Tag: forgive

Tough Skin and Tender Hearts: Bye Bye Bitterness

My first couple years in the Dominican Republic were really lonely. I was sort of thrown in to work and the culture while left to figure a lot out on my own. There is a whole lot that happened during these years that God has been healing me from even years later.

After my husband and I left this ministry, we felt really discouraged and hurt. I am such a relational person, and those years took a toll on me. So, I began to shut people out, and I allowed resentment to take root in my heart. 

I craved depth and connection, yet I would unconsciously push people out because I was so wounded. It wasn’t until I was stuck in the United States for 3 months waiting on a visa, thousands of miles away from my new husband (at the time), that the Holy Spirit spoke directly to me and called me out. He showed me that I was stuck in a cycle of unforgiveness, and I had to break that cycle and forgive in order to experience freedom and depth again. I spent so much time on the cold, wooden floor of the house I grew up in crying out to God to help me. I had no idea where to start in my journey of forgiving. Little by little, year by year (yes, it has taken many years–and He is still working on me!), the Holy Spirit started to soften my heart and show me how to love those I felt had hurt me. 

I have been reflecting a lot on all my years here, and how far the Lord has brought me. Seriously, it is only by His hand and His mercy that I am who I am and where I am today. 

Over the past year and a half, God has given me a tender heart to love and to receive love again. I have even seen Him use the things that my husband and I have gone through to help me have more compassion on others and be able to better relate to them. Pain can either make you more bitter, or it can make you more compassionate. We get to choose what kind of person we want to be.

 My husband and I have an INCREDIBLE church family who has come around us in some really difficult moments. We have found fellowship with others who are after the same things of Christ as we are. God has surrounded us with coworkers who have poured into us and have been so generous with us as we step into this new season of welcoming our sweet, baby boy into the world. I am in awe of the Lord and the work He has done in both my heart and my husband’s. 

It is an everyday choice to forgive. I ask the Lord to guard our hearts from unforgiveness. It is breeding ground for the enemy, friends. I pray often that God gives us thick skin and tender hearts. We do not have to carry everything people do or say to us, but we do need to love and demonstrate grace. God will take care of the rest. 

I think about bringing our son into the world and the things that I want to teach him. I want our boy to know that we must always be quick to forgive and never harbor hurt feelings. It is something I must continue to work on, so that I can train him well! 

If I have learned anything over these years, it is that relationships and connection are worth it. We were made for community. And the enemy loves to isolate us. BUT we have the ability to recognize his schemes, and the Holy Spirit gives us the authority to shut him down and say bye bye to bitterness. 

The Do’s and Don’ts of Marriage…Things That I Am Learning

Do you ever for a second just stop and think, “holy cow, I am married to my best friend. The man (or woman) of my prayers! God did it.” I have this moment every once in a while where I am just watching Alan and I feel a little overwhelmed with God and how He answered my most specific prayers. 

We have been married for about a year and a half now, and three months of those were spent apart (thank you visa and legal processes). We often talk about who we were when we first met and how much we have grown and matured together over these past three years. We have gone through really high moments together where we wish we could squeeze Jesus in a tight embrace and throw a party and also low moments where we feel the ground is about to slip out from under us. 

Being married is such a gift from God where we are no longer living life on our own but joining with another as one flesh to run hard after Jesus and invite others to come and run with us. Marriage has stretched me so much in ways that I did not realize it would. It has exposed some of my sin patterns as I am living vulnerably with my Alan. I have grown into more of a prayer warrior as I am covering my husband every day. Marriage has moved me from being a go-go independent girl to recognizing that I am part of a team now, and it has also sharpened me in my faith as I recognize that I cannot sacrificially love or even operate normally if I am not connected to my Jesus and in the Word every single day. 

I want to share some key things with you that I am learning in my own marriage. So let’s get started, shall we? 

Do’s:

COMMUNICATE!!

