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Hey everyone. Welcome. So glad to have you all joining us here tonight. I have a lot

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to cover, so I'm going to go ahead and pray us in and get us started in our content tonight.

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I do want to let you all know that next week on the 16th is going to be another online

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dating session with Renee, but we have some really awesome things planned. There's going

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to be a session 1 and a session 2 this week, so be ready. That's going to be Thursday night.

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You're going to want to plan ahead, pick out an outfit, do your hair for the ladies. Guys,

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same thing. Do your hair. Get a nice outfit on, like what you would wear on a date. So

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that's your little teaser. We'll put the announcement in the groups the day of, but I did want you

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all to feel unprepared if you don't see the announcement in time. It's going to be a great

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time of practicing and learning and growing. It's going to be very interactive, so be planning

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for that, thinking of your best date outfit, the one you love the most. Come on screen

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with that, and we have some things we're going to be doing with that. That's why I want to

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let you know now. So welcome again. Waiting for a couple more people to join us. I'm sure

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more people will join as time goes on tonight. So I'm Bethany Cooper. If you've never met

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me before, some of our guys may not have ever seen me before. I am one of the Master

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Heartwork Coaches here in our community, so welcome to all of our gentlemen. If you've

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never met me before, ladies, I think most of you know me, at least to some level. But

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tonight is going to be specifically advanced heartwork around church hurt and spiritual

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wounds. We can touch on other things when we get into coaching, but I do kind of want

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to stay in this vein, and I have a lot of examples to give you all. I have some interactive

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things like what we did last month, some things that you can take away and just be

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praying into as well. So be ready if you are a note taker, but also know you can catch

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that in the replay if you need to just absorb it and let the Holy Spirit work in your heart

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regarding that tonight. Because sometimes when we're taking notes, we kind of, not that

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we miss the Holy Spirit, but we're so busy taking notes that we might miss something

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God is trying to do. All right? So for those of you that maybe this is going to hit home

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for you, I want to encourage you to maybe not be so active taking notes tonight. All

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right? Because like I said, you can always go back and grab the notes later. All right,

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I'm going to go ahead and pray and we're going to get started. Father, thank you so much

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for everything that you're doing. God, thank you even just for examples that you have brought

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to the forefront, even as I've been doing heartwork coaching in the last two weeks.

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God, so many things in our world, you know, because even Christians, we're broken people

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doing our best to live a Christian life. And sometimes we fail. Sometimes we make mistakes.

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Some people step into using and abusing authority in ways that they shouldn't. God, we just,

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we just thank you that your heart is crying out for your people, for healing, for grace.

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God, that even ways that we look at you and, and put onto you things that people have done

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to us. Lord, I pray that trust in God would be restored tonight. That healing balm of Gilead,

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that it would be placed upon hearts, minds, bodies, spirits, and souls. The literal medicines

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of heaven, if you will, that form that back in the old days, God, that there would be a

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supernatural balm that would be placed on us. God, that you would remove areas where we have

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blockages because of wounds of spiritual leaders, church hurt, Lord, even where so many isolate and

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they're not going to church anymore, God. But Lord, I pray that this is a new season. This is a new

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day. This is a new time of gathering. God, for you assembling your sons and your daughters together

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in all different kinds of ways. And I thank you, God, for bringing those things that are in darkness

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to the light. Let those things be revealed for healing. Help us to hear what your spirit is

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saying louder than any voice of the enemy. Remove all distractions. Help us to really zone in on

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what your spirit is saying to us. Lord, help me to be a vessel that you can speak through clearly

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in Jesus name. Amen. Tonight's session is for all of us who love God and have at some point

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gotten hurt by people in the church, whether they are leaders, whether they are brothers and sisters

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in Christ, people that we thought were friends and then they ended up stabbing us in the back.

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Y'all, this happens in church. We're going to talk about all this kind of stuff tonight. Church hurt is

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real. Spiritual wounds are real and they run deep. A lot of times, from my perspective, they can run

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even deeper than getting wounded by someone that is in the world because in our minds, we expect

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perfection. We do. A lot of times, we expect Christians to not make mistakes and we hold

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them to a high standard and some of that, the Bible talks about it, that leaders should be careful.

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Because those that teach are held to a higher level of accountability.

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Those who teach and lead and all of that.

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So I understand why that comes into play.

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And it's a good thing that we would believe that Christians would make good choices

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and treat people with love and kindness and not manipulate and all of those things.

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But the reality is, hurt people hurt people.

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And when we have wounds that are unresolved in our own hearts and lives,

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we even can turn around and hurt someone whether we mean to or not.

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And so sometimes even us, we have the best of intentions,

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but there are things that we have done along the way that maybe, you know,

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the enemy tried to use that to hinder someone else in their walk with the Lord.

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So tonight it's going to also be about us healing from areas we've made mistakes as well,

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because I think it's both and.

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And I didn't even have that in my notes, but I feel the Holy Spirit taking me there.

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And we're going to so we're going to go there too.

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And the reality is, is we all make mistakes.

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And I think if we will as Christians not hold ourselves to this level of perfection,

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like we can never make a mistake.

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And if we start owning that, the reality is, is we're all going to fall short.

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The Bible says that we will.

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Now, yes, we strive for excellence.

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We strive to make good choices.

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We strive to be the best Christians we can be.

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But if we are pretending that we are perfect or that we never make mistakes,

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well, then we project that onto other people.

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And then they think that Christianity is all about being perfect and that we never make mistakes.

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And that's why many people don't even like harken the doors of the church anymore.

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So many people won't even come to church because they think Christians think they're perfect.

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Some of you all, even as you're trying to date people,

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if they don't believe what you believe denominationally,

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you are passing them by.

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Or you think that they don't have the right belief system.

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Y'all, this happens all the time.

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I hear it all the time.

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We got to learn to start to let that stuff go and be the body of Christ.

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The body of Christ denomination should converge and come together and be a team.

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That's what it really looks like in heaven.

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So if we can surrender those things,

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it doesn't mean we have to lay down everything that we believe regarding Scripture

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or how we want to live that out.

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But all I'm saying is that all these lines and divisions that the enemy has created

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through these things, that we can be the forefront people to do something different.

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And there are other people around the world.

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There's a lot of movements like Koinonia, Walk to Emmaus.

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There's some other ones, Banquet Table,

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where they bring people from all denominations together.

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And it's amazing and beautiful.

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And you don't even experience the division anymore.

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And that's what I think heaven's going to be like.

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So that is just for you to kind of maul on a little bit tonight as I go through this content,

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that that is a part of us healing in the body of Christ.

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It's understanding that God has called us to be a team.

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Not to be divided against each other.

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Not to think that we're better than another, you know,

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because they have, you know, whatever belief and all the things.

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So, as we move forward, I want you to kind of just be asking the Lord,

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where have you, even maybe at times, established yourself as better than someone else?

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Because of your belief system.

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Because of what you were taught.

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There's a lot of religion that the enemy tries to use religion,

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the spirit of religion, to divide and conquer.

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And so, on that note, the spirit of religion also becomes very toxic.

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And we hear all the time, even pastors and leaders, teachers,

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and even, you know, there's some denominations where they have mothers.

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They call them mothers in the church and fathers in the church.

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And I believe in a spirit of motherhood.

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I believe in the spirit of fatherhood.

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Because that comes from the heart of the father.

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That comes from God himself.

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But here's the thing.

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When we have some of these systems established, they're not bad.

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None of them are bad.

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But it's what do the people that are in those positions do with the authority that they have?

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What are things that they're saying to people that are wounding them, hurting them, holding them back?

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I'm going to go into some of those examples here in a little bit.

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But tonight, God wants our capacity to trust to grow.

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Our capacity to connect.

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Our capacity to love.

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So I want you to be thinking about this concept.

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Giving people permission.

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I'm giving you permission.

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So I hope that you give other people permission in your heart tonight

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to be honest about the wounds that you've experienced.

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So I'm going to go ahead and set the groundwork.

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In the chat, I really want us to stay focused.

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Okay, so when I ask you to interact, I would love for you to interact on whatever it is I'm giving you as that kind of interaction.

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But I don't want any like side talk about connections and getting together.

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Even if I kind of allude to let's heal and be sisters and brothers in community.

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Even though I want you all to connect 100%, I want that to happen.

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When we're coaching and teaching, we want to stay in the vein of where the Holy Spirit is at.

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And sometimes that stuff can get distracting.

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Here's another thing.

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Someone might say something very honestly in the chat tonight.

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And I just want to really give them a safe space.

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Because you know what?

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If we get offended, we may need to check that out in our own heart.

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Okay?

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Because the reason we're here is to be honest and heal.

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Alright?

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Okay, so let's all be honest.

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And many in the room have never said out loud, I was hurt by the church or someone in the church.

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And so that's why it's really important for like what I just said to create a really safe place.

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Before we go deeper into this topic tonight.

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So I want you to be thinking about what is your definition of church hurt?

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What does that mean to you?

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Does it mean just, you know, the church building places where you go?

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That maybe at some point you were in a church that had a building and somebody hurt you there?

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Does church to you, church hurt mean anybody that was a leader over you in authority?

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Maybe even a small group leader?

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A friend who maybe led you to Christ?

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I had a really dear friend of mine years ago.

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She didn't lead me to Christ.

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But man, she was one of the first people who taught me how to pray.

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And we were very, very, very close.

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Best friends for many years.

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And then one day, she just decided she didn't have any more room or space for me in her life.

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There were some things that she was going through.

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So I understand why.

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But literally what she said to me is, I don't believe in the Lord anymore.

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And I don't have space for you.

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And it just kind of came out of nowhere because she wasn't telling me some things along the way.

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So that was super hard.

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I mean, she was someone I trusted with an immense amount of things in my life.

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And so to go through that, some of you, that might be part of your definition of church hurt.

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Because for me, the reason I connected to that is because she was someone who very much influenced me in my walk with the Lord.

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And then she just changed her mind one day and up and left.

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Well, that impacts all the things that she then, through all those years, had said to me about the Lord.

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And then I sat and was like, okay, well, what was true?

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What wasn't true?

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What did I start living into because of what she said that I shouldn't have been?

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So it started this whole kind of process of filtering out and really reexamining.

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And not that those are bad things, you all.

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But I'm just saying it's not easy.

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It's not easy when those things happen.

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So for some of you, it might be something entirely different.

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So part of the process of heart healing is, just like if you all remember when you were in the heart work, the revealing for healing cycle.

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Part of the reason we utilize that is so many people can't or struggle to identify the root wounds.

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Some people might know the emotion, but they don't know what it's tied to.

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They don't know the lies they believe.

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They don't know the memories it's connected to, essentially.

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And so tonight, even, that's why I'm asking you these beginning questions.

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Is what does church hurt mean to you?

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How do you define it?

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And the more that you start to have that come to the surface.

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So when I say don't take notes, I'm not saying don't take any notes.

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Some of you all might need to write some of these kind of things down.

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But I'm just saying don't try to hurry and take notes on everything I'm saying.

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That's more what I'm leaning into.

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But as we are looking at some of these things that are going to bubble to the surface,

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it's going to help you start to realize some different ways that these hurts have been impacting how you look at people,

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how you look at yourself, how you look at churches, how, you know, just all of it.

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So church hurt doesn't only happen inside the four walls of a church building.

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It can happen in a Christian organization, a faith-based nonprofit, a ministry team, a Bible study, an online Christian community.

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So, you know, we have a lot of parachurch ministry now in this day and time.

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And there's a lot of people that do an amazing job.

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And then there's some that, man, the leaders, just some of the things they're saying,

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you can just kind of tell there's this underlying manipulation and stuff that's coming through.

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So we really do need to have our discernment, you know, on and really be asking the Lord about these kind of things.

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Maybe it's also a women's group, a kingdom business group, a men's accountability circle.

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Again, the point is that they can be any of these groups.

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kind of things. It can be a one-on-one mentoring relationship. Anywhere Christians gather in the

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name of God, it basically is what I'm saying. If it happened in a space that these people were

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supposed to be safe because of Jesus and it wasn't, that's where spiritual wound territory

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comes into play. So don't let anyone, you know, dismiss your pain, okay? That's super important

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because at the end of the day, whether or not what we perceive is real or not, we have to go

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through that process of healing to discover that with the Lord for ourselves. And that's where the

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revealing for healing, that's where the heart work is going to play a key role. And so what does that

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look like for you? Church hurt is uniquely painful because it happens in a place, again, as I was

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mentioning earlier, that we come to be safe. Even in this community, we have people, now sometimes

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the reality is this, when our hearts are broken, you all remember the filter. I want you to think

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about, imagine this is a filter over my mind and my ears and my heart and everything. And if someone

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is speaking to me, I'll do the filter this way, if someone is speaking to me from this way,

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everything is going through those filters. So by the time it reaches my ears, my head, my heart,

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whatever this filter is telling me is causing me to interpret what they're saying through this

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filter. Now, if this filter is healthy, then great. I'm going to probably hear them the way that they're

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saying it. But if this filter is not healthy, then I'm going to hear a skewed version of what they're

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saying, especially if I have insecurity rooted deeply in my heart, especially if I'm going into

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a church one day and I'm already nervous before I go because I have previous church hurt. And then

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somebody says something to me or the pastor says something and I immediately get offended right out

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of the gate. And maybe they did say something that was offensive, or maybe my heart hasn't healed

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enough to receive what they actually said that was healthy through the healthy lens. Do you see?

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So we have to really be seeking the Lord about all of it. But the reality is, is the reason it feels

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so hurtful again, is it's because we are going to a place that we perceive should be safe. And so

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there's a deeper level of betrayal. It feels like this place that should have been sacred, no longer

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is safe. So the soul responds to that differently than other relational type of wounds. When a

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spiritual leader, ministry figure, or Christian community wounds us, they don't just hurt us as a

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person. Again, they can distort the image of God. We begin to unconsciously relate to God the way

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that we relate now to those people. This wound often goes unnamed and unprocessed because people

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feel confused or guilty for being hurt by God's people, or afraid of looking unforgiving or bitter.

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So I want to kind of activate you for a minute. I want you to put in the chat for me,

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you can just say me if you agree with this, that at some point you did not admit that something

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that someone did in church hurt you because you were afraid that you would be labeled as someone

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who's not willing to forgive. If that applies to you, I would love for you to say me in the chat.

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A lot of us. Here's the reality as people are going and putting that in there if that applies

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to them. If we are not honest with ourselves, we're not going to be honest with God or other

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people. So we first have to start being honest with ourselves about what hurts us. Now again, remember

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that sometimes people are actually saying healthy things, but our brokenness is causing us to

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receive it as rejection or pain. Now I'm not saying that's all of the time, but that's why

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it's important for us to always be praying, Lord, is this what you were saying to me?

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Is this what the enemy was saying to me through this person?

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Are these my own thoughts that are causing me to view this situation this way? And the Lord will

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show you if we are all willing to look and listen at those things. The silence around church hurt

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makes it louder on the inside of us. We feel nervous and scared and so we isolate, we pull back

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and we retreat versus going forward. What we don't acknowledge, we carry you all.

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I want you to hear that again. What we don't acknowledge, we carry.

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And think about this. You're carrying that into every relational interaction you have.

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Spiritual authority wounds.

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When in a position of spiritual leadership,

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use their power inappropriately, manipulatively, or abusively.

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I'm going to talk to you about different types

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of spiritual wounds right now.

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Community wounds, when a congregation, small group,

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or faith family rejected, excluded, gossiped about you,

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or abandoned you.

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Doctrine wounds, when harmful theology

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was used to shame, control, or diminish

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your identity or worth.

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I was doing a hard work session.

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I have one more type of wound to mention here in a moment.

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I was doing a hard work session two weeks ago.

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And man, these are the kind of things,

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you know, as I pastor with Brian,

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it just hurts me in a whole different way

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now when I hear stuff like this.

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And not that Brian and I are perfect.

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We do try to do our best, you all.

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But this young lady was talking about some healing

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that she needed, not only for her own church hurt wounds,

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but she took on some offense for a friend.

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And so I feel like it's important to mention that

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as well.

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Some of you all are carrying secondhand offenses

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with churches or Christian leaders because of,

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excuse me, hurt that happened to a friend of yours

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or a family member.

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And so maybe that's going to come to mind for you tonight

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as well.

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But her friend was in an abusive marriage

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and tried to go to the pastor.

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And the pastor basically told her to stay and suck it up

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and that her body was not hers.

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Y'all, not good.

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If any of you have ever gone through that kind of thing,

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I'm so sorry.

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I'm so sorry that that happened to you.

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That is not the father's heart.

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And God never wanted you to stay in anything that was abusive.

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OK?

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So I felt like it was important to mention that.

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And that can be for men, too.

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This isn't just women.

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Men are treated like they're terrified, so many of them,

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to admit that a woman has hit them.

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You know that bachelorette thing that came out

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a couple of weeks ago?

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Y'all, that stuff happens all the time.

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Women, enraged and cannot control themselves,

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are hitting men at a higher and higher and higher rate

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these days.

