never any experience of his love, then I cannot possibly believe or understand it.

Our God longs to heal us and mature us through His love into mature women (and men) who actually know Him. He wants us to experience verses like I mentioned in my personal testimony (click here to read): “Therefore I am going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her” (Hos. 2:14). To experience what it means to be quieted by His love, as I did through a time of restless questioning (click here for more). And, “you have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride.” (Song of Solomon 4:9)

Oh how we long for this!

Our Enemy does not want us to experience God’s love in new and fresh, tangible ways. He tells us that we must be productive and useful to be loved by God (and sadly, even by others, especially in the church). Shame exaggerates our hearts, and we are pressed to believe that we are not enough, or even that we are too much to be loved. So we settle for less through duty and productivity, believing obedience is all we have left. We are convinced that understanding God’s love is simply an acquired knowledge of the mind, and we shut down our hearts.

“Faithful obedience to God is vital, but it is not all God draws us to. It is not sufficient for our healing, no more than doing the laundry is sufficient for a marriage. And it will not be enough in the long run to carry us through. The persecuted Church is vast today. More Christians are being martyred in our lifetime than in any other time in church history. It is not obedience that is carrying our brothers and sisters—unwavering, steadfast, eyes ablaze—to their deaths. It is holy, fierce passion. Hearts afire.”

“What would it be like to experience for yourself that the truest thing about His heart toward yours is not disappointment or disapproval but deep, fiery, passionate love? This is, after all, what a woman was made for.”

(Stasi Eldredge in Captivating)

We are no longer children, and we’ve put away childish things such as our dolls and toys. But we are called to be childlike—there’s a difference. Our longings as a little girl are not far off base. They are not so foolish after all. In fact, they are telling us the key to experiencing God.

These longings cause us to ache; to ache for the love we were made for. And to ache is to be alive; it is a good thing. We must ask Jesus to come for us here in these longings. To rescue us, to romance our hearts. Keep pressing, keep asking. Love is His specialty—and He wants to experience it with you. New. Fresh. Everyday.

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The She Speaks Conference is about women connecting the hearts of women to the heart of our Father God. My heart is to serve Him and His daughters, as He leads. If you'd like information on how you may apply for a scholarship to SheSpeaks (as I just did through this post), click here. To find out more about this conference, click the button below.