There have been times where I would like a certain thing but I never voice it and then Alan is left clueless wondering why I am pouting. Men are not mind readers, and they need things to be clear. And then from a woman’s perspective, we also desire to be in the loop. My Alan is not someone who always knows how to express what he is feeling and then I feel a little in the dark. It is so vital to have open communication in marriage. One thing I always tell Alan is that whatever he is wrestling with or facing, I want him to share it with me because I want to be his partner facing it with him. Tell your partner what’s on your heart, what you would like, what you don’t like, what hurts your feelings, things you want accountability for. Keep that open line of communication!

CARVE OUT TIME TO CONNECT.

We get so caught up in the daily grind that we sometimes just want to come home a veg to a show with a bag of chips or a can of nutella in our hand. I once read that in order to have a successful marriage, the couple should have at least one hour of unplugged time to talk and connect every day. One thing that Alan and I do is we sometimes have lights out night. We pretend that we do not have electricity so we can just sit and talk about life and everything that is on our heart with a little candlelight. It does not have to look a certain way. Just make sure you are setting aside that sacred time to just be the two of you.

FORGIVE.

Here’s the thing, your spouse will disappoint you at times. One thing that I have been learning is that I cannot let any bitterness take root in my heart (this goes for any relationship really. BUT especially with your partner). The minute that we choose to allow hurt simmer and boil in our hearts without addressing it, we allow the enemy a foothold. Be quick to forgive even the smallest of things like when they forgot to do something. Forgive. Forgive. Forgive.

Don’ts

COMPARE YOUR JOBS.

I sometimes catch myself throwing a pity party feeling like I am doing so much around the house. Okay two things about this: 1. I am so bad at asking for help. So instead of communicating my need for help, I sometimes just get upset and Alan has no idea why. I know, I am working on it. 2. This is not me complaining about Alan. He is the most wonderful servant where he works his booty off all day long and then he comes home and wants to help make dinner or wash dishes. I just sometimes feel overwhelmed by the never ending job of maintaining the home. But the thing is that we are a team in all we do–working and paying for bills or ensuring that our house is put in order and our bellies are full. Never think that your job is more important or harder than the other person’s. YOU ARE A TEAM.

DISRESPECT YOUR PARTNER.

Husbands need respect. They deserve respect. I try to encourage Alan often by vocalizing how much I respect and admire him for all he does. I want my husband to feel recognized and supported in all he does. I am his cheerleader. And another thing, respect him and his wishes even when he isn’t around. I have sort of a silly example but it goes well with this. Alan likes laundry done a certain way. He does not like towels mixed with clothes or little rugs mixed with things either. Dominican washers are a whole other story. You have to use a little spout to fill our washer with water, wash that load, drain the washer, refill the washer with more water to rinse the load and add in fabric softener, and then you have this itty bitty little dryer that just makes your clothes damp. And then after a couple rounds of drying, you have to hang your clothes up under the sun to fully dry. You can see what a big ordeal this is. So for me, I’d love to just throw everything together and get ‘r done. But I want to honor my husband and his wishes even when he isn’t around and would never know. Respect your hubbies!

FIGHT FOR YOUR OWN WAY.

Playing defense with your spouse is only going to bring division. When I feel my walls go up and my sassy attitude creep in, I have to remind myself that I must fight for unity and not my own way. So if you fight at all, fight for unity. 

I have got to be honest with you, I have learned some of these things the hard way. And I guarantee that I will continue to learn and grow every single day. But there is no better person to learn alongside than my Alan. 

Chains of Bitterness

Worn

Isolated

Offended

Resentful

 Desire to fit in or to dig deep with others, but have been wounded so many times you aren’t willing to take the risk and put yourself out there. 

Does any of this sound familiar to you? Well friend, me too. I know these feelings all too well. 

The last couple of years have been really hard for my husband and me. Instead of letting things roll off my shoulders and getting gritty, I chose to sit and sulk in my frustration and unforgiveness. My heart was hurt a lot which caused me to shut the door on many and put up defensive walls to make me feel “secure.” Little did I know that I was not protecting myself but rather harming myself even more. 