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Abuse happens on both sides.

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And so this is why it's important to talk

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about these things.

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God doesn't want people to be in bondage

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and abused and mistreated.

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He wants them to be defended and protected

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because that's who He is.

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Now, am I saying that they shouldn't separate and try

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to work it out and see if that person is actually

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willing to get help and be held accountable?

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Probably on some level in the beginning.

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But if that person is never willing to change, well,

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then that, to me, is a different story.

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Betrayal wounds is another type of spiritual wound.

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When someone you look to as a spiritual, mental, or safe

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person revealed they were not who you believed them to be.

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They were not who you believed them to be.

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We hear this all the time.

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Some people start getting mentored.

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And y'all, I'm not super religious about this,

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but Brian doesn't mentor women by himself

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unless the door is open.

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That's the only way, y'all.

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I don't mentor men in a room by myself.

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We have very healthy boundaries around that.

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There's a lot of reasons for that.

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It protects us.

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It protects the other people.

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It's a good thing.

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So if someone that you were trusting was like, oh,

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as a man, they're like, let me mentor you.

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Hey, you all, that should be a flag.

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I'm not saying they can't coach you on some level.

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But if they're spending a lot of one-on-one time alone mentoring

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you, y'all, you need a woman to be leading you and not that.

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That's where also they can establish themselves

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as a spiritual father.

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And on some level, I think that's OK.

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But unfortunately, a lot of women that have father wounds

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will start to feel things for those leaders,

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whether they want to or not.

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Same thing if a woman has a lot of mother wounds.

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If a woman in authority over her starts calling her,

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saying to her, excuse me, I feel called to be like your mom,

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that should be a flag too.

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There's a difference between loving someone

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with a spirit of motherhood and establishing yourself

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as their mom.

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Y'all see the difference?

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OK, it's super important.

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I know that might seem like, why are we talking about this?

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Because this happens all the time.

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I've actually had to coach people through it.

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People that establish themselves.

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as kind of mom figures and then they started abusing that authority and manipulating the

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people that were in their care. Same thing can happen the other way. So just really be paying

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attention to those kind of things. This is why it's also important to heal our hearts because

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this is how a lot of women show up and try to mother the men and then men try to mother or

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father the women. That's where that kind of stuff comes into play as well. There's typically wounds

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in the past whether it's church hurt or things regarding their own mother and father that need

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healed. So here's some love story connections. This is why it matters you all. This is why healing

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from church hurt can impact and how it can impact your love story. If your trust was broken by a

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spiritual leader you might have deep-seated difficulty trusting authority protection or

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provision from a partner. So even if you find a chivalrous man who wants to provide for you and

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protect you and look out for you, you may not allow him to if you haven't healed from mother father

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wounds as well as you know spiritual leader wounds. For example we had someone in our community that

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got married and after they got married they were she was walking with her husband and they went to

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walk across the road and he just put his arm out in front of her like this to protect her because

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he wanted to make sure there wasn't any traffic coming and she got all bent out of shape. They had

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a huge argument about it because she felt like he was trying to control her. Y'all that comes from

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unhealed wounds okay. All right if the church made you feel unworthy or too much you may struggle to

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believe a healthy love is available for you. If you experience spiritual manipulation or control

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you may either attract controlling dynamics or over correct into relationships with no accountability

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at all. Church hurt can quietly become a filter through which you read

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every relationship especially the one that you're waiting and preparing for.

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I'm going to read this one in the chat. Candy says maybe I'm overthinking my church bible study

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leader deliberately not talk to me when I sat next to her at the congregation or passed her by.

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Either she holds grudges on me after I couldn't help her for one Saturday event or when I asked

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her to pray for my soulmate. Most of the people in my church are family. Divorce is non-existent.

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Well Candy I think it'd be good to just have a conversation a kind conversation and just say hey

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you know when I was sitting next to you that one day it kind of felt like maybe you didn't want to

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talk to me. Is that is that true? Are you upset with me? Is there anything that I did that has

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caused you to be upset with me? And let's see how she responds. If she responds and you guys are able

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to talk it out then that's great. If she reacts and gets super defensive then that's probably going to

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tell you the other story and that might lead you you know to setting some healthy boundaries and

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things there. Y'all this is how we can find out. We just have to have conversations and sometimes

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we're going to have to pray and ask God for courage to have to try to take a step towards

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that again. If somebody blows up and they react that's going to be a cue to you to kind of okay

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this person isn't acting safe right now and you might need to adjust and kind of disengage a

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little bit. Maybe not pull totally away but you might need to just be careful about how often

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you're encountering that person in this season. All right so here's another thing I want you to

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put in the chat for me. This is going to be to name your experience and you might have more than

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one but I want you to put the one that comes to mind first for you tonight. So which type of

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spiritual wound resonates most with your story? Number one, a wound from a specific leader or

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mentor. Number two, a wound from a faith community or church family. Number three, a wound tied to

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harmful teaching or doctrine. Or number four, a betrayal from someone that you look to as a

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spiritually safe person. So this might be more of a one-on-one but they weren't a mentor maybe they

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were a friend but either way. So number one's a specific leader or mentor. Number two, faith

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community or church family. Number three, harmful teaching or doctrine. Number four, is that betrayal

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from someone that you look to as a spiritual mentor? Okay so we do have a good mix here, a lot

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of ones and twos. Someone told me also last night in the heartwork coaching session that I lead

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you know for the normal the first phase, phase one. They're all normal but phase one. She was

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saying that she was in church a couple Sundays ago and right at the end of the message the pastor

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after he kind of talked about like you know

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Wars and all this stuff, he then thanked all the couples that chose to stay together.

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So that was really hurtful for her because she actually wanted to stay married, but her husband left her. So whether or not he meant it to be offensive or not, I can understand why it landed that way for her.

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Because he thanked everybody that chose to stay together where that was her choice, but it was somebody else's choice that was inflicted upon her that put her in the position she's in.

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So do you see how this can kind of happen, these wounds and these hurts?

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And, you know, I do think that maybe God is leading her to a different church, but I'll tell you what, this is why people leave churches, these kind of things.

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And we allow them to fester and kind of be underneath the surface and it can create a lot of problems.

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All right, so I saw a lot of one and two.

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So that's our spiritual leader or the faith community.

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I did see some threes and some fours.

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Some people are like, I had them all.

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And I think that that can be the case because we have all different kinds of seasons.

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All right, so the person that you're thinking of or the scenario that you're thinking of, I would encourage you all to take a note of that tonight.

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Because typically, as these things are bubbling to the surface, it is that whole revealing for healing process that we talked to you all about.

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So here is your momentum builder.

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This is what we're going to do.

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The last few months, I've just felt led to give you guys an interaction, kind of that chat engagement.

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And then we're going to walk through what you can do to process it.

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OK, so number one, this is what I'm calling your spiritual wound inventory.

437
00:31:41.320 --> 00:31:47.880
I want you to take a few moments to write down, you can do it in your phone notes, if you don't have a pen and paper, it's totally fine.

438
00:31:48.880 --> 00:32:01.000
Write down in your journal or notes app the answers to these three questions as I go through them about the church wound that came to mind that you put that number in the chat for.

439
00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:03.080
OK, so that's how we're going to do it first.

440
00:32:03.080 --> 00:32:05.680
And some of you all might need to do this with multiple ones.

441
00:32:06.040 --> 00:32:09.000
But let's start with the first one that came to mind for you tonight.

442
00:32:09.480 --> 00:32:14.480
Number one, what happened and who was involved?

443
00:32:15.480 --> 00:32:19.440
What happened and who was involved?

444
00:32:24.240 --> 00:32:28.040
Give you guys a few minutes to write that down, because I don't want to go too fast.

445
00:32:28.520 --> 00:32:30.640
What happened and who was involved?

446
00:32:30.640 --> 00:32:48.280
All right, number two, and you can go back and add to these later more.

447
00:32:49.280 --> 00:32:54.080
Number two, what did this make me believe about God?

448
00:32:55.840 --> 00:32:58.920
What did this make me believe about God?

449
00:33:00.640 --> 00:33:15.400
Number two, what did this make me believe about God?

450
00:33:15.400 --> 00:33:31.760
Number three, what did this make me believe about myself?

451
00:33:33.520 --> 00:33:35.880
What did this make me believe about myself?

452
00:33:35.880 --> 00:33:52.440
So just as a reminder, you know, we don't do hard work to relive these experiences, but we are doing it to locate the root, right?

453
00:33:53.000 --> 00:33:56.400
So that's what I want you guys to remember as you're working through some of these.

454
00:33:56.400 --> 00:34:00.720
Again, some of you had multiple things that you thought of and you put different numbers in the chat.

455
00:34:01.120 --> 00:34:06.280
So those questions I gave you, I want to encourage you to go back even later and do that with each one.

456
00:34:06.280 --> 00:34:10.159
Because remember, we have to identify what happened.

457
00:34:10.920 --> 00:34:12.440
What did we hear?

458
00:34:12.440 --> 00:34:18.000
You know, like the two things, what did it make me believe about God and what did it make me believe about myself?

459
00:34:18.280 --> 00:34:21.920
So I want you to identify through that what were the lies.

460
00:34:22.320 --> 00:34:27.239
OK, so typically you're going to be able to identify if you're asking those questions of yourself.

461
00:34:27.880 --> 00:34:32.000
And then, you know, you might even want to take it one level further.

462
00:34:32.000 --> 00:34:40.520
And this is what's coming up in my spirit is, did I then do something to act out on those things that was harmful to me or someone else?

463
00:34:45.040 --> 00:34:51.880
Because even isolating ourselves, you all, and not going back into community ever again, that's actually hurting you.

464
00:34:53.639 --> 00:34:54.880
It's not helping you.

465
00:34:54.880 --> 00:34:59.040
And so we need to look at some of our behaviors even though we're doing it,

466
00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:06.040
it subconsciously and understand that we are doing harmful things to ourselves.

467
00:35:06.040 --> 00:35:12.040
When God created us for connection and family, and we, we lean into isolation

468
00:35:12.040 --> 00:35:18.480
and pulling back and not connecting anymore, it's actually harming us, right?

469
00:35:18.480 --> 00:35:23.520
And it's, it's teaching us to continue to shut down our connector abilities.

470
00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:29.160
Or we, we start to believe lies that people don't really love us or care about us.

471
00:35:29.160 --> 00:35:32.880
You know, all kinds of stuff can kind of ripple effect from that.

472
00:35:34.120 --> 00:35:37.800
Remember to ask the Lord to reveal the answers to those things.

473
00:35:37.800 --> 00:35:40.520
If you're not quite sure, you're like, I know that there's stuff, but I'm

474
00:35:40.520 --> 00:35:44.280
having a hard time identifying it and answering those questions tonight.

475
00:35:44.280 --> 00:35:45.040
It's okay.

476
00:35:45.400 --> 00:35:47.800
Don't put any pressure on yourself because the stuff will

477
00:35:47.800 --> 00:35:49.240
come up when it's supposed to.

478
00:35:51.880 --> 00:35:55.040
Deborah asks, can it be more general thing rather than specific, like

479
00:35:55.040 --> 00:35:58.200
kind of being jaded over time after seeing the same patterns within different

480
00:35:58.200 --> 00:36:01.680
churches, of course, yes, this is your journey.

481
00:36:01.680 --> 00:36:03.200
This is your healing process.

482
00:36:03.520 --> 00:36:07.480
Again, that to me makes me think of, it's like a secondhand offense.

483
00:36:07.640 --> 00:36:08.160
Okay.

484
00:36:09.240 --> 00:36:13.120
Cause you're seeing it happen in a, maybe if it's in your church,

485
00:36:13.120 --> 00:36:17.160
then maybe it's firsthand, but if it's in another church and you just keep

486
00:36:17.160 --> 00:36:20.160
seeing the same thing, or even if it's in multiple churches, but it's the

487
00:36:20.160 --> 00:36:27.680
same kind of scenario, we start to take up a fence for that y'all.

488
00:36:27.680 --> 00:36:30.080
My heart was broken when some of these things started coming out in

489
00:36:30.080 --> 00:36:31.680
the news these last few months.

490
00:36:32.880 --> 00:36:36.280
That's real, but we can move on.

491
00:36:36.280 --> 00:36:36.800
We can heal.

492
00:36:36.800 --> 00:36:39.760
We can forgive because people are imperfect.

493
00:36:40.520 --> 00:36:44.120
Doesn't mean we have to let toxicity into our lives, but I don't

494
00:36:44.120 --> 00:36:45.600
think all those people are toxic.

495
00:36:45.600 --> 00:36:49.480
I think some of them made some really bad choices, but I think a few of them,

496
00:36:49.840 --> 00:36:53.400
you know, had some, some things going on in their own lives and

497
00:36:53.400 --> 00:36:55.240
just kind of caved and gave in.

498
00:36:55.400 --> 00:36:56.880
I'm not making excuses for them.

499
00:36:57.120 --> 00:36:58.680
I'm not saying any of it's okay.

500
00:36:58.880 --> 00:37:03.600
I'm just saying that, you know, we want to be the judge in the jury

501
00:37:03.600 --> 00:37:08.120
and criticize other people a lot, but then we want mercy and forgiveness.

502
00:37:10.560 --> 00:37:14.720
We have to be willing to see that for what it is, have wisdom, know that,

503
00:37:14.880 --> 00:37:16.520
Hey man, I don't want that to happen.

504
00:37:16.520 --> 00:37:18.360
Like, I don't want that to happen in our church.

505
00:37:18.800 --> 00:37:21.840
That's the first thought I had, Lord, I don't want us to have that happen.

506
00:37:21.840 --> 00:37:25.360
Help us to, you know, really be guard, you know, on guard against these

507
00:37:25.360 --> 00:37:30.040
things because the enemy prowls around like a roaring lion seeking who he can

508
00:37:30.040 --> 00:37:36.160
devour, the person that thinks we can't sin or that we won't fall says,

509
00:37:36.160 --> 00:37:40.160
Whoa, to him who thinks he will not or cannot, or does not sin.

510
00:37:42.120 --> 00:37:43.320
We all fall short.

511
00:37:44.720 --> 00:37:45.240
All right.

512
00:37:45.600 --> 00:37:47.720
I encourage all of y'all to take some more time this week to

513
00:37:47.720 --> 00:37:49.040
meditate on more of those.

514
00:37:49.120 --> 00:37:51.560
Uh, as I was talking about, we're going to go into block two healing,

515
00:37:52.560 --> 00:37:56.320
God from his people and rebuilding trust.

516
00:37:56.320 --> 00:37:59.120
So this is kind of the second leg of what we're doing tonight.

517
00:37:59.400 --> 00:38:03.280
I want you to think about the reality that God is not the church.

518
00:38:05.640 --> 00:38:14.440
While Jesus came down in the form of man, he is not the church.

519
00:38:15.480 --> 00:38:21.120
So we, you know, really want to encourage you all to continue to pray and ask God

520
00:38:21.120 --> 00:38:30.040
to show you who he is as in his character, as a good father, God is love.

521
00:38:30.320 --> 00:38:32.240
He cannot deny himself.

522
00:38:32.240 --> 00:38:35.440
He will never become anything less than love.

523
00:38:36.480 --> 00:38:42.680
He will, um, you know, just like a good father will discipline their children.

524
00:38:42.680 --> 00:38:47.960
God will lovingly correct us, but he will not shame us, condemn

525
00:38:47.960 --> 00:38:49.680
us or pour guilt on us.

526
00:38:50.680 --> 00:38:52.040
God is faithful.

527
00:38:52.760 --> 00:38:53.920
God is good.

528
00:38:55.320 --> 00:38:56.480
God is full of joy.

529
00:38:56.480 --> 00:38:58.360
Like these are things that he is.

530
00:38:58.720 --> 00:39:00.360
He's not going to change.

531
00:39:00.800 --> 00:39:02.600
He's not a man that lies.

532
00:39:04.320 --> 00:39:04.640
Okay.

533
00:39:04.640 --> 00:39:07.960
So again, these are all things that can happen in the church, right?

534
00:39:08.920 --> 00:39:11.720
But God is not those things.

535
00:39:12.960 --> 00:39:17.320
So if we look at him that way, then those wounds came from somewhere.

536
00:39:18.040 --> 00:39:20.360
God is not the leader who failed you.

537
00:39:22.040 --> 00:39:25.280
He is not the congregation that turned their back on you.

538
00:39:26.480 --> 00:39:31.480
God grieves what was done in his name to us.

539
00:39:34.960 --> 00:39:35.960
Do y'all hear that?

540
00:39:36.560 --> 00:39:41.120
God grieves when what was done in his name, like when these things

541
00:39:41.120 --> 00:39:42.880
are done in his name to us.

542
00:39:47.680 --> 00:39:49.640
Couple of people asking some more questions.

543
00:39:49.640 --> 00:39:51.840
What about abusive situations?

544
00:39:51.840 --> 00:39:53.240
Is an isolation from the abuser?

545
00:39:53.240 --> 00:39:53.720
The only truth.

