Tag: forgiveness

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. 

Lavish Love

Have you ever recognized something about yourself that you know you need to change but you just aren’t exactly sure how in the world to start? Me too. Last year actually. I had been harboring so much unforgiveness in my heart. I recognized this and how ugly I had let my heart become, but I had NO idea how to begin to release my hurt and start loving without expectation again. 

For a little over a year I had prayed and prayed that the Holy Spirit would heal my heart and show me what I needed to do to release hurt and forgive. I am not just talking about forgiving with words and pretending like the hurt is gone and I feel nothing. No, I have tried that whole numbness thing and it just led me down a bad road. The forgiveness that I am talking about is true forgiveness that starts within the heart. 

So Jesus took me on what I like to call a healing journey that has opened my eyes. Through this journey, God has given me a passion to help others who wrestle as I do to recognize that unforgiveness is bondage and God designed us for community. 

For the longest time, I believed that being an initiator and pursuer of relationships only left me exposed and vulnerable for any sort of rejection or hurt. I began to shut down, and placed protective walls around my heart to ensure that I would never experience such pain again after a few really hard years. But let me tell you, as you ask the Lord to work in you or remove sin from your life, He does just that.

Last year as God was chiseling away at the walls I built around my heart, I started to realize that deeply loving others is a gift. The Bible says that we are nothing without love. As we love deeply, we get to intentionally listen and enter into others’ worlds feeling what they feel, praying for them as they wrestle, encouraging them and walking with them through the everyday. This is who I am. This is who God has made me to be. This is what God calls us to do. To lavish love without hesitation or expectation. It is something that I am continuing to work on every day. Because, hey, let’s be real folks, this is an ongoing work in our hearts. 

I know how stinking hard this can be sometimes. Not everyone is easy to love, but Jesus calls us to love even those who can make it difficult. I have learned so much through my journey to healing and in my effort to love without antcipating something in return. Here are some key nuggets that I am continually growing in each day…

–My hurt or rejection does not get to dictate my mood or how I interact with others. When any hint of hurt tries to sneak in because someone hasn’t responded the way I would have hoped, I remind myself that I will be who God has made me to be regardless of how others respond. I will continue to be an initiator and creator of community no matter what.

–Learning to not be easily offended is HUGE. So many people are always playing defense. It’s like we expect that others are out to get us. This only further creates division and separation which is exactly what the enemy wants. When we isolate ourselves due to fear or unforgiveness, we allow an open door for the enemy. We must learn to let things roll off our backs and not allow those feelings to linger and brew in our hearts.

-Sometimes we have to remember that others may respond to us depending on their own life circumstances or own inward battles, not because of anything that we have done. 

–We have to step out of the way in order to fully love others well like Christ. Too many times we allow ourselves to get in the way. We throw this l-o-v-e word around often, but a lot of times we are using it conditionally with a hidden agenda. We say we love someone while expecting whatever we do to be reciprocated. And that is just not love at all. First Corinthians 13 reminds us that love is not self seeking. Love is diving in, rolling up your sleeves, meeting people where they are and not expecting one single thing in return. You may be thinking, “shoot, that sounds like a really difficult task.” Believe me, it is a challenge because of our flesh. But we look to our Jesus as the ultimate example, and we can ask Him to give us His lens to lavish love on those around us. 

If there was one specific thing that I would like for you to hang on to from this blog, it would be this…

Love without expectation or hesitation. Lavish love even on those who make it difficult or it isn’t reciprocated. Love unhindered without any hint of selfish motivation. 

Be a pursuer of relationships, a person who seeks out those who God has placed around them. No matter their response or lack thereof. Lavish love. I promise you that it is one of the most liberating and fulfilling things you could do.