Tag: isolation

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. 

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.