546
00:39:53.960 --> 00:39:56.160
Yeah, that's totally different, David.

547
00:39:56.160 --> 00:40:00.000
I'm talking about not isolating from healthy communities.

548
00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:06.000
Because some people will literally pull away from a whole church because of one person.

549
00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:12.000
So what we would recommend, at least in my church, is I would recommend to follow what the Bible says.

550
00:40:12.000 --> 00:40:17.000
First, you go one to another. You try to work that thing out.

551
00:40:17.000 --> 00:40:22.000
And then if it doesn't work that way, then the Bible says then you bring someone back with you,

552
00:40:22.000 --> 00:40:26.000
and you try to work it out. If that person still isn't willing to work through that,

553
00:40:26.000 --> 00:40:30.000
then it says to bring the leadership of the church into the situation.

554
00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:36.000
The Bible talks about that for a reason. Yes, we're supposed to have boundaries and all that thing.

555
00:40:36.000 --> 00:40:43.000
So as I'm talking about not isolating and pulling back, I'm talking about people that when something happens,

556
00:40:43.000 --> 00:40:50.000
whether it's they get offended or they get hurt, they have a tendency that comes from wounds from childhood

557
00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:56.000
because people that were abandoned, neglected, or isolated a lot, or felt rejected a lot,

558
00:40:56.000 --> 00:41:00.000
they will be the people that tend, first and foremost, there's people that will do other things,

559
00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:05.000
but isolation is one of the dominating things that I see, where people will pull back

560
00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:11.000
and they will pull away from other people if one person, or some people, it is a group, okay?

561
00:41:11.000 --> 00:41:15.000
That's the reality, and I can understand. And I would say to you, yeah, of course,

562
00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:23.000
if a whole group of people are mistreating you, that probably isn't the group that you should be spending time with, 100%.

563
00:41:23.000 --> 00:41:30.000
Yeah, so just keep in mind that as I'm talking to you about not isolating and pulling away completely from everyone,

564
00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:35.000
I'm assuming that there's some healthy people there in that church somewhere.

565
00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:38.000
Now, if you're going to a church where they're all unhealthy,

566
00:41:38.000 --> 00:41:43.000
then you should probably think about finding a different place to go, all right?

567
00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:46.000
And I don't have any qualms with saying that. I tell people all the time,

568
00:41:46.000 --> 00:41:53.000
if they don't feel like we're the place for them, then I encourage them to find the place that is the place for them.

569
00:41:53.000 --> 00:41:59.000
All right, people in spiritual leadership are still people, this is what I started tonight out with,

570
00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:05.000
capable of wounding out of their own unhealed places, out of ego, out of fear, sin, and so many other things.

571
00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:11.000
Their failure is not God's endorsement of how you were treated.

572
00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:19.000
Okay, so God is not endorsing their behavior just because they're a spiritual leader.

573
00:42:19.000 --> 00:42:23.000
One of the most healing questions you can ask yourself is this,

574
00:42:23.000 --> 00:42:32.000
was this God or was this a broken person acting in God's name?

575
00:42:33.000 --> 00:42:38.000
Was this God or was this a broken person acting in God's name?

576
00:42:38.000 --> 00:42:43.000
The answer will almost always be the second one.

577
00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:51.000
Y'all, Brian and I went through some massive church hurt before we moved to Florida, massive stuff.

578
00:42:52.000 --> 00:42:56.000
I can tell you for a fact, there is some pain that you just think,

579
00:42:56.000 --> 00:43:00.000
wow, okay, I didn't know that I could feel that from the church.

580
00:43:01.000 --> 00:43:07.000
And then something happens and then you're like, wow, okay, this is real, this stuff happens.

581
00:43:07.000 --> 00:43:12.000
But we can forgive and we can understand that those people,

582
00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:16.000
it's a good thing we're not still connected to those people.

583
00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:20.000
Praise the Lord, God created a different place for us and we're thriving here.

584
00:43:21.000 --> 00:43:22.000
All right, next one.

585
00:43:23.000 --> 00:43:29.000
God's character is consistent, it does not shift based on who is representing him in the room.

586
00:43:29.000 --> 00:43:32.000
That's why I was saying, get to know God's character.

587
00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:37.000
If those people that are leading you are not lining up with the character of God, that should be a signal to you.

588
00:43:38.000 --> 00:43:41.000
Psalm 34, 18, he is close to the brokenhearted.

589
00:43:41.000 --> 00:43:44.000
He was close to you in that room when those things happened to you.

590
00:43:44.000 --> 00:43:48.000
And even when his people were not being a good representative of him.

591
00:43:49.000 --> 00:43:51.000
I want to encourage you all to name it.

592
00:43:51.000 --> 00:43:53.000
You have to call it what it was.

593
00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:59.000
Y'all, if it was abuse, then acknowledge that.

594
00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:06.000
If it was someone making a mistake and they said something that was hurtful, say it's that.

595
00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:08.000
Call it what it is.

596
00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:16.000
Minimizing these things to protect the church, the leader, or your own image of what a good Christian looks like,

597
00:44:16.000 --> 00:44:18.000
keeps the wound infected.

598
00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:23.000
You know, one of the biggest breakdowns in my own family,

599
00:44:23.000 --> 00:44:27.000
now, keep in mind, my family, years ago, were not Christian.

600
00:44:27.000 --> 00:44:31.000
So, this is a little bit of a different example, but it came to mind right now.

601
00:44:32.000 --> 00:44:39.000
My mom and her siblings learned from her mom to when my grandfather committed suicide,

602
00:44:39.000 --> 00:44:42.000
my grandma asked them all to clean it up and hide it.

603
00:44:44.000 --> 00:44:46.000
Kind of crazy when I hear it and talk about it.

604
00:44:47.000 --> 00:44:49.000
Now, my grandma wasn't a Christian.

605
00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:54.000
So, again, it is different, but all that was carried down in the family line.

606
00:44:54.000 --> 00:44:58.000
So, when the sexual abuse and other things that happened in my family directly,

607
00:44:58.000 --> 00:45:01.000
my mom and her siblings were not Christian.

608
00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:05.440
also hit all that stuff. Do you see how that kind of works? Well, that

609
00:45:05.440 --> 00:45:11.920
didn't make things better, it made it worse. Because what's in darkness will

610
00:45:11.920 --> 00:45:16.560
grow, the wound will stay infected, and then people tend to turn around and do

611
00:45:16.560 --> 00:45:21.440
harmful things to someone else. So we want to grieve it. You are allowed to

612
00:45:21.440 --> 00:45:27.560
grieve what you thought the church was, what you thought the leader was, what you

613
00:45:27.560 --> 00:45:32.800
thought that season of your faith would be. Because grief is real, and grief is

614
00:45:32.800 --> 00:45:38.480
not just this straight line all the time, y'all. Sometimes it goes up, and then it

615
00:45:38.480 --> 00:45:43.600
comes down, and it goes around, and there's all kinds of stuff. Now, if you

616
00:45:43.600 --> 00:45:47.760
are stuck in grief, I talk to people a lot about a cloak of grief. Sometimes I

617
00:45:47.760 --> 00:45:52.360
can just sense it on people, like they've been grieving for so long that it has

618
00:45:52.360 --> 00:45:57.400
become a part of their identity. Hey, I'm not encouraging you all to stay there,

619
00:45:57.400 --> 00:46:00.400
but we need to grieve things in a healthy way to process it to move

620
00:46:00.400 --> 00:46:04.840
forward. Then we want to release it. So you want to name it, you want to grieve

621
00:46:04.840 --> 00:46:09.720
it, you want to release it. Number four, forgiveness is not saying what happened

622
00:46:09.720 --> 00:46:14.560
was okay. It is refusing to let what happened continue to have authority over

623
00:46:14.560 --> 00:46:20.800
your future. You release them from the depth so that you can walk free. This

624
00:46:20.800 --> 00:46:25.000
this isn't a, I mean it is about them, but it's not about them, this is about you.

625
00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:32.680
Number four, rebuilding. Naming it, grieving it, releasing it, rebuilding it.

626
00:46:32.680 --> 00:46:40.280
This is not naive trust in every person with a title. This is discerning, being

627
00:46:40.280 --> 00:46:46.440
healthy, having your eyes opened, choosing to trust. You know, these do not require

628
00:46:46.440 --> 00:46:54.960
you to abandon wisdom to have faith. Y'all, yes, have faith. Believe the best in

629
00:46:54.960 --> 00:47:00.840
people, but when wisdom shows up and it says, oh, pay attention to that thing, we

630
00:47:00.840 --> 00:47:07.200
should listen to that. Wisdom was given to us for a reason. God comes, and if you

631
00:47:07.200 --> 00:47:10.000
feel like, man, I don't know if I have a lot of wisdom about those things, guess

632
00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:15.840
what? We can pray and ask for more wisdom. Solomon said, above all things, what did

633
00:47:15.840 --> 00:47:21.760
he ask God for? He asked God for wisdom. I pray all the time, God give me more

634
00:47:21.760 --> 00:47:25.520
wisdom to know how to respond to people. Even before I get on these, God knows you

635
00:47:25.520 --> 00:47:30.880
all better than I do. I don't pretend to know every aspect of what you all have

636
00:47:30.880 --> 00:47:36.920
been through, and I remind myself that I'm not your healer. He is. I just get to

637
00:47:36.920 --> 00:47:40.400
be here and get to be a part of what he's doing, and you're all, y'all's life

638
00:47:40.400 --> 00:47:44.720
are a glimpse, this little glimpse of your journey, and I'm so grateful for

639
00:47:44.720 --> 00:47:51.480
that, but it is him that has to do it. So I want you to think about this as well. I

640
00:47:51.560 --> 00:47:55.720
want to walk you through some more, some more tools to help you process this. I

641
00:47:55.720 --> 00:48:01.160
gave you a couple things already. As you're looking at, again, tonight we're

642
00:48:01.160 --> 00:48:07.400
starting with the first one that came to your mind. I want you to identify, while

643
00:48:07.400 --> 00:48:12.840
you're sitting there, one lie that is connected to that situation that you

644
00:48:12.840 --> 00:48:16.680
journaled about. What is one lie that you're currently believing, and if you

645
00:48:16.680 --> 00:48:21.160
don't know right now, it's okay. Remember, you're gonna pray. Just quickly and ask

646
00:48:21.160 --> 00:48:26.400
the Lord, and if it doesn't come up right now, that's fine. A lie that you believe

647
00:48:26.400 --> 00:48:30.640
because of what happened, this isn't what you might say, because of what happened, I

648
00:48:30.640 --> 00:48:36.520
now believe God is blank, and I am blank. Remember, what did you believe about God?

649
00:48:36.520 --> 00:48:40.760
What did you believe about yourself because of it? It's kind of filling in

650
00:48:40.760 --> 00:48:46.880
the sentence now, and remember that when we do the revealing for healing cycle, if

651
00:48:46.960 --> 00:48:51.760
we know the lie, well then we can take that lie to the Lord and say, hey, what's

652
00:48:51.760 --> 00:48:58.800
the truth to replace this lie? What's the truth to replace the lie? So then you

653
00:48:58.800 --> 00:49:03.680
look for that truth, and then once you hear the truth, then you, I would

654
00:49:03.680 --> 00:49:07.680
recommend this. This is something that I have done. I still do it today. I put

655
00:49:07.680 --> 00:49:10.880
scriptures up around my house when something speaks to my heart, or

656
00:49:10.880 --> 00:49:15.240
something speaks truth against a lie. I write that out, and I put it up, and I

657
00:49:15.560 --> 00:49:19.840
put mine by my kitchen sink where I wash dishes, or in my bathroom where I see

658
00:49:19.840 --> 00:49:23.520
things all the time. Y'all can do it however you want, but I highly recommend

659
00:49:23.520 --> 00:49:27.840
it. You want to write that scripture out. You want to speak it out of your mouth.

660
00:49:27.840 --> 00:49:33.560
You want to like meditate on it in your mind, in your spirit. The distinction is

661
00:49:33.560 --> 00:49:37.440
write the name or description of the person who hurt you, and separately write

662
00:49:37.440 --> 00:49:42.800
the name of God. Remember, you're trying to say, okay, God is separate from this

663
00:49:42.880 --> 00:49:49.480
person that hurt me in God's name. So seeing it even on a piece of paper as

664
00:49:49.480 --> 00:49:55.320
two separate things can help you start to identify that even more. Speak out

665
00:49:55.320 --> 00:49:59.960
loud. You are not the same, God. What this person did to me is

666
00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:01.120
Not who God is.

667
00:50:01.120 --> 00:50:03.820
Basically saying, God, you are not the same thing

668
00:50:03.820 --> 00:50:06.180
as this person who hurt me.

669
00:50:06.180 --> 00:50:07.320
That's what I'm saying.

670
00:50:08.260 --> 00:50:09.220
And so you're starting,

671
00:50:09.220 --> 00:50:12.620
I know these sound very like elementary,

672
00:50:12.620 --> 00:50:15.440
but literally you all, sometimes doing it,

673
00:50:15.440 --> 00:50:17.140
like when even people, I don't know,

674
00:50:17.140 --> 00:50:18.700
for those of you that went through heart work,

675
00:50:18.700 --> 00:50:20.460
if you did the, for the men,

676
00:50:20.460 --> 00:50:22.880
you may not have this assignment on your side,

677
00:50:22.880 --> 00:50:25.180
but we do a truth versus, you know,

678
00:50:25.180 --> 00:50:26.860
the roots versus the fruits,

679
00:50:26.860 --> 00:50:28.780
and you're looking at the lies that you believe

680
00:50:28.780 --> 00:50:29.780
and the fruit that, you know,

681
00:50:29.780 --> 00:50:31.860
comes in your life as a result.

682
00:50:31.860 --> 00:50:35.060
Well, drawing those things out so many times help us,

683
00:50:35.060 --> 00:50:39.300
oh my gosh, like you start to make connections.

684
00:50:39.300 --> 00:50:42.860
So writing this stuff out on paper is going to help you.

685
00:50:42.860 --> 00:50:43.820
Here's another one.

686
00:50:43.820 --> 00:50:46.860
I released, you're gonna say the person's name,

687
00:50:46.860 --> 00:50:48.220
from what you owe me.

688
00:50:48.220 --> 00:50:49.860
So I, I'm gonna make up a name.

689
00:50:49.860 --> 00:50:54.300
I released Paul from what he owes me.

690
00:50:54.300 --> 00:50:57.340
I am placing my healing in the hands of the only one

691
00:50:57.340 --> 00:50:59.420
who can fully restore it.

692
00:50:59.420 --> 00:51:01.540
Thank you, Lord, for healing me

693
00:51:01.540 --> 00:51:03.580
and helping me come back into alignment

694
00:51:03.580 --> 00:51:06.380
with the truth about who you are, God.

695
00:51:06.380 --> 00:51:07.740
I went really fast on that, I know,

696
00:51:07.740 --> 00:51:10.540
but again, you can go back and catch this in the replay.

697
00:51:14.020 --> 00:51:15.900
I am, I release, I'll read it again.

698
00:51:15.900 --> 00:51:17.940
I release, again, I'm making this name up.

699
00:51:17.940 --> 00:51:20.820
I release Paul from what you owe me.

700
00:51:21.840 --> 00:51:26.060
I am placing my healing in the hands of the only one

701
00:51:26.060 --> 00:51:27.740
who can fully restore it.

702
00:51:28.620 --> 00:51:30.580
Thank you, Lord, for healing me

703
00:51:30.580 --> 00:51:33.180
and helping me come back into alignment

704
00:51:33.180 --> 00:51:36.980
with the truth about who you are.

705
00:51:39.820 --> 00:51:40.940
Yeah.

706
00:51:40.940 --> 00:51:41.780
Thank you, Christopher.

707
00:51:41.780 --> 00:51:43.220
I didn't know if you guys were doing that one

708
00:51:43.220 --> 00:51:44.940
over there or not, that's helpful.

709
00:51:46.740 --> 00:51:48.220
All right, we're gonna go on to the next thing.

710
00:51:48.220 --> 00:51:50.740
Isolation, as I've talked about a lot tonight,

711
00:51:50.740 --> 00:51:52.820
is actually not protection.

712
00:51:52.820 --> 00:51:54.540
It is the wound winning.

713
00:51:56.500 --> 00:51:57.380
The wound is winning.

714
00:51:57.380 --> 00:51:58.820
The enemy is winning when we do that.

715
00:51:58.820 --> 00:52:02.260
Healthy spiritual community, remember, healthy.

716
00:52:02.260 --> 00:52:04.340
Catch that key word in there, you all.

717
00:52:04.340 --> 00:52:06.300
Healthy spiritual community is still a part

718
00:52:06.300 --> 00:52:09.820
of God's design for you, whatever that looks like.

719
00:52:09.820 --> 00:52:11.420
For some of you, you're gonna feel called

720
00:52:11.420 --> 00:52:13.780
to have a church in your house.

721
00:52:13.780 --> 00:52:15.580
I don't frown on that.