I soon began to recognize how ugly my heart had gotten, but I honestly had no idea where to even begin to produce change. I would pray, I would invite the Holy Spirit to come and transform my heart and mind and show me how to start the road to healing and forgiveness. Some days I would feel less bitter and want to engage with others, but then the next day I would be back to the same old struggling me. 

It wasn’t until the last few months of 2021 that I started to really notice my heart shifting from the victim’s poor me mindset to seeing that I was not a victim and that forgiveness was absolutely necessary.

I want to share with you some truths that God has revealed to me and things I have worked on as the Lord has been softening the edges of my wounded heart. I pray that these truths can help bring healing to you and your heart as they have done to mine.

-An unforgiving heart is an entryway for the enemy. Think about it. The enemy wants nothing more than for you to feel isolated, divided from those around you, and far from God. He is the prince of deception and division. We cannot let the enemy have a foothold on us. 

–Letting bitterness reside in our hearts is like imprisonment. We are not getting back at those who hurt us, but instead hurting ourselves more and more. Sometimes we linger on what someone did without them even recognizing that they allowed us such pain. I have been there, I have done this over and over again. But I am learning that we will feel so liberated when we take that pain, place it at Jesus’ feet, and allow the Holy Spirit to restore what has been lost. Now, this is not a one and done but rather a long process. Healing and feeling whole again after such a major disappointment will take time and an open heart. One of the first steps in ripping the chains of bitterness off is to not wallow in the pain or play victim, but to step forth and forgive not just with our words but with our hearts.  

-I really like to pretend that I am strong. Even when I am battling depression or ugly thoughts of anger. I would rather put up all my defensive walls and play it cool than spill my guts on the truth of how I am really doing. I have always thought that this type of coping mechanism was to protect me, but I believe it was actually harming me. Allowing myself to be stuck in this bubble of faking it until I make it has caused even more pain and isolation. Guys, we were made for community. God has created us to do life with one another. We are to share in each other’s suffering and rejoice in each other’s wins. We are to strive to live in harmony with those around us. This is what the Word of God says. For so long, the door to my wounded heart was closed off so others had no way to enter. But here is the catch– I so badly longed for community and to go deep with others. I always have. I started to realize how much my “protective” walls were not so much protective as they were harmful. I want to emphasize something here, I, on my own, could never shatter these hardened walls around my heart. I had to go to the Father and ask for His help. He began to transform my mind in the way I saw others and to break down each hard wall little by little. Now I am finally finding the depth and doing life with others that I have craved for so long. We were not made to walk this life alone.

–Build up those that have torn you down. Now this is NOT an easy thing to do. Sometimes people just are not nice, period. That is life, and we cannot control it. But the thing that we have control over is our response. One thing I always tell my husband is, “kill them with kindness.” We have had some frustrating situations, and even though I sometimes want to lash back, God’s Word convicts me. As my mind is screaming, “just do to them what they did to you!” my heart of faith fights back saying, “no, you know what God calls you to do.” I am always telling Alan that we are going to be who we are no matter what others do or say. We have to be true to who God has designed us to be and overcome evil with good. 

Here is a simple example of what my husband and I try to do to put this into practice… When we see those who we feel have wronged us, it would be so easy to retreat, reflect on all the horrible things, and maybe even roll our eyes at that person as they walk by. But INSTEAD, we greet that person. We stop, we smile, we ask how they are and linger for a second. We pray for these people. The Bible says pray for your enemies. Not that we have enemies because I feel that is such a strong word, but we pray for those who we have been hurt by whether they did it intentionally or not. As we pray, even simple prayers, our hearts and lens towards them start to shift. It is a work that the Lord does in our heart as we take people to Him in prayer. 

We must be people who pursue peace, and let Jesus be our vindicator. 

There is so much more that I would love to sit and chat with you about regarding the chains of bitterness. We could swap stories and hold each other accountable as we seek to be peacemakers and forgive with our hearts. These little nuggets have really transformed my mind, helped to break down my hardened heart, and showed me how I can love more like Jesus. I pray that you find these things helpful and encouraging as you too aim to break the chains of bitterness in your life and walk wholly as God designed you to.