Jesus Doesn’t Minimize Your Story, and Neither Should You.
This isn’t a heartless race we run. Unleash the power of the love of God on your life story.
A police officer shared a story with me, recounting their horror while trying to advocate for protection for a young man in a domestic violence situation. A father had attacked his teenage son. At one point, he had pinned him down on the hard floor, wrapped his large hands around the boy’s neck, and nearly strangled him. Later, the officer spent hours fighting to keep the boy from being released from the hospital right back into his father’s care.
I felt chills run down my spine and hot anger rush to the surface of my skin. I thought about the terror I would feel if something like that happened to me, that I would be rescued from a harmful situation only to be sent back home.
Once, when I was little, I almost called 911. That same feeling of terror was what kept me from doing it. What if they didn’t believe me? What if they didn’t take my story seriously? What if I ended up right back at home anyway and things just got worse?
Suddenly, I felt a voice accuse me of comparing my feelings to this boy’s. Please. Your parents never tried to actually kill you. You never ended up in the hospital. How can you possibly relate to this boy’s fear and pain? Sure, you didn’t have a perfect childhood. But, you survived it. You were fine.
As my mind scanned back through my memories of pain and harm, I felt like my own experiences seemed so small when held up against this other child’s story.
Shortly afterwards, I was supposed to go to a counseling session. I went into the session thinking it might be my last.
What am I even doing here? I should be over all this by now. I’m too sensitive. My story isn’t even that bad.
I have no right to be here. Why was I digging up all these thoughts and memories and feelings I had spent so many years and so much energy burying? I should be done. Were we even making progress, or was I just dredging up more and more pain? Perhaps, I should stop all this and just get on with my life.
I have learned that when you look back over your own memories, it’s normal to feel the same emotions course back through you. And, it’s normal to feel the age you were when the memory was made.
I was sitting there in my office, staring at the black computer screen, waiting for my counselor’s face to appear so we could have our virtual session together. My heart, mind, and body were at war with one another. I felt small and insignificant and helpless. I felt like I was ten years old. I hated that feeling. And, I hated that 10-year-old.
Adam Young, a therapist and host of the podcast “The Place We Find Ourselves” talks about the four primary obstacles that get in the way of healing. He says the goal of these things “is to provoke you to minimize your story so that you will not receive comfort from God and experience healing.”
“the goal of these things ‘is to provoke you to minimize your story so that you will not receive comfort from God and experience healing.’”
And, everyone minimizes their story.
As Christians, we often talk about denying ourselves and putting the needs of others before our own. It’s easy to pave over our pain with platitudes. It’s easy to say, “well, it’s not about me.”
In Hebrews 12, scripture speaks of the importance of running the “race set before us” with endurance, perseverance, and joy.
But, we too often run right past verse 12, where it states:
“Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.” Hebrews 12:12
“Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.”
You can not run the race without strength. If you try to run on a lame leg, you will dislocate it. At some point, you will break, and you won’t be able to run at all. Sometimes, you need to slow down and seek healing, if you want to run the race well.
1 Peter 5:6-7, says:
“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
It takes humility to admit your own weakness and that you might need a little help and healing, before you can run. But, Jesus says cast all your cares and anxieties on Him, because he cares for you! You don’t casually “cast” your cares on the Lord. You don’t perfunctorily drop them on the ground as you walk by. Casting isn’t a spectator sport. It takes focus and intentional effort.
You don’t casually “cast” your cares on the Lord. You don’t perfunctorily drop them on the ground as you walk by.
And, may we never forget that Jesus cares for us. This isn’t a heartless race we run. Jesus says He came to bind up the brokenhearted. He calls us to join Him.
But, what do you do when the broken heart is your own?
Your heart matters. Your healing matters. Your story matters.
Why does it matter? Because, it IS about you. Jesus cares for you. But, it’s also about others. These two things are not mutually exclusive from one another. You may struggle to believe that your own heart and healing is important, particularly if you have a history of abuse or harm. But, the strength of your own heart matters, especially when you are handling the hearts of others.
The strength of your own heart matters, especially when you are handling the hearts of others.
The reality is that the same posture you have toward your own 10-year-old self is going to influence your posture toward that other 10-year-old in your life.
The reality is that the same posture you have toward your own 10-year-old self is going to influence your posture toward that other 10-year-old in your life.
When your posture toward yourself and others softens, your understanding and grace toward yourself and others deepens. Your heart is strengthened, when it finds comfort and confidence in the love of God. When you are able to accept care. When you seek healing. When you let the love of Jesus help you redeem your stories of harm.
When you let Jesus and others comfort and love you well, you will comfort and love others well. Why is it that so many obstacles get in the way of our ability to experience healing? Why is it so hard? And, why is it that we find ourselves so easily resistant to seek it?
Have you ever thought about how well our broken hearts and broken stories isolate us from one another and from God? What better way for Satan to stop the redemptive power of the gospel than to convince us that we have no right to slow down and seek the comfort and love of Jesus?
What could be more threatening to the dismantling of the deceitfulness of sin and Satan’s rule of this earth?
What could be more threatening to the dismantling of the deceitfulness of sin and Satan’s rule of this earth?
When I was trying to describe the premise and point of my recent book about my own journey toward healing and God’s redemptive work in my life story, I was struggling. At one point, I pushed my chair away from the table and asked Jesus for help. What’s the point of this book? Why did you have me write this? Why does it matter?
He said, because your stories of harm can not be trusted.
I thought about the profound simplicity behind that statement. I remember tears coming to my eyes. Of course, they can’t. Our pain and trauma can not be trusted to tell us the truth about ourselves or about the heart of God. And, yet we are so quick to consult them.
If I were to listen to the lies from my stories of harm, what would they tell me? I wasn’t worthy of love as an innocent child, so I can’t possibly be worthy of love now. My feelings don’t matter and just get me into trouble. Accepting kindness or care is dangerous. I need to be hypervigilant about the emotional state of the people around me to be safe. Love has to be earned.
Your stories of harm can not be trusted to tell you the truth.
Trauma and abuse don’t teach us how to love well. In order for us to love ourselves and others more like Jesus, we have to uncover the lies. We have to allow ourselves to be comforted, loved, and cared for. We have to break up the hardened ground and allow Jesus to till new life into the soil where our story grows. We may live, but we can’t grow and flourish in that same old dirt.
Have the courage to look back. Unleash the power of the gospel on your story.
Don’t just break generational cycles of abuse. Don’t just survive and move on. Don’t just cross out the lies. Rewrite them in the love and truth of Jesus!
Friends, don’t settle for the endless burden that comes from ignoring pain, heartache, anxiety, depression, and grief. If you are feeling these things, realize they are your friends, telling you to stop running so you don’t break.
Push past the obstacles that are standing in the way of your ability to experience healing. Your first step in fighting back is surrendering to the truth. If your heart needs comfort and healing, listen.
Join Jesus in binding up the brokenhearted. It starts with yours.