722
00:52:15.580 --> 00:52:17.820
I believe in the gathering together of believers,

723
00:52:17.820 --> 00:52:20.660
and that looks different for people in different seasons.

724
00:52:21.700 --> 00:52:24.060
We, of course, love when people come to church

725
00:52:24.060 --> 00:52:25.500
and fellowship with us there,

726
00:52:25.900 --> 00:52:27.740
but we do small groups and we do all kinds of stuff.

727
00:52:27.740 --> 00:52:30.020
Some people can't come to church on Sunday.

728
00:52:30.020 --> 00:52:31.580
That doesn't mean they're not a Christian.

729
00:52:31.580 --> 00:52:35.260
So again, this is about where is a safe place

730
00:52:35.260 --> 00:52:37.540
for you to grow in your relationship with the Lord

731
00:52:37.540 --> 00:52:41.020
and walk out being a disciple of Jesus Christ.

732
00:52:41.020 --> 00:52:42.780
Rebuilding trust is a process.

733
00:52:42.780 --> 00:52:43.660
It's not an event.

734
00:52:43.660 --> 00:52:46.100
It's not like, oh, just one day, you're just gonna trust,

735
00:52:46.100 --> 00:52:48.540
and if you don't trust today,

736
00:52:48.540 --> 00:52:50.780
and you all have heard this in churches before.

737
00:52:50.780 --> 00:52:52.620
Same thing about forgiveness.

738
00:52:53.140 --> 00:52:56.620
I had a Christian, my spiritual daughter's dad,

739
00:52:56.620 --> 00:52:57.980
he used to say to me all the time,

740
00:52:57.980 --> 00:53:01.180
you just don't forgive, you don't forgive.

741
00:53:01.180 --> 00:53:03.100
And I'm like, yeah, I do.

742
00:53:04.380 --> 00:53:06.380
When you keep doing things that are hurtful

743
00:53:06.380 --> 00:53:08.860
over and over and over again,

744
00:53:08.860 --> 00:53:12.140
well, then I gotta process that all over again.

745
00:53:12.140 --> 00:53:15.100
But see that sometimes even people that,

746
00:53:15.100 --> 00:53:18.460
he was a Christian, he went to church every week,

747
00:53:18.460 --> 00:53:19.660
read his Bible.

748
00:53:20.620 --> 00:53:23.260
Tell me if that didn't mess me up for a little while.

749
00:53:25.020 --> 00:53:25.900
How does that work?

750
00:53:25.900 --> 00:53:27.220
This is a guy who cheated on me

751
00:53:27.220 --> 00:53:30.100
over and over and over and over.

752
00:53:30.100 --> 00:53:31.780
How does that work?

753
00:53:31.780 --> 00:53:34.220
Yeah, pretty confusing, right?

754
00:53:34.220 --> 00:53:36.020
The same thing, females do it too.

755
00:53:36.020 --> 00:53:38.140
So this isn't me saying men are bad.

756
00:53:38.140 --> 00:53:40.980
This is me saying people that do unhealthy things,

757
00:53:40.980 --> 00:53:43.380
whether they're Christians or not,

758
00:53:43.380 --> 00:53:46.820
it hurts people and it affects us.

759
00:53:46.820 --> 00:53:48.460
And so then we have to process that stuff out.

760
00:53:48.780 --> 00:53:53.060
And so rebuilding trust in God was something I had to do

761
00:53:53.060 --> 00:53:56.260
because of what was happening in that relationship.

762
00:53:56.260 --> 00:54:00.180
It linked right into my dad cheating on my mom

763
00:54:00.180 --> 00:54:01.500
and leaving us.

764
00:54:01.500 --> 00:54:04.060
And so that was another example that I felt like,

765
00:54:05.300 --> 00:54:08.220
well, this is what happens with men.

766
00:54:08.220 --> 00:54:10.620
And then I projected that onto God.

767
00:54:12.980 --> 00:54:14.460
So I had to take time.

768
00:54:14.460 --> 00:54:16.500
I had to really unpack that

769
00:54:16.500 --> 00:54:18.420
and get to the root of the matter

770
00:54:19.260 --> 00:54:20.740
so that I could get to the truth of all of it.

771
00:54:20.740 --> 00:54:22.540
It took time.

772
00:54:22.540 --> 00:54:25.940
You don't owe anybody immediate full access to your life.

773
00:54:25.940 --> 00:54:27.780
You all, if somebody has hurt you

774
00:54:27.780 --> 00:54:29.740
and they've toxically,

775
00:54:29.740 --> 00:54:33.100
toxically done something over and over,

776
00:54:33.100 --> 00:54:36.820
or even if it's just one time and it really wounded you,

777
00:54:36.820 --> 00:54:41.060
please allow yourself the grace and the space to heal.

778
00:54:41.060 --> 00:54:43.900
And even if they're putting the pressure on you

779
00:54:43.900 --> 00:54:45.900
that you should just be fine,

780
00:54:45.940 --> 00:54:48.780
well, they don't get to decide that.

781
00:54:49.860 --> 00:54:52.620
You do with the Lord and His time.

782
00:54:52.620 --> 00:54:55.580
Now, some of us will avoid people.

783
00:54:55.580 --> 00:54:57.420
Any other avoiders in here?

784
00:54:57.420 --> 00:54:58.860
If somebody hurts you, you're like,

785
00:54:58.860 --> 00:55:00.180
oh, I'm gonna walk.

786
00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:05.440
the way on the other side of the church. I'm gonna avoid that person or maybe you see them

787
00:55:06.080 --> 00:55:10.400
at your job, maybe they're not at church. Y'all, for real, I'm just being real.

788
00:55:12.160 --> 00:55:19.040
Pastor's wife isn't always easy. For those of you that are praying, don't feel afraid because it's

789
00:55:19.040 --> 00:55:24.800
an amazing calling too, but it's real. And when people hurt my husband, man, that hurts me.

790
00:55:24.800 --> 00:55:34.160
So sometimes I might avoid that person for one Sunday until my heart is in a better place

791
00:55:35.360 --> 00:55:42.960
to really be genuine because I'm not, I wear my heart on my sleeve. I can't be fake with people

792
00:55:43.520 --> 00:55:49.760
so if I'm hurting about something, that's gonna come on out. It's gonna come on out the door.

793
00:55:49.760 --> 00:55:54.480
And so I know that about myself and so I have to set boundaries for myself if I'm feeling like I

794
00:55:54.480 --> 00:56:00.160
need to process something for a little bit. And then sometimes I think before I go to church,

795
00:56:00.160 --> 00:56:04.880
yeah, I don't know if I'm gonna go right up to that person. And then God in his grace gives me

796
00:56:04.880 --> 00:56:11.280
courage. One time I, that's what I did, I thought about it all morning before I went to church how

797
00:56:11.280 --> 00:56:17.520
much I did not want to see those people that day. And then I got to church and all of a sudden the

798
00:56:17.600 --> 00:56:22.960
Holy Spirit came on me and said, go on over there and tell him that you forgive him.

799
00:56:25.440 --> 00:56:32.960
Man, okay. So I did. I did and it felt good. I was being real. I really did forgive him,

800
00:56:33.920 --> 00:56:40.000
but I just had to get over the hurdle of seeing him. Y'all, those are layers of healing and

801
00:56:40.000 --> 00:56:46.640
forgiveness. Now, that person is not massively toxic, okay? This is a person who made a mistake.

802
00:56:47.200 --> 00:56:52.560
So there's a difference, but I want you to see how sometimes that will work. All right. So I want to

803
00:56:52.560 --> 00:56:58.800
encourage you to not write off every church leader and every leader forever because of the mistakes

804
00:56:58.800 --> 00:57:04.640
of other church leaders. Signs of a healthy spiritual community. Accountability will flow

805
00:57:04.640 --> 00:57:10.400
both ways. Leadership is transparent and teachable. People are celebrated, not controlled.

806
00:57:11.120 --> 00:57:17.440
You are free to ask questions and express doubts.

807
00:57:19.600 --> 00:57:24.320
Now, here's the thing. I always try to present both sides, okay?

808
00:57:25.360 --> 00:57:31.040
If you are someone that really struggles with insecurity and you circle around that a lot,

809
00:57:33.120 --> 00:57:40.000
you might have people who set boundaries with you to help you hopefully kind of work through

810
00:57:40.000 --> 00:57:45.200
that on your own a little more so that then you can come back together with them.

811
00:57:46.400 --> 00:57:52.880
Because that leader may also need to like create some space if there's something toxic going on

812
00:57:52.880 --> 00:57:58.400
from you, okay? It doesn't mean they don't love you. It doesn't mean they don't care about you,

813
00:57:59.200 --> 00:58:03.920
but they might identify like, I need to let that person have a little space right now

814
00:58:03.920 --> 00:58:10.400
because the dynamic we have going on with us isn't healthy, okay? All right. I'm going to

815
00:58:10.400 --> 00:58:17.680
keep moving. Start small. So if you are, what I mean by this, if you have been hurt by the church,

816
00:58:17.680 --> 00:58:22.800
a church community, a church leader, I want to encourage you to start small. You know,

817
00:58:22.800 --> 00:58:26.320
find someone that you can be safe with that is a Christian. Hopefully you're finding that you

818
00:58:26.320 --> 00:58:30.640
can be safe here. Again, we have a lot of people here. Guess what's going to happen?

819
00:58:31.280 --> 00:58:35.680
There's going to be people in here that are still broken and they might say or do things and you

820
00:58:35.680 --> 00:58:40.240
guys might, hopefully this doesn't happen, but the reality is I know it does happen. Y'all might do

821
00:58:40.240 --> 00:58:43.680
or say things and hurt each other, but hopefully you forgive each other and you work through that

822
00:58:43.680 --> 00:58:48.720
stuff just like any other place. Do you know families can have disagreements and they can

823
00:58:48.720 --> 00:58:55.520
learn to heal when they're healthy families? It's true. Maybe have one honest conversation,

824
00:58:56.480 --> 00:59:01.760
one step back towards community. If you're someone that's been struggling with isolation,

825
00:59:01.760 --> 00:59:08.800
not because those people deserve your trust, but because you deserve to not be alone.

826
00:59:11.120 --> 00:59:12.480
Do you see the difference there?

827
00:59:14.960 --> 00:59:22.560
Here's another activation. I want you to drop in the chat for me. Is there a lie about God

828
00:59:23.520 --> 00:59:28.480
that your church hurt has caused you to have that you are ready to let go of tonight?

829
00:59:29.680 --> 00:59:35.120
So for those that are courageous enough to say, hey, this is a lie I've been believing about God

830
00:59:35.120 --> 00:59:40.240
and I want to let it go tonight. I would love for you to put that in the chat for us so that we can

831
00:59:40.240 --> 00:59:47.680
come alongside of you and cheer you on. And so the goal would be to say what the lie is. What's the

832
00:59:47.760 --> 00:59:52.160
lie you've been believing about God because of some church hurt or church leader that,

833
00:59:52.880 --> 00:59:57.600
you know, hurt you along the way. And then we will take time at the end of tonight.

834
00:59:57.600 --> 00:59:59.760
I'll actually put a note so I don't forget.

835
01:00:00.000 --> 01:00:13.440
Pray over, because I forgot to put that at the end of my notes, and I'll forget if I get going.

836
01:00:13.440 --> 01:00:20.080
All right, so here's another activation for you. I want you, we did this last time very similar,

837
01:00:20.080 --> 01:00:25.120
and I got a lot of great feedback from it, so I want to do this similar again,

838
01:00:25.760 --> 01:00:33.360
but it's going to be regarding church hurt. Here's number one. You want to complete the

839
01:00:33.360 --> 01:00:37.600
spiritual wound inventory, which is what we were doing before, where we're saying, okay,

840
01:00:37.600 --> 01:00:41.920
this is the wound that happened. This is how it made me think about God. This is how it made me

841
01:00:41.920 --> 01:00:46.960
think about myself. That's the first part, okay? Then you want to work through the spiritual wound

842
01:00:46.960 --> 01:00:52.800
reframe, so you identify the wound and the lies that came, and then you use that revealing for

843
01:00:52.800 --> 01:00:59.920
healing worksheet to come through to the truth side. What's the truth? You identify scriptures

844
01:01:02.000 --> 01:01:07.840
that connect with the truth, and then I'm going to encourage you all to spend

845
01:01:09.120 --> 01:01:18.160
five to ten minutes just in Psalm 23, in addition to the other scriptures that God is giving you,

846
01:01:19.040 --> 01:01:28.640
and let God reintroduce himself to you as your shepherd. The shepherd that you needed back then

847
01:01:28.640 --> 01:01:33.440
and the shepherd that you need today but did not receive from the people that were walking in

848
01:01:33.440 --> 01:01:43.840
brokenness. Spend five to ten minutes in Psalm 23 and let God reintroduce himself as the shepherd

849
01:01:43.840 --> 01:01:49.600
that you needed back then and you still need today, but that, you know, those those people

850
01:01:49.600 --> 01:01:58.000
that were walking in brokenness were not able to be to you. And you can do these on separate days,

851
01:01:58.000 --> 01:02:03.040
so day one, you know, do step one. Day two, but if you want to do them all in one sitting, that's

852
01:02:03.040 --> 01:02:08.720
totally fine too, okay? Number four, because sometimes remember you need stuff to have some

853
01:02:08.720 --> 01:02:12.320
space to percolate to the surface. You guys remember that I would talk about that in the

854
01:02:12.320 --> 01:02:16.960
heart work a lot? Sometimes you just need some space and some grace for stuff to bubble up.

855
01:02:18.560 --> 01:02:23.680
Number four, write a letter of release to the person or community that hurt you,

856
01:02:23.680 --> 01:02:28.160
but here's the key. We did this last month. You do not send it to them.

857
01:02:30.080 --> 01:02:36.640
This is about you and God working through this together. You write a letter of release to the

858
01:02:36.640 --> 01:02:44.880
person or community that hurt you. You don't send it. You surrender it. I like to burn things,

859
01:02:44.880 --> 01:02:49.200
you all, when I'm releasing things. You guys can do whatever you want with it. If you want to rip

860
01:02:49.200 --> 01:02:56.240
it up, rip it up, but do it somewhere safe, of course, if you burn it. But that's just another

861
01:02:56.240 --> 01:03:01.280
layer of release for me. That's why sometimes I like to write things out and then like, you know,

862
01:03:01.280 --> 01:03:05.840
set it on fire because it just gives me that additional kind of like I can pray as it burns

863
01:03:05.840 --> 01:03:12.400
or whatever. But you all do it however you feel led. And then number five, take one small step

864
01:03:12.400 --> 01:03:19.280
toward that healthy spiritual connection. Maybe a conversation. Remember a service, a prayer. Maybe,

865
01:03:19.280 --> 01:03:25.040
you know, for some of you, you haven't gone to church in a really long time. Pyro satisfaction,

866
01:03:25.040 --> 01:03:32.320
Don, that's funny. Melissa, Don. Yeah, but maybe some of you haven't been to church in a really

867
01:03:32.320 --> 01:03:40.720
long time. It might be to go check out a church near you. Remind them. Oh, sorry. This is my own

868
01:03:40.720 --> 01:03:47.200
note to myself. Sorry. Remember what I said earlier, healing your spiritual wounds is like

869
01:03:47.200 --> 01:03:51.680
an act of faith. So some of this is that you're going to have to walk by faith. It's not always

870
01:03:51.680 --> 01:03:56.640
going to feel like, oh, I'm just better now. Like it's just all gone. But you're going to walk this

871
01:03:56.640 --> 01:04:01.360
out just like you did with the initial heartwork. And you're going to believe that God is going to

872
01:04:01.440 --> 01:04:07.840
meet you every step of the way and help you heal more and more. Gwen, that's awesome.

873
01:04:09.280 --> 01:04:15.440
All right. So I am going to open the heartwork seat. If you've not been here for one of these

874
01:04:15.440 --> 01:04:22.880
before, this is when anybody can raise their hand if they want to process out loud with everybody.

875
01:04:23.440 --> 01:04:27.600
Some of what maybe God is bringing up in them tonight, I can coach you through it.

876
01:04:28.400 --> 01:04:33.840
If people are a little shy about this topic tonight, I did bring some additional stuff.

877
01:04:33.840 --> 01:04:41.200
So I will kind of follow your all's lead. If there's anyone that has anything with a spiritual

878
01:04:41.200 --> 01:04:48.160
leader, church hurt, the floor is open to you. So you're going to want to raise your hand so I can

879
01:04:48.160 --> 01:04:55.200
call on you. That's the easiest way for me. All right. Helen is brave and she's going to go first.

880
01:04:55.200 --> 01:04:59.840
Everybody, you're all brave. You're all brave. All right.

881
01:05:00.000 --> 01:05:02.880
Helen, we'd love to hear what you have to say.

882
01:05:02.880 --> 01:05:04.120
Can you hear me OK?

883
01:05:04.120 --> 01:05:05.800
I can.

884
01:05:05.800 --> 01:05:07.440
Sorry for not being on camera.

885
01:05:07.440 --> 01:05:11.280
You don't want to see me, but next time you will.

886
01:05:11.280 --> 01:05:14.240
So there's several things, but I'll just

887
01:05:14.240 --> 01:05:16.720
mention the one that just will make sense to everybody.

888
01:05:16.720 --> 01:05:19.400
But I used to go to this church years ago,

889
01:05:19.400 --> 01:05:21.440
about three, four years ago.

890
01:05:21.440 --> 01:05:23.640
And one of the leaders had an issue with my last name.

891
01:05:23.640 --> 01:05:26.120
I have a last name that's hard to pronounce.

892
01:05:26.120 --> 01:05:29.120
And she made fun of it.

893
01:05:29.120 --> 01:05:34.080
And so that, among other things, having

894
01:05:34.080 --> 01:05:35.960
to do with my country of origin.

895
01:05:35.960 --> 01:05:41.960
And so at the time that these things were happening to me,

896
01:05:41.960 --> 01:05:43.880
when I look back now, I'm like, I didn't even

897
01:05:43.880 --> 01:05:45.080
bring them to the Lord.

898
01:05:45.080 --> 01:05:46.360
I didn't think that He cared.

899
01:05:46.360 --> 01:05:50.240
I didn't think that these were things that I could process

900
01:05:50.240 --> 01:05:54.360
with God, ask Him what He thought about these things

901
01:05:54.360 --> 01:05:55.200
that were happening.

902
01:05:55.200 --> 01:05:56.840
I didn't even consider it.

903
01:05:56.840 --> 01:05:58.640
I mean, now I would, right?

904
01:05:58.640 --> 01:06:03.040
I mean, a healthier place where I could even

905
01:06:03.040 --> 01:06:05.720
confront in a healthy way that person or say, hey,

906
01:06:05.720 --> 01:06:07.960
this isn't OK what you're doing, et cetera.

907
01:06:07.960 --> 01:06:09.640
But at the time, and this has been

908
01:06:09.640 --> 01:06:14.480
a journey of not believing that God cares for me,

909
01:06:14.480 --> 01:06:17.520
even in the things that hurt me.

910
01:06:17.520 --> 01:06:19.760
It's just wild how I didn't even consider

911
01:06:19.760 --> 01:06:22.880
that He cared, that He would have cared about those things.

912
01:06:22.880 --> 01:06:25.200
Yeah, and Helen, I think that there's a lot of people

913
01:06:25.200 --> 01:06:27.840
that feel very similar to you.

914
01:06:27.840 --> 01:06:31.840
I highly recommend for you to even do a forgiveness prayer

915
01:06:31.840 --> 01:06:34.520
sheet to forgive her for making fun of your name.

916
01:06:34.520 --> 01:06:36.880
I'm sorry that that happened to you.

917
01:06:36.880 --> 01:06:39.840
Sometimes I don't, I think people get insecure

918
01:06:39.840 --> 01:06:42.120
because they don't know how to say or do something,

919
01:06:42.120 --> 01:06:43.560
but that still doesn't excuse it.

920
01:06:43.560 --> 01:06:45.000
I don't know what her reasoning was.

921
01:06:45.000 --> 01:06:46.560
I do know that that happens sometimes,

922
01:06:46.560 --> 01:06:48.000
but that doesn't make it OK.

923
01:06:48.000 --> 01:06:50.040
And it really does hurt people's feelings.

924
01:06:50.040 --> 01:06:55.040
And so again, I think us owning, not owning,

925
01:06:55.520 --> 01:06:58.640
that's not the right word, acknowledging to ourselves,

926
01:06:58.640 --> 01:07:00.000
like, hey, this hurt me.

927
01:07:00.000 --> 01:07:03.360
I had a little girl in my Sunday school class,

928
01:07:03.360 --> 01:07:04.960
Children's Church on Sunday.

929
01:07:05.960 --> 01:07:09.400
I was talking to them about just how Jesus

930
01:07:09.400 --> 01:07:11.680
overcomes everything, and we were talking about that.

931
01:07:11.680 --> 01:07:14.080
And I was trying to give them analogies

932
01:07:14.080 --> 01:07:16.520
of like him overcoming darkness.

933
01:07:16.520 --> 01:07:19.440
And I asked them, have they ever been bullied?

934
01:07:19.440 --> 01:07:22.840
And she said, I have.

935
01:07:22.840 --> 01:07:24.480
And I said, well, what happened?

936
01:07:24.880 --> 01:07:26.320
And she said, someone told me

937
01:07:26.320 --> 01:07:28.880
that my skin color looked like dirt.

938
01:07:30.640 --> 01:07:34.480
And I was like, I am so sorry that happened to you.

939
01:07:34.480 --> 01:07:35.720
I mean, she's 10.

940
01:07:37.960 --> 01:07:39.920
Thankfully, that didn't happen in the church.

941
01:07:39.920 --> 01:07:41.360
That happened somewhere else.

942
01:07:41.360 --> 01:07:44.960
But still, I bring it up because this little 10-year-old

943
01:07:44.960 --> 01:07:47.680
had somebody say something like that to her.

944
01:07:47.680 --> 01:07:50.640
And what if her and I didn't have that conversation?

945
01:07:51.640 --> 01:07:55.800
You know, that stuff could sit there for a really long time.

946
01:07:55.800 --> 01:07:57.840
And so I want you all to really work

947
01:07:57.840 --> 01:08:00.360
on not minimizing these things.

948
01:08:00.360 --> 01:08:03.880
When someone makes fun of our names, our skin color,

949
01:08:03.880 --> 01:08:07.840
who we are, where we came from, whatever that looks like,

950
01:08:07.840 --> 01:08:09.760
that stuff, if we don't deal with it,

951
01:08:09.760 --> 01:08:13.400
it can hurt us long-term.

952
01:08:13.400 --> 01:08:16.080
And then we don't show up in relationships fully

953
01:08:16.080 --> 01:08:18.640
because there's a part of us that holds back.

954
01:08:19.560 --> 01:08:23.200
Some of you all, you know, Jackie talks about like,

955
01:08:23.200 --> 01:08:24.560
you know, she used to get made fun of

956
01:08:24.560 --> 01:08:26.439
because she was so tall.

957
01:08:26.439 --> 01:08:28.880
Some of us get made fun of because we're really short.

958
01:08:28.880 --> 01:08:30.200
I'm in the short crew.

959
01:08:32.240 --> 01:08:34.399
You know, people say and do all kinds of things.

960
01:08:34.399 --> 01:08:37.200
So if there are other things,

961
01:08:37.200 --> 01:08:38.920
I wanna kind of see a raise of hands.

962
01:08:38.920 --> 01:08:41.560
And Robin, I'll come to you here in just a minute.

963
01:08:41.560 --> 01:08:44.319
Or let's put it in the chat so we don't mess up.

964
01:08:44.319 --> 01:08:45.880
Robin already has her hand up.

965
01:08:45.880 --> 01:08:47.279
Put in the chat for me,

966
01:08:47.279 --> 01:08:50.479
if you are someone that's a spiritual leader

967
01:08:50.479 --> 01:08:53.240
made fun of you in some way.

968
01:08:54.240 --> 01:08:55.880
Go ahead and put a hand in the chat for me.

969
01:08:55.880 --> 01:08:57.760
Yeah, Gwen just did it there.

970
01:08:57.760 --> 01:08:59.600
Someone that was a church leader

971
01:08:59.600 --> 01:09:01.399
made fun of you in some way.

972
01:09:01.399 --> 01:09:02.720
You guys can put any symbol in there.

973
01:09:02.720 --> 01:09:03.640
It's totally fine.

974
01:09:06.600 --> 01:09:07.439
All right.

975
01:09:08.960 --> 01:09:10.920
And so if that wasn't one of your first things

976
01:09:10.920 --> 01:09:12.040
that came to mind tonight,

977
01:09:12.040 --> 01:09:14.000
those of you that are kind of saying in the chat,

978
01:09:14.000 --> 01:09:17.600
hey, a church leader or someone that was a mentor to me

979
01:09:17.600 --> 01:09:18.960
made fun of me in some way,

980
01:09:18.960 --> 01:09:20.840
I really wanna encourage you to process that

981
01:09:20.840 --> 01:09:23.880
with some of the things that we talked about already tonight

982
01:09:23.880 --> 01:09:27.640
because sometimes what can happen as well

983
01:09:27.640 --> 01:09:32.640
is we will start to disassociate from that part of ourself.

984
01:09:35.160 --> 01:09:36.800
We will start to shut down

985
01:09:36.800 --> 01:09:38.840
and not like that aspect of ourselves

986
01:09:38.840 --> 01:09:43.840
because of other people's thoughts and comments and ideas.

987
01:09:45.000 --> 01:09:49.080
Yeah, I don't like that either when people are like,

988
01:09:49.080 --> 01:09:50.520
ah, you're so late.

989
01:09:50.520 --> 01:09:52.680
I tell people all the time, hey,

990
01:09:52.680 --> 01:09:55.120
I mean, of course we love when people come on time,

991
01:09:55.120 --> 01:09:56.360
even like to stuff like this,

992
01:09:56.360 --> 01:09:57.880
but I had somebody apologize to me

993
01:09:57.880 --> 01:09:59.120
because they came late to hard work.

994
01:09:59.120 --> 01:10:00.360
I'm like, it's all right.

995
01:10:00.000 --> 01:10:04.320
you're here. You know, I don't take that personally. I don't

996
01:10:04.320 --> 01:10:06.840
know what their day look like. I don't know what they had going

997
01:10:06.840 --> 01:10:11.080
on. So hopefully we were like that in church to hopefully we

998
01:10:11.080 --> 01:10:13.240
treat our friends like that. If they're not somebody who's a

999
01:10:13.240 --> 01:10:16.440
habitual late person. Now, I think that's something that that

1000
01:10:16.440 --> 01:10:20.680
person might need to work on, right? habitually being late and

1001
01:10:20.680 --> 01:10:23.680
not maybe showing that person how much they care about them by

1002
01:10:23.680 --> 01:10:26.600
being on time. But in this regard, yeah, I think there

1003
01:10:26.600 --> 01:10:30.080
needs to be space and grace. Those are all things that

1004
01:10:30.080 --> 01:10:32.240
matter, because some people can kind of get embarrassed, like,

1005
01:10:32.280 --> 01:10:34.440
oh, and then it makes them feel like they don't want to come

1006
01:10:34.440 --> 01:10:37.600
again. Right. All right, Robin, I would love to hear what you

1007
01:10:37.600 --> 01:10:44.600
have to say. Oh, you're muted if you're talking.

1008
01:10:46.680 --> 01:10:47.360
Sorry.

1009
01:10:47.840 --> 01:10:48.560
That's all right.

1010
01:10:49.360 --> 01:10:52.080
So I just share like what happened and lies that I

1011
01:10:52.080 --> 01:10:52.720
believed.

1012
01:10:52.800 --> 01:10:54.240
Yeah, that'd be great.

1013
01:10:54.600 --> 01:10:59.920
Okay, it's a complicated story, but I'm going to ask the Lord to

1014
01:10:59.960 --> 01:11:03.520
make it brief. Help me to do that. And I just want to

1015
01:11:03.520 --> 01:11:06.680
preface it that I have had a lot of healing about this. But I

1016
01:11:06.680 --> 01:11:10.800
found in the last couple weeks, since I've rejoined LIS, it's

1017
01:11:10.800 --> 01:11:13.360
been bubbling up. And I said, I still have something there that's

1018
01:11:13.360 --> 01:11:15.880
not healed. So that's why I'm bringing it up. Does that make

1019
01:11:15.880 --> 01:11:20.960
sense? Yes. So this was over 15 years ago, I was part of a

1020
01:11:20.960 --> 01:11:26.280
charismatic community. It wasn't my main church. And the

1021
01:11:26.280 --> 01:11:30.600
leader of that he was also a regional charismatic leader. So

1022
01:11:30.600 --> 01:11:35.280
that he felt that God told him that he was to be mine and my

1023
01:11:35.280 --> 01:11:41.240
best friend, spiritual father. And he's the person that came to

1024
01:11:41.240 --> 01:11:45.240
mind. And he tried to set me up with a guy. And I had a whole

1025
01:11:45.240 --> 01:11:48.600
bunch of prophetic words being told to me about my husband. And

1026
01:11:48.600 --> 01:11:50.960
then he had a whole bunch of prophetic words being told to

1027
01:11:50.960 --> 01:11:55.360
him about his wife, and it was the perfect storm. And then he

1028
01:11:55.360 --> 01:11:59.000
moved, we were hanging out, there was indications of

1029
01:11:59.000 --> 01:12:02.840
romantic interest. And then all of a sudden, this anxiety came

1030
01:12:02.840 --> 01:12:05.200
up in him. And he said, this is reminding me of others, I found

1031
01:12:05.200 --> 01:12:08.800
out he has a history of leading multiple women on at the same

1032
01:12:08.800 --> 01:12:13.280
time. And I think in one case, there was even some sexual sin

1033
01:12:13.280 --> 01:12:18.160
back in England. So this is a big mess. And because there were

1034
01:12:18.160 --> 01:12:22.520
so much spiritualization of everything. And this is in my

1035
01:12:22.520 --> 01:12:28.200
early 30s. I'm in my late 40s. Now. I like had in tremendous

1036
01:12:28.200 --> 01:12:31.480
anxiety, and I stopped sleeping. And it was a whole breakdown,

1037
01:12:31.480 --> 01:12:34.680
like, it's kind of embarrassing, but I'm jealous for freedom. And

1038
01:12:34.680 --> 01:12:40.040
so I've processed it. I've done inner healing. You know what I

1039
01:12:40.040 --> 01:12:45.400
mean? I've done all this stuff. But what's been coming up for me

1040
01:12:45.400 --> 01:12:51.160
sorry, a little cheery lately. I was in a relationship that just

1041
01:12:51.160 --> 01:12:53.280
ended a year ago that I thought could have been it, you know, we

1042
01:12:53.280 --> 01:12:55.640
sometimes talk the one before the one, hoping it's the one

1043
01:12:55.640 --> 01:12:59.320
before the one. And it's good. God protected me some stuff came

1044
01:12:59.320 --> 01:13:03.600
up. But just even with that is like stepping back in and hoping

1045
01:13:03.600 --> 01:13:08.440
again. Because I took a break from dating. The lie that I have

1046
01:13:08.440 --> 01:13:11.320
about God, I have a few, but there's two things I want to say

1047
01:13:11.320 --> 01:13:19.160
is that, like I, God doesn't care about finding me like

1048
01:13:19.160 --> 01:13:22.920
helping me with a spirit mate, my love life. The idea is like

1049
01:13:22.920 --> 01:13:27.920
I'm extremely low importance. Because I felt almost mocked

1050
01:13:27.920 --> 01:13:30.800
with that because I cared about it. And then, you know, there's

1051
01:13:30.800 --> 01:13:33.080
all the weird prophetic stuff that you're not supposed to do.

1052
01:13:35.080 --> 01:13:41.040
And the lie related to me is I'm jinxed from finding a mate. I

1053
01:13:41.040 --> 01:13:45.400
know, that's kind of a new thing. But like, that's how I

1054
01:13:45.400 --> 01:13:51.040
feel. Like, I can get dates, but it's like finding someone that's

1055
01:13:51.040 --> 01:13:52.080
a connection, right?

1056
01:13:52.920 --> 01:13:57.920
Yeah. And some of that, you know, some of that can come out

1057
01:13:57.920 --> 01:14:01.400
of because of that kind of struggle regarding things that

1058
01:14:01.400 --> 01:14:05.440
actually are like spiritual concepts and principles like the

1059
01:14:05.440 --> 01:14:09.200
prophetic, but because it was kind of warped, it can cause us

1060
01:14:09.200 --> 01:14:13.760
to link to things that are mentioned in like, maybe the

1061
01:14:13.760 --> 01:14:17.560
secular circles, if you will. And so I don't think bad of it.

1062
01:14:17.560 --> 01:14:20.120
I think, you know, there's a lot of people that actually, we're

1063
01:14:20.120 --> 01:14:22.320
not going to get into this tonight. But I've had people

1064
01:14:22.320 --> 01:14:26.640
that even think like, there's a spiritual mate in the spirit

1065
01:14:26.640 --> 01:14:30.240
realm blocking their actual, you know, spirit mate from coming

1066
01:14:30.240 --> 01:14:31.680
them. No, I don't believe in that.

1067
01:14:32.000 --> 01:14:34.160
Yeah, I don't think complicated. It's just like, things aren't

1068
01:14:34.160 --> 01:14:34.840
working out.

1069
01:14:34.880 --> 01:14:37.960
Yeah. But I'm just saying to you, I'm saying to people, you

1070
01:14:37.960 --> 01:14:40.560
know, hear things or make connections in all kinds of ways.

1071
01:14:40.560 --> 01:14:42.400
And so I'm just trying to support you and what you were

1072
01:14:42.400 --> 01:14:46.600
saying. And so Robin, first, thanks for sharing that with us.

1073
01:14:46.600 --> 01:14:50.480
This is something that's very real, and unfortunately, more

1074
01:14:50.480 --> 01:14:56.160
prevalent in Christian circles than I wish it was. But I love

1075
01:14:56.160 --> 01:14:58.520
that you're identifying, hey, I did some healing around this,

1076
01:14:58.520 --> 01:14:59.960
but it's coming up again. So I

1077
01:15:00.000 --> 01:15:03.660
think I have another layer of healing. That's amazing

1078
01:15:03.660 --> 01:15:06.100
awareness. And I think that God is just going to keep

1079
01:15:06.100 --> 01:15:12.460
connecting dots for you. You know, I would encourage you to

1080
01:15:12.460 --> 01:15:17.740
look at the extremely low importance one really stood out

1081
01:15:17.740 --> 01:15:24.420
to me. And I do think it's connected to that situation with

1082
01:15:24.420 --> 01:15:29.180
that person. But I feel like this goes back to like when you

1083
01:15:29.180 --> 01:15:34.380
were younger that that's coming back up again. I'm where I don't

1084
01:15:34.380 --> 01:15:37.620
know if you weren't picked for something or if there was

1085
01:15:37.620 --> 01:15:40.180
something where you just felt I don't know if you have siblings,

1086
01:15:40.380 --> 01:15:43.620
but I keep kind of seeing like as if you know that, like you

1087
01:15:43.620 --> 01:15:47.340
weren't picked, you weren't picked or you were put behind,

1088
01:15:47.500 --> 01:15:50.820
like someone else's stuff always felt more important than yours.

1089
01:15:51.220 --> 01:15:54.180
And so I don't know, does that resonate at all for you?

1090
01:15:55.060 --> 01:16:01.780
Yeah, um, what immediately came to mind? And again, it sounds

1091
01:16:01.780 --> 01:16:05.300
silly, but I know with inner healing, it doesn't matter.

1092
01:16:05.660 --> 01:16:08.220
Here, let's say this, you don't even have to say it sounds

1093
01:16:08.220 --> 01:16:13.060
silly, because it's what it's what you know. Okay, so I'm not

1094
01:16:13.060 --> 01:16:15.540
gonna think it sounds silly. I can I can promise you that.

1095
01:16:16.180 --> 01:16:21.420
Yeah, so I feel emotional, but it's okay. Yeah, what came to

1096
01:16:21.420 --> 01:16:25.020
mind was I was in grade two. And it was like the first crush

1097
01:16:25.020 --> 01:16:28.860
that I had. And I told my friends, and his name was Mark

1098
01:16:28.860 --> 01:16:34.820
Smith. Hope there's Mark Smith not on here now. And he came up

1099
01:16:34.820 --> 01:16:38.340
to me and kind of made fun of Oh, I hear you like me and I

1100
01:16:38.340 --> 01:16:42.100
just sunk in my seat. And then I've had a couple situations

1101
01:16:42.100 --> 01:16:46.420
when I was younger, when I let like I had a crush on someone

1102
01:16:46.420 --> 01:16:50.060
first, and then someone let them know and I wasn't chosen. So

1103
01:16:50.060 --> 01:16:52.460
that's what's coming up to because I kind of I'm crushing

1104
01:16:52.460 --> 01:16:56.540
on someone that I know. But it keeps coming up the person like

1105
01:16:56.540 --> 01:16:59.340
if I have a crush on someone first, it's not going to happen.

1106
01:16:59.900 --> 01:17:03.660
Or a person I really like isn't gonna like me back. I don't know

1107
01:17:03.660 --> 01:17:07.020
if you feel that connects. But like, that keeps definitely does.

1108
01:17:07.060 --> 01:17:13.580
Yeah, yeah. So, um, unless I have to chase after someone. But

1109
01:17:13.580 --> 01:17:16.900
I'm just saying that, like, I have this idea that if it starts

1110
01:17:16.900 --> 01:17:19.020
this way, it's not not gonna work.

1111
01:17:19.260 --> 01:17:22.780
Yeah. So this might sound like a really simple thing. But I'm

1112
01:17:22.780 --> 01:17:26.180
just gonna tell you what I keep seeing in my spirit. Like, I

1113
01:17:26.180 --> 01:17:30.340
want you to, like on a piece of paper, just like a eight and a

1114
01:17:30.340 --> 01:17:36.300
half by 11. I want you to draw a circle. And I want you to write

1115
01:17:36.300 --> 01:17:48.260
in it. I, Robin, am chosen. First, I want you to include the

1116
01:17:48.260 --> 01:17:51.620
word first, I wasn't gonna have you say it initially, but I felt

1117
01:17:51.620 --> 01:17:58.100
led to tell you that one too. I Robin am chosen first, written.

1118
01:17:58.660 --> 01:18:01.540
All right. And I want you to put it up. I know that again, I know

1119
01:18:01.540 --> 01:18:04.140
this sounds simple, but I want you to put it up. And I want you

1120
01:18:04.140 --> 01:18:08.940
to partner with it every day right now. So remember, ladies

1121
01:18:08.940 --> 01:18:11.700
and gentlemen, we have to come out of alignment with the lies

1122
01:18:11.700 --> 01:18:15.220
that we believe. So I would also put up a reminder to say to

1123
01:18:15.220 --> 01:18:19.580
myself, I come out of agreement with the lie that I'm of

1124
01:18:19.580 --> 01:18:26.180
extremely low importance, and I am not chosen. I choose to come

1125
01:18:26.180 --> 01:18:31.740
into agreement with the truth that I Robin am not only chosen,

1126
01:18:31.740 --> 01:18:35.500
but I'm chosen first. And again, I don't know how that's

1127
01:18:35.500 --> 01:18:38.940
gonna work out in your life. But the reality is, is we have to

1128
01:18:38.940 --> 01:18:44.220
first believe it in our hearts before we can receive it. And so

1129
01:18:44.220 --> 01:18:47.140
when we have a struggle with belief, remember, I'm really big

1130
01:18:47.140 --> 01:18:50.940
on I believe help my unbelief. So Lord, if I don't believe that

1131
01:18:50.940 --> 01:18:54.860
I'm chosen first, help me to get to the root of the insecurity in

1132
01:18:54.860 --> 01:18:58.180
my and even abandonment or neglect, you know, the pain of

1133
01:18:58.180 --> 01:19:00.900
the past, you may need to forgive. I don't know if you've

1134
01:19:00.900 --> 01:19:03.300
already done a forgiveness sheet for that little Mark

1135
01:19:03.300 --> 01:19:08.060
Smith in second grade. But I would do a forgiveness sheet for

1136
01:19:08.060 --> 01:19:11.900
Mark Smith. He's the first one that you thought of tonight. You

1137
01:19:11.900 --> 01:19:14.780
know, these other guys came after that didn't choose you to

1138
01:19:14.780 --> 01:19:17.980
you might have to do one for them. But like Mark Smith came

1139
01:19:17.980 --> 01:19:20.300
up and he made fun of you. You said?

1140
01:19:21.620 --> 01:19:24.940
Yeah, I was like teasing me that I like him. But he clearly wasn't

1141
01:19:24.940 --> 01:19:26.940
saying he liked me back. I mean, I don't know. He's a great too.

1142
01:19:26.940 --> 01:19:30.700
But my little great to heart. That's not your chosen.

1143
01:19:30.900 --> 01:19:34.220
Well, and here's the thing. And this is why I think this is such

1144
01:19:34.220 --> 01:19:38.420
an important example. We're talking about church hurt. But

1145
01:19:38.420 --> 01:19:43.180
y'all see how this went way back to some other things to this is

1146
01:19:43.180 --> 01:19:46.620
how healing works in general, no matter what the wound is.

1147
01:19:46.860 --> 01:19:50.460
Typically, there's underlying things that that that thing

1148
01:19:50.540 --> 01:19:55.020
here got connected, and it made it stronger. That's where the

1149
01:19:55.020 --> 01:20:00.060
strongholds are built. And so forgiving Mark Smith.

1150
01:20:00.000 --> 01:20:03.480
is probably going to unlock some things for you.

1151
01:20:04.680 --> 01:20:07.520
Because he's the first one, even if he didn't understand what he

1152
01:20:07.520 --> 01:20:11.920
was doing, the reality is, is it hurt you? Yeah, acknowledging

1153
01:20:11.920 --> 01:20:17.960
that. And even if I don't know if you told mom or a friend that

1154
01:20:17.960 --> 01:20:21.840
he did that, and if you felt supported, or if they dismissed

1155
01:20:21.840 --> 01:20:24.640
it, but if anything happened like that, I would encourage you

1156
01:20:24.640 --> 01:20:28.520
to forgive those people too. Again, even if the friends were

1157
01:20:28.520 --> 01:20:32.320
young, and they didn't know, or if you went home and told mom

1158
01:20:32.320 --> 01:20:35.880
and mom kind of was like, Oh, you're fine, or any of that kind

1159
01:20:35.880 --> 01:20:41.000
of stuff where someone dismissed your feelings. Okay, it's

1160
01:20:41.000 --> 01:20:45.820
important to acknowledge like, hey, I need to forgive, you

1161
01:20:45.820 --> 01:20:50.160
know, mom or whoever, for dismissing my feelings or

1162
01:20:50.160 --> 01:20:53.520
laughing as well, or whatever, again, whatever that scenario

1163
01:20:53.520 --> 01:20:58.400
might be. Does that make sense? Yep. Yeah, I love this. And you

1164
01:20:58.400 --> 01:21:02.600
know, I think that starting with Mark might even unlock some

1165
01:21:02.600 --> 01:21:07.360
other things regarding the spiritual leader, as well. But

1166
01:21:07.360 --> 01:21:09.960
let's start with, start with Mark, because I think that's

1167
01:21:09.960 --> 01:21:13.560
connecting to the extremely low importance. And then your fear

1168
01:21:13.560 --> 01:21:18.440
of not being able to find a spirit mate. Okay. Thank you,

1169
01:21:18.440 --> 01:21:21.360
Bethany, you're welcome. Thank you for trusting us and sharing

1170
01:21:21.360 --> 01:21:24.080
that. Appreciate you, Gwen, go ahead.

1171
01:21:24.080 --> 01:21:30.320
Hi. Um, yeah. Um, yeah, I have had a issue with something for

1172
01:21:31.440 --> 01:21:36.040
since I started last year single from my previous church. And I

1173
01:21:36.040 --> 01:21:40.280
feel like I'm maybe hiding out with last year single away from

1174
01:21:40.280 --> 01:21:45.080
it. Um, but I did find a new church that's incredibly amazing.

1175
01:21:45.080 --> 01:21:50.440
And I'm glad I ended up there. But, um, my pastor, um, of

1176
01:21:50.440 --> 01:21:55.080
eight years, he was incredible. And we did a lot of healing, and

1177
01:21:55.760 --> 01:21:58.960
heart healing, because it was a really, it was a big priority in

1178
01:21:58.960 --> 01:22:02.640
our church. And so that's why what happened is just kind of

1179
01:22:02.640 --> 01:22:08.560
blew me away. He, I broke up with the guy was dating for a

1180
01:22:08.560 --> 01:22:16.800
year. And he was not my pastor wasn't happy about it. And he

1181
01:22:16.840 --> 01:22:20.920
brought in a lot of money, let's just be honest. But yet, he's

1182
01:22:20.920 --> 01:22:23.480
always said money is not a problem. Money's not an issue. God

1183
01:22:23.480 --> 01:22:27.320
will always provide and I totally believe all that. Anyway, um, I

1184
01:22:27.320 --> 01:22:31.760
was punished. I was punished because I broke up with him. And

1185
01:22:32.840 --> 01:22:37.800
I wasn't even allowed to bring another person in that I, you

1186
01:22:37.800 --> 01:22:44.360
know, was would be dating or whatever it is, but um, I was

1187
01:22:44.360 --> 01:22:50.200
surprised. And, yeah, so I was punished. And because that guy

1188
01:22:50.200 --> 01:22:55.080
was hurting a lot. But I found out who he really was the mask

1189
01:22:55.080 --> 01:22:58.600
fell after. But actually, the Lord told me to get out of the

1190
01:22:58.600 --> 01:23:02.360
relationship two months before that, and I stayed too long. And

1191
01:23:03.040 --> 01:23:07.920
so, yeah, so I just need to, I don't know what I'm just, and I

1192
01:23:07.920 --> 01:23:11.120
don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm

1193
01:23:11.120 --> 01:23:14.920
Yeah, so I just need to, I don't know what I'm just and then that

1194
01:23:14.920 --> 01:23:18.920
guy that I broke up with was also in another worship group.

1195
01:23:19.360 --> 01:23:23.760
That was my heart family. And I just can't go there because I

1196
01:23:23.760 --> 01:23:28.120
know who he really is behind the scenes in many different ways.

1197
01:23:28.640 --> 01:23:32.560
And they don't know it or see it yet. They're so prophetic. And I

1198
01:23:32.560 --> 01:23:36.480
don't, is it me? I'm like confused. Like, I don't know.

1199
01:23:36.520 --> 01:23:40.640
It's like is or am I just to stay to not be in those groups

1200
01:23:40.640 --> 01:23:45.040
anymore. And that, but yeah, my second heart group was I love

1201
01:23:45.040 --> 01:23:48.160
and adore them. And they've lifted me up in my business and

1202
01:23:48.160 --> 01:23:51.800
did so many incredible things for me. And they want me back.

1203
01:23:51.800 --> 01:23:55.640
But that person's there. And I just, how do you go back to an

1204
01:23:55.640 --> 01:24:01.840
old boyfriend that, you know, was deceptive and, and you know

1205
01:24:01.840 --> 01:24:03.920
it, but then no one else knows that you're not allowed to say

1206
01:24:03.920 --> 01:24:07.240
anything, because that's bad. So it's like kind of stuck. Like,

1207
01:24:07.360 --> 01:24:12.880
yeah. Anyway, it's kind of so Gwen, this is a lot of

1208
01:24:12.880 --> 01:24:15.320
different layers here, but so good. First, let me ask you a

1209
01:24:15.320 --> 01:24:18.000
question. And you don't have to tell me the person's name or

1210
01:24:18.000 --> 01:24:20.640
anything that like that, or you don't have to tell in depth, but

1211
01:24:20.640 --> 01:24:24.440
I just feel led to ask you, um, because I think it will help

1212
01:24:24.440 --> 01:24:30.320
some other people to tell me like one or two examples of how

1213
01:24:30.320 --> 01:24:35.360
like ways you were punished for breaking up with that guy. Um,

1214
01:24:35.360 --> 01:24:37.240
whatever you feel comfortable sharing.

1215
01:24:37.240 --> 01:24:41.000
Well, I wanted to talk to the pastor right away. So I was

1216
01:24:41.000 --> 01:24:44.960
punished by being delayed three months. He didn't have time. He

1217
01:24:44.960 --> 01:24:48.840
didn't have time for me to talk about it and like, get some

1218
01:24:48.840 --> 01:24:52.320
resolution and make it clear what was going on or me even

1219
01:24:52.320 --> 01:24:58.040
telling him why. And then, um, and then I, an old boyfriend

1220
01:24:58.040 --> 01:25:00.000
came back in the midst of that.

1221
01:25:00.000 --> 01:25:05.080
And he showed up and proposed to me. So it looks super bad in all ways and

1222
01:25:06.000 --> 01:25:11.180
And I was not allowed to bring him to church because it would hurt the other guys feelings

1223
01:25:11.680 --> 01:25:17.780
Even though I was at that church for eight years and they always say you're in family. You're in family

1224
01:25:17.780 --> 01:25:23.040
This is family and that the guy was dating was brand-new. He would that was not his family church

1225
01:25:23.040 --> 01:25:29.060
he had another church, but he was allowed to come in bring in dates or whoever and

1226
01:25:29.180 --> 01:25:31.180
and um, I

1227
01:25:31.940 --> 01:25:36.980
Wasn't yet. I was truly in family. I served there and

1228
01:25:38.500 --> 01:25:42.340
Did the pastor himself tell you that yes that guy there, okay

1229
01:25:42.580 --> 01:25:48.820
Alright, so definitely if you haven't done forgiveness prayer sheets on this totally would even if you've already done it

1230
01:25:48.820 --> 01:25:52.020
It's coming up again tonight. You might want to circle back to that

1231
01:25:52.020 --> 01:25:58.100
Um, because I mean as you know, sometimes when we view a spiritual leader as a

1232
01:25:58.620 --> 01:26:05.300
Punisher punishing us. We often view God as the same that he is, you know, putting us in timeout

1233
01:26:05.300 --> 01:26:07.300
He's punishing us, you know

1234
01:26:07.340 --> 01:26:13.680
We're not allowed to do things other people are allowed to do and so in our process of you know

1235
01:26:13.700 --> 01:26:16.620
Finding our spirit mate or believing for anything new

1236
01:26:16.980 --> 01:26:23.460
We can tend to that that'll be kind of the Achilles heel if you wear well that the enemy will come and try to torment

1237
01:26:23.460 --> 01:26:26.580
those things and then the other thing was

1238
01:26:27.900 --> 01:26:32.500
You know forgiving the pastor for that forgiving anyone else that also joined in that. Um,

1239
01:26:36.580 --> 01:26:39.060
In the delay of three months

1240
01:26:39.060 --> 01:26:45.540
I just kind of feel like if you also had other people in your life that delayed, you know giving you their time

1241
01:26:45.540 --> 01:26:49.500
I'm just wondering if that kind of went into that wound and made a connection there

1242
01:26:49.500 --> 01:26:56.940
And so I feel like that's a separate sheet, you know, and in that I want you to also ask the Lord

1243
01:26:57.100 --> 01:26:57.620
Okay

1244
01:26:57.620 --> 01:27:04.180
I'm not saying the pastor didn't delay you but I want you to ask the Lord if there's anything that he wants to show you

1245
01:27:04.180 --> 01:27:07.580
About that situation this specifically being delayed

1246
01:27:09.060 --> 01:27:14.600
That you haven't seen before so whether it's he wants to show you some truth to that

1247
01:27:15.540 --> 01:27:20.140
Or if there's additional layers to that situation that he wants to heal

1248
01:27:20.140 --> 01:27:22.820
I'm not quite clear on which one it is right now

1249
01:27:22.980 --> 01:27:29.420
But I feel like there's there's some more stuff God wants to heal or reveal connected to that part of it specifically

1250
01:27:30.180 --> 01:27:31.500
and

1251
01:27:31.500 --> 01:27:33.220
then on

1252
01:27:33.220 --> 01:27:35.220
You ask something at the end

1253
01:27:37.140 --> 01:27:37.940
Oh

1254
01:27:37.940 --> 01:27:42.900
How how do you go back around someone that has been unhealthy?

1255
01:27:42.980 --> 01:27:49.740
Well first I would pray and ask the Lord is the Lord leading you to go back there because sometimes you all seasons change

1256
01:27:49.740 --> 01:27:52.540
I mean even before I

1257
01:27:53.060 --> 01:27:59.660
Moved, you know out of out of Indiana and then or excuse me out of Kentucky and then out of Indiana

1258
01:27:59.660 --> 01:28:03.060
you know, I've moved a couple times since I've been in this community, but

1259
01:28:04.140 --> 01:28:10.500
when I broke up with my spiritual daughter's dad and he went we went to the same church and

1260
01:28:11.100 --> 01:28:15.220
It was really awkward and so I just started I didn't stop going to the church

1261
01:28:15.220 --> 01:28:17.100
but thankfully my church was

1262
01:28:17.100 --> 01:28:22.020
Big enough that I could go to a different campus or go to a different service time or whatever

1263
01:28:22.020 --> 01:28:24.020
And so that's what I did

1264
01:28:24.060 --> 01:28:27.460
But if that's not something that you can do, you know

1265
01:28:27.460 --> 01:28:32.940
It's probably gonna be good for you to have some separation there for a while. You might be able to find a different group

1266
01:28:33.860 --> 01:28:39.700
That is similar in nature whether that's online for a season something like this or another group

1267
01:28:40.340 --> 01:28:41.940
and then

1268
01:28:41.940 --> 01:28:49.020
Maybe the day will come where God will, you know, lead you to another in-person group, but I'm not saying we have to avoid people forever

1269
01:28:50.220 --> 01:28:52.820
You feel God leading you to go back to that group

1270
01:28:52.820 --> 01:29:00.180
You have to go with the mindset that you aren't you know, you're going ministry minded. You're not going into

1271
01:29:01.180 --> 01:29:06.100
Maybe you know some people go in and they're they're feeling all awkward because you feel like you have to be friends with someone

1272
01:29:06.380 --> 01:29:11.460
Now I knew what I could do, okay, so I think that's the other thing I want to say to you

1273
01:29:11.460 --> 01:29:13.460
It's what can you handle?

1274
01:29:13.780 --> 01:29:14.580
for me

1275
01:29:14.580 --> 01:29:18.700
I just could not handle looking and being at church with someone who

1276
01:29:19.020 --> 01:29:23.380
Pretended to be one person and then they lied and were you know?

1277
01:29:23.380 --> 01:29:27.980
Somebody that cheated on me over and over and acted like they were a good Christian to other people

1278
01:29:27.980 --> 01:29:34.820
I could not handle that. That was not something I wanted to be a part of and so that's why for me

1279
01:29:34.820 --> 01:29:38.860
I just chose to go to church at a different time and not be around him

1280
01:29:39.380 --> 01:29:45.740
Because then I would just like for like for me I would then just in my spirit judge him

1281
01:29:46.260 --> 01:29:50.120
So if I don't have I know and then you get angry and then it blows up

1282
01:29:50.220 --> 01:29:56.220
Yeah, and so if I didn't have to see him it helped me heal and forgive and move on

1283
01:29:56.220 --> 01:29:59.580
and so sometimes just seasons are over for things or

1284
01:30:00.000 --> 01:30:02.880
again, you might be led to go to a different group and just be

1285
01:30:02.880 --> 01:30:07.040
okay with that. Gwen, you know, God might lead you to a new

1286
01:30:07.040 --> 01:30:11.880
place, a new space, a new guy, and you want to have freedom,

1287
01:30:11.960 --> 01:30:14.920
right? You don't want to feel bound going into a place. And

1288
01:30:14.920 --> 01:30:18.560
so but I would I pray into that and just see what God is telling

1289
01:30:18.560 --> 01:30:22.800
you and leading you to do. And you know, you could try it out

1290
01:30:22.800 --> 01:30:24.840
if you're not sure because some people are like, I don't know

1291
01:30:24.840 --> 01:30:29.080
what God's saying. You could go and if you don't like it and you

1292
01:30:29.080 --> 01:30:32.360
feel uncomfortable, just leave. You know, yeah, you know, some

1293
01:30:32.360 --> 01:30:35.720
of it we have like, it's, it's that simple. You all we can go

1294
01:30:35.720 --> 01:30:39.440
and see how we feel. And kind of test the spirits, if you will

1295
01:30:39.440 --> 01:30:42.800
test how we're doing in this situation. But if you know in

1296
01:30:42.800 --> 01:30:45.680
advance, like, oh, I don't think that's something I want to put

1297
01:30:45.680 --> 01:30:50.080
myself through. Then that's great. Just just don't do it

1298
01:30:50.080 --> 01:30:50.440
then.

1299
01:30:51.920 --> 01:30:54.360
So that makes sense. Yeah, that's where I've been for the

1300
01:30:54.360 --> 01:30:57.520
last two years, going back and forth. Yeah, maybe I'm not

1301
01:30:57.520 --> 01:31:01.200
supposed to be there. Wait, maybe for even if I've this I

1302
01:31:01.200 --> 01:31:03.440
said to the Lord, like, if there's somebody that needs to

1303
01:31:03.440 --> 01:31:06.760
go there, I'll be happy to meet them there for the first time

1304
01:31:06.760 --> 01:31:09.160
and accompany them and help them get prayer and that kind of

1305
01:31:09.160 --> 01:31:12.160
thing. And that's what I did the last time I was there. But I

1306
01:31:12.160 --> 01:31:13.840
almost blew up at the guy.

1307
01:31:15.120 --> 01:31:18.320
Well, it sounds like you already know the answer to this. Yeah, I

1308
01:31:18.320 --> 01:31:22.960
know. But you know, what is new? What Robin said, I didn't even

1309
01:31:22.960 --> 01:31:27.080
think about it. Like, I felt like God didn't protect me with

1310
01:31:27.080 --> 01:31:31.240
that pastor. And I was under the radar like he didn't see me

1311
01:31:31.240 --> 01:31:35.040
or something like, you know, but but you know, honestly, a lot of

1312
01:31:35.040 --> 01:31:38.000
people had said that about that pastor and I was always his

1313
01:31:38.000 --> 01:31:41.480
advocate and I would always I kind of wouldn't even listen to

1314
01:31:41.480 --> 01:31:44.360
the people I would just say no, he's good. It's alright. Because

1315
01:31:44.360 --> 01:31:47.240
you know, all people fail, right? And we all fall short of

1316
01:31:47.240 --> 01:31:51.080
the glory. But this time it happened to me. So I'm like,

1317
01:31:51.120 --> 01:31:51.800
okay, well,

1318
01:31:51.960 --> 01:31:54.920
I also want to kind of and then I'm going to go to Leslie, I

1319
01:31:54.920 --> 01:31:57.920
want to mention something you just said. You said I didn't

1320
01:31:57.920 --> 01:32:02.440
feel like God protected me from that pastor. If you all

1321
01:32:02.440 --> 01:32:06.040
remember, you know, I struggled with this even as a kid, because

1322
01:32:06.040 --> 01:32:08.600
I thought, well, God, why didn't you protect me from my

1323
01:32:08.600 --> 01:32:13.480
brothers? Right. And here's the reality. God gives everybody

1324
01:32:13.480 --> 01:32:20.160
free will. Out of his love, he gives that pastor free will to

1325
01:32:20.160 --> 01:32:24.000
choose. He gives you free will to choose. He gave me free will

1326
01:32:24.000 --> 01:32:27.640
to choose. And he lovingly told me multiple times that my

1327
01:32:27.640 --> 01:32:32.680
spiritual daughter's dad was not good for me. The Holy Spirit was

1328
01:32:32.680 --> 01:32:37.160
telling me over and over and over again. Don't trust him.

1329
01:32:37.320 --> 01:32:40.000
Don't keep giving him your heart. Don't keep staying in

1330
01:32:40.000 --> 01:32:43.080
this relationship. And I kept believing that he was going to

1331
01:32:43.080 --> 01:32:46.280
change because you know what, I just I have the gift of faith

1332
01:32:46.280 --> 01:32:50.920
you all I do. And sometimes that gets overextended. And I give

1333
01:32:50.920 --> 01:32:55.040
people way too much grace to misbehave and treat me bad. And

1334
01:32:55.040 --> 01:32:58.640
so I have to own that side of my street, you know, and really

1335
01:32:58.920 --> 01:33:03.720
look at where do I need to make shifts and set healthier

1336
01:33:03.720 --> 01:33:09.560
boundaries. So that people that are unhealthy can't mistreat me

1337
01:33:09.560 --> 01:33:14.680
and abuse me and these ways repeatedly, right. And so I want

1338
01:33:14.680 --> 01:33:17.800
to really just encourage you to not partner with the lie that

1339
01:33:17.800 --> 01:33:21.680
God, you know, God wasn't defending you, because I think

1340
01:33:21.680 --> 01:33:24.320
God probably was protecting you and defending you. And it was

1341
01:33:24.320 --> 01:33:29.160
probably like you're saying, even through other people, you

1342
01:33:29.160 --> 01:33:32.560
know, people were saying, Hey, he's not safe. I think that that

1343
01:33:32.560 --> 01:33:35.240
is God defending you and trying to protect you. It's whether or

1344
01:33:35.240 --> 01:33:38.800
not you know, sometimes we just, you know, for whatever reason,

1345
01:33:38.800 --> 01:33:41.600
like I said, sometimes my gift of faith kicks in and I just

1346
01:33:41.600 --> 01:33:44.600
want to believe the best in people, you know, so we have to

1347
01:33:44.600 --> 01:33:48.520
be willing to look at that too. All right. Exactly. That's good.

1348
01:33:48.760 --> 01:33:51.520
Thank you so much for sharing. Appreciate you. All right,

1349
01:33:51.560 --> 01:33:52.960
Leslie, go ahead.

1350
01:33:55.560 --> 01:34:00.360
Okay, can you hear me? Okay, I can. Okay, I don't. Hi, I don't

1351
01:34:00.360 --> 01:34:03.240
share very often. I'm kind of private, but I felt sort of led

1352
01:34:03.240 --> 01:34:10.040
to my spiritual, I guess hurt or was a person but the person was

1353
01:34:10.040 --> 01:34:15.160
actually my dad, he was in the ministry full time. And so where

1354
01:34:15.160 --> 01:34:20.600
he went, we went as a family. But and I kind of jokingly call

1355
01:34:20.600 --> 01:34:25.360
him to do as I say, not as I do, pastor, but it really isn't

1356
01:34:25.360 --> 01:34:28.120
funny, because that really was how it was. So I guess in a

1357
01:34:28.120 --> 01:34:32.760
sense, I never really fully respected that the pulpit, I

1358
01:34:32.760 --> 01:34:36.120
guess, because I thought, well, if there anything like him, you

1359
01:34:36.120 --> 01:34:41.640
know, but for me personally, when I was just turned 16, not

1360
01:34:41.640 --> 01:34:47.040
long after I was, I became pregnant. And he was so angry.

1361
01:34:47.080 --> 01:34:51.840
And it was more about his image and that I embarrassed him. And

1362
01:34:51.840 --> 01:34:58.320
what are we going to do to, you know, fix this problem. And so

1363
01:34:59.240 --> 01:35:00.000
what I wrote

1364
01:35:00.000 --> 01:35:03.840
down as far as what it made me believe about God was that love is conditional,

1365
01:35:05.120 --> 01:35:10.160
that my mistakes define me. When I mess up, I'll not be supported. I basically went and

1366
01:35:10.160 --> 01:35:15.840
lived with my grandmother for the summer of my, the beginning of my pregnancy. So from like my

1367
01:35:15.840 --> 01:35:21.200
first, the end of my first trimester till school was going to start again, because he just didn't

1368
01:35:21.200 --> 01:35:26.720
want to see me and he didn't want me to see anybody that, you know, from church or even

1369
01:35:26.720 --> 01:35:34.640
like my grandmother had retired from her job and they didn't, they had me wearing this big dress

1370
01:35:34.640 --> 01:35:42.480
to try to hide something that was clearly not hideable, right? You can't really deny a pregnancy.

1371
01:35:42.480 --> 01:35:48.480
It's just not possible. So the other thing I believe is that he turns his back on me when

1372
01:35:48.480 --> 01:35:54.160
I mess up. And then the lies I believed about myself was I was tainted, that I'm disappointing,

1373
01:35:54.160 --> 01:35:59.520
that I was a statistic, you know, at that, I'm 47. So at that time, teenage pregnancy was

1374
01:36:00.080 --> 01:36:05.360
still, I mean, not that it's okay now, but it's definitely not something that's frowned upon the

1375
01:36:05.360 --> 01:36:12.880
way it was back then. And the feeling to need to hide, I do find myself doing that even now,

1376
01:36:12.880 --> 01:36:19.840
like if I'm sad or upset or stressed or whatever, I work from home. So I have a tendency to

1377
01:36:20.400 --> 01:36:27.920
just stay home, like at all costs, online church, you know, not do anything. And then I bet my

1378
01:36:27.920 --> 01:36:33.840
feelings are irrelevant. And I do find myself feeling that way in relationships. A lot of times,

1379
01:36:33.840 --> 01:36:41.040
you know, not that all men, men are less emotional from what I have found. And so if I am emotional,

1380
01:36:41.360 --> 01:36:49.840
I often feel like I'm too much or that what I feel in the situation doesn't really matter

1381
01:36:49.840 --> 01:36:56.800
or what have you. So all that being said, now my dad is elderly, and I have several siblings,

1382
01:36:56.800 --> 01:37:02.080
but none of them are very interested in spending time with him because he was just as unkind to

1383
01:37:02.080 --> 01:37:09.600
them as he was to me growing up and cheated on my mom, like you said, over and over like your

1384
01:37:10.240 --> 01:37:16.720
ex-husband did. And so they really, I hate to say they hold a grudge because that's between them and

1385
01:37:16.720 --> 01:37:22.400
the Lord, but I do think that's probably a lot of it. And they just, he's not really much different

1386
01:37:22.400 --> 01:37:29.840
than he was as a young man. And he's kind of a selfish old man. But so, and he lives near me,

1387
01:37:29.840 --> 01:37:36.320
so I take care of him. And so as much as he needs to be taken care of, he can't drive, he's sick.

1388
01:37:36.960 --> 01:37:45.280
And so over and over, I have to forgive him. Not just for that, but for just,

1389
01:37:45.920 --> 01:37:54.640
because I find myself dreading seeing him. I find myself thinking, just about him in general.

1390
01:37:54.640 --> 01:38:01.440
And I have very short patience with him because I'm already anticipating it not going well.

1391
01:38:02.240 --> 01:38:07.360
I did take him for his birthday to eat the other day and my son came with me, he's 14.

1392
01:38:08.000 --> 01:38:13.200
And I said, I think this is the best interaction that I've had with him that I can recall. And he

1393
01:38:13.200 --> 01:38:20.800
said, my son said, I thought the same thing. So I mean, I know that the Lord, I want to honor my

1394
01:38:20.800 --> 01:38:27.200
father, right? Because we're instructed to do so. And I don't think I have a hard time for

1395
01:38:27.200 --> 01:38:34.480
giving him but clearly he is the root of the majority of the things I've ever struggled with.

1396
01:38:35.040 --> 01:38:39.280
Yeah, this is pretty significant stuff, Leslie. And thank you for sharing it with us.

1397
01:38:40.400 --> 01:38:43.840
You know, this brings another layer to the conversation, which I mentioned this and

1398
01:38:43.840 --> 01:38:50.400
alluded to this, sometimes our spiritual leaders are family, right? They're friends. And, and so

1399
01:38:51.120 --> 01:38:57.840
that adds a whole nother level of that, that area that I was talking about, about how deep the wound

1400
01:38:57.840 --> 01:39:03.920
can cut. You know, not only is it connected to someone who is a Christian and spiritual,

1401
01:39:03.920 --> 01:39:10.240
but now you also have the layer, it's your dad and family. And so that's a whole nother layer

1402
01:39:10.240 --> 01:39:19.760
deeper in my, from my perspective. I'm really sorry that you were made to hide and that you,

1403
01:39:19.840 --> 01:39:25.440
you know, felt like you were not able to be forgiven or acknowledged or any of those things.

1404
01:39:25.440 --> 01:39:29.360
I mean, I'm sure you've done work around this before, Leslie, but I definitely,

1405
01:39:30.400 --> 01:39:34.240
the fact that you mentioned the dress thing, I don't know that I recall you mentioning that

1406
01:39:34.240 --> 01:39:38.480
during the heart work, you know, that they had you wear this big dress that you had to hide your,

1407
01:39:38.480 --> 01:39:43.600
you know, your body trying to pretend like you weren't pregnant. I want to encourage you

1408
01:39:43.600 --> 01:39:48.720
specifically to, I mean, the whole thing, whatever you feel led to right, but that specifically stood

1409
01:39:48.720 --> 01:39:55.040
out to me a lot tonight when you said it. And because there's a level of also at that,

1410
01:39:55.040 --> 01:39:59.040
at that stage, not feeling like you could

1411
01:40:00.000 --> 01:40:06.440
excited about your baby. Right. And he said, you can't bring

1412
01:40:06.440 --> 01:40:11.360
that baby here. So I mean, granted, my daughter, she's 30

1413
01:40:11.360 --> 01:40:15.120
years old now. She's grown woman, she's married. We have

1414
01:40:15.240 --> 01:40:18.280
somewhat of a relationship. We talk on the phone, we see each

1415
01:40:18.280 --> 01:40:22.640
other sometimes, but she was adopted at birth, because that

1416
01:40:22.640 --> 01:40:27.000
was what was going to happen. Now, was God's hand in that?

1417
01:40:27.000 --> 01:40:32.360
Yes, he had a better plan for her to than a teenage. I mean,

1418
01:40:32.400 --> 01:40:35.280
could I have raised her? Yes, I could have. Could I have raised

1419
01:40:35.280 --> 01:40:38.840
her? Had the way the people that adopted her raised her?

1420
01:40:38.840 --> 01:40:42.400
Probably not, because they were prepared for a baby. So those

1421
01:40:42.400 --> 01:40:45.520
things, even though they were hard pills to swallow at the

1422
01:40:45.520 --> 01:40:50.080
time, and took a lot of healing, like you said, I think that it

1423
01:40:50.080 --> 01:40:55.800
turned out well for her. And, and me too, in a in whatever

1424
01:40:55.840 --> 01:41:00.360
different capacities. So I don't like completely blame him.

1425
01:41:00.960 --> 01:41:04.920
Because, you know, but those words, I think were the ones

1426
01:41:04.920 --> 01:41:09.200
that were hard, you know, that that baby can't live here. And

1427
01:41:09.200 --> 01:41:14.640
like you said, I was excited about her. Despite being young

1428
01:41:14.680 --> 01:41:15.960
and whatever.

1429
01:41:16.600 --> 01:41:19.880
Well, and this is the thing. And this is why, when I said

1430
01:41:19.880 --> 01:41:24.720
earlier, um, see, your logical brain is kicking in. And that's

1431
01:41:24.720 --> 01:41:28.960
not a bad thing. But a lot of times what happens is when pain

1432
01:41:28.960 --> 01:41:33.520
is really deep, we turn to logic. Okay. And you've learned

1433
01:41:33.520 --> 01:41:36.120
how to forgive him. And that's a beautiful thing. But what I'm

1434
01:41:36.120 --> 01:41:40.400
going to encourage you to do is kind of turn off the logic a

1435
01:41:40.400 --> 01:41:46.880
little bit as you process this, and allow yourself to feel sad

1436
01:41:46.880 --> 01:41:49.880
about that for a minute. Even if you have before, I feel like

1437
01:41:49.880 --> 01:41:54.080
there's a new layer of healing in this for you. And not that

1438
01:41:54.080 --> 01:41:56.760
you have to stay here long term, because I'm sure again,

1439
01:41:56.760 --> 01:42:00.120
you've done work around this before. But I feel like even

1440
01:42:00.120 --> 01:42:03.640
just forgiving him specifically for what he said for again,

1441
01:42:03.640 --> 01:42:07.160
having to hide your body and this whole having to go live at

1442
01:42:07.160 --> 01:42:10.120
your grandma's and, you know, just it there's a level of

1443
01:42:10.120 --> 01:42:15.560
disowning here. Okay. That's what I hear in the spirit is

1444
01:42:15.560 --> 01:42:19.960
like disowning and God doesn't disown you. I want to say that

1445
01:42:19.960 --> 01:42:25.120
to everyone, God doesn't disown us when we make a mistake. Oh,

1446
01:42:25.120 --> 01:42:30.520
I just feel that a lot. He doesn't. And that's gonna that's

1447
01:42:30.520 --> 01:42:34.200
gonna take a while for that to soak in for you. Because of the

1448
01:42:34.200 --> 01:42:40.800
level of the wounding here. But um, he doesn't dismiss you. He

1449
01:42:40.800 --> 01:42:44.840
doesn't disown you. He's not trying to hide you and pretend

1450
01:42:44.840 --> 01:42:47.920
that you're something that you're not. Or he doesn't expect

1451
01:42:47.920 --> 01:42:52.920
things of you that you can't provide or be, you know, and,

1452
01:42:53.160 --> 01:42:58.240
and, and this whole, like, you know, the struggle of somebody

1453
01:42:58.240 --> 01:43:02.200
that is leading, and then they send you away because you made a

1454
01:43:02.200 --> 01:43:06.680
mistake. But yet he cheated on your mom, so many mixed messages

1455
01:43:06.680 --> 01:43:12.040
there. Right. And so again, just process through anything on a

1456
01:43:12.040 --> 01:43:14.640
forgiveness sheet that comes up as you're doing it. But

1457
01:43:14.640 --> 01:43:19.080
specifically those couple things and really allow

1458
01:43:19.080 --> 01:43:22.040
yourself, like I said, to the best of your ability turning off

1459
01:43:22.040 --> 01:43:27.880
the logic. Because you know that you know, okay, yes. Yes, at 16,

1460
01:43:27.920 --> 01:43:33.360
it probably helped both of you on some level. But there's also

1461
01:43:33.360 --> 01:43:37.720
loss there that I think is important for you to process and

1462
01:43:37.720 --> 01:43:43.160
give yourself that time to feel that and then keep moving

1463
01:43:43.160 --> 01:43:48.160
forward. Regarding having to see him all the time, man, I've

1464
01:43:48.160 --> 01:43:51.960
been in that situation, my mom, I had to help care for her. And

1465
01:43:51.960 --> 01:43:54.800
she was really manipulative and said, said and did a lot of

1466
01:43:54.800 --> 01:43:57.840
hurtful things. And so the best thing I can tell you is just

1467
01:43:57.840 --> 01:44:02.600
keep forgiving. Short accounts, try to keep your heart clean,

1468
01:44:02.640 --> 01:44:06.880
you know, the best that you can, when you need some kind of

1469
01:44:06.880 --> 01:44:10.720
reprieve, you might, you know, if you can get a nurse to help

1470
01:44:10.720 --> 01:44:15.360
you so that you're not the only one having to bear that. Because

1471
01:44:15.360 --> 01:44:20.320
I know that's not easy. I know it's not I've been there. But

1472
01:44:20.320 --> 01:44:23.960
God is going to teach you. God doesn't want that to happen to

1473
01:44:23.960 --> 01:44:27.720
you. Okay, let me just say that to God didn't want that to

1474
01:44:27.720 --> 01:44:32.720
happen to me with my mom. But God absolutely used it and still

1475
01:44:32.720 --> 01:44:37.960
uses it today as I coach people. So God can use and work all

1476
01:44:37.960 --> 01:44:41.080
things together for good in your life, but that doesn't make

1477
01:44:41.080 --> 01:44:46.280
the pain go away. Right? So keeping those short accounts,

1478
01:44:46.320 --> 01:44:50.280
just keep doing that. Do your best to love him and be the

1479
01:44:50.280 --> 01:44:54.560
light but you're you're not responsible for him being a

1480
01:44:54.560 --> 01:44:59.960
good person. Yeah, yeah. These are things

1481
01:45:00.000 --> 01:45:05.840
I mostly wanted to share just in case somebody else struggles, that it is possible, you know,

1482
01:45:05.840 --> 01:45:14.960
to, yes, I couldn't just leave him alone. Unkind, you know, so it's a really kind and loving thing

1483
01:45:14.960 --> 01:45:19.520
for you to do. Some people are going to feel called to do that. Some people are going to feel

1484
01:45:19.520 --> 01:45:24.720
called to have space. So everybody, you know, you, you've got to pray into these things and

1485
01:45:24.720 --> 01:45:29.520
choose for yourself what your journey looks like. But I love that you shared that Leslie, and

1486
01:45:29.520 --> 01:45:36.480
we'll be praying for God to bless you as you, you know, you serve him and love him. Appreciate

1487
01:45:36.480 --> 01:45:40.640
you sharing. I see a couple questions. I won't be able to do them all, but this one I had sitting

1488
01:45:40.640 --> 01:45:47.440
here for a little bit. Tim Saxton wrote, what do you do if you struggle to articulate what something

1489
01:45:47.440 --> 01:45:54.240
made you believe? Well, my best answer, Tim, is you want to get out the revealing for healing

1490
01:45:54.240 --> 01:45:58.720
cycle. And if you can't identify what the lie that it caused you to believe,

1491
01:45:59.600 --> 01:46:06.960
one of the best ways to start is to identify the emotion that you feel when you're thinking about

1492
01:46:06.960 --> 01:46:14.800
that situation that happened. The emotion that we feel tends to point to the lies that we believe.

1493
01:46:14.800 --> 01:46:21.680
Okay. So sometimes we have to start with the emotion first, excuse me, and then let God show us

1494
01:46:22.320 --> 01:46:27.040
what lies we believed as a result of those things happening. And remember that I said,

1495
01:46:27.040 --> 01:46:31.280
sometimes we're going to hear those responses, and we're going to have that revelation of what

1496
01:46:31.280 --> 01:46:38.080
the lie is right away. And sometimes it takes time. As we heal, different layers of things

1497
01:46:38.080 --> 01:46:45.040
will be revealed as we go. And I'm really big on like, just reiterating that to you all over and

1498
01:46:45.040 --> 01:46:49.600
over and over again, because sometimes we feel frustrated because we want healed from in a

1499
01:46:49.600 --> 01:46:54.720
certain area. And we feel like we are missing a piece on if y'all have ever been through that.

1500
01:46:54.720 --> 01:46:59.600
But sometimes that's how it feels like you're missing a piece of information that you feel

1501
01:46:59.600 --> 01:47:05.520
can be useful in your healing process. And so I'm really leaning into that will be helpful for you.

1502
01:47:05.520 --> 01:47:13.520
Go ahead, Tim, if you have something, I mean, I struggled to even articulate what the emotion

1503
01:47:13.520 --> 01:47:23.600
is, like, put a label to that. So I don't know how to, you know, use like the Hurtworth book or

1504
01:47:23.600 --> 01:47:29.280
stuff like that. Yeah. So I'm gonna give you a couple ideas because I had to do this. But let

1505
01:47:29.280 --> 01:47:36.400
me ask you a question. First, when you were younger, were you allowed to show emotion as a kid

1506
01:47:36.400 --> 01:47:43.200
in front of your parents? Okay, so you were allowed to. So were your parents good at helping

1507
01:47:43.280 --> 01:47:50.080
you identify emotions that you were having? And it's okay if not, because some parents don't know

1508
01:47:50.080 --> 01:47:56.400
how to do that. They don't know how to help their children like identify or name what an emotion is.

1509
01:47:56.400 --> 01:48:00.720
So I don't think that either way, but just wondering if that was, you know, was it just you

1510
01:48:00.720 --> 01:48:06.240
had emotions, but no one knew how to identify them? I don't know how to answer either way.

1511
01:48:06.240 --> 01:48:13.440
Okay, that's right. That's totally fine. So you all this is something that I did. Because in my

1512
01:48:13.440 --> 01:48:19.360
house, even though Tim, you're allowed to have emotion, it sounds like the fact that maybe no

1513
01:48:19.360 --> 01:48:26.960
one really knew how to identify what the emotions were. I wasn't allowed to express emotion in my

1514
01:48:26.960 --> 01:48:33.120
house. And I was kind of scolded for that. And so I often hid to express my emotions. And so as an

1515
01:48:33.120 --> 01:48:40.480
adult, one of the things I did, I actually initially did it to help my spiritual daughters

1516
01:48:40.480 --> 01:48:46.800
identify their emotions. But as I read the book, I was like, Oh, my gosh, every adult should read

1517
01:48:46.800 --> 01:48:53.760
this. It was a kid's book on emotions and identifying what different emotions are. And it

1518
01:48:53.760 --> 01:48:59.280
explained how different situations can happen. And we can have like, sometimes we're going to feel

1519
01:48:59.280 --> 01:49:04.880
angry. And we're going to feel all this warmth in our in here in this region. And it explained

1520
01:49:04.880 --> 01:49:09.360
literally those different kinds of things. And I know that for some people, they'll be like, I don't

1521
01:49:09.360 --> 01:49:14.240
want to read a kid's book to help me because they're, you know, we get this kind of way about

1522
01:49:14.240 --> 01:49:19.360
us that we feel like we should know those things. I'm huge on even when people first start reading

1523
01:49:19.360 --> 01:49:25.520
the Bible. If you've never, excuse me, if you've never read the Bible before. I'm huge on getting

1524
01:49:25.520 --> 01:49:32.480
a kid's Bible. I think anything that can help us understand wherever we're at in our knowledge base

1525
01:49:32.480 --> 01:49:40.720
and grow from there, do it. And so I would recommend him looking into some kids emotions

1526
01:49:40.720 --> 01:49:46.800
books and things that really can help you start to identify emotions that you have. And it might

1527
01:49:46.800 --> 01:49:52.480
still take a little while but I think giving you those tools will help you when you have something

1528
01:49:52.480 --> 01:49:59.920
happen to start to like, Oh, I'm feeling fear right now. Or

1529
01:50:00.000 --> 01:50:05.440
Oh, I'm feeling sad, but it's getting expressed through anger.

1530
01:50:06.000 --> 01:50:09.720
Y'all know that sad, unresolved pain and sadness turns to

1531
01:50:09.720 --> 01:50:12.760
frustration and turns to bitterness and can turn to

1532
01:50:12.760 --> 01:50:17.440
anger. A lot of times anger is like the high level emotion, but

1533
01:50:17.440 --> 01:50:21.560
there's other stuff underneath of there. So that is my honest

1534
01:50:21.560 --> 01:50:23.600
best recommendation for you on that.

1535
01:50:25.240 --> 01:50:25.680
Okay.

1536
01:50:26.240 --> 01:50:30.080
Yeah, and I'd start there and some of it to, you know, people

1537
01:50:30.080 --> 01:50:34.680
that have been through a lot will have numbing behavior, and

1538
01:50:34.680 --> 01:50:37.880
numbing, it just happens subconsciously numbing behavior

1539
01:50:37.880 --> 01:50:42.000
will help us or excuse me, cause us to not really recognize what

1540
01:50:42.000 --> 01:50:46.240
our emotions are. So you might, you might have been in the

1541
01:50:46.240 --> 01:50:50.360
numbing place for a while. So it can take a little while for

1542
01:50:50.360 --> 01:50:53.960
people that have been in that place to come out of it and

1543
01:50:53.960 --> 01:50:58.120
start to feel again, or even recognize what they're feeling.

1544
01:50:58.320 --> 01:51:03.960
So give yourself a lot of grace and look into some of those. If

1545
01:51:03.960 --> 01:51:07.680
you email into admin at Jackie Dorman calm and just let them

1546
01:51:07.680 --> 01:51:12.560
know that I asked you to email in I can send you the name of

1547
01:51:12.560 --> 01:51:15.160
the book that I bought because it's it's really, really good.

1548
01:51:15.800 --> 01:51:17.440
Okay, that'll be helpful for you.

1549
01:51:18.000 --> 01:51:23.680
I mean, personally, for me, the opposite might be helpful, like

1550
01:51:23.680 --> 01:51:27.120
the most technical adult book you can come up with. I'm the

1551
01:51:27.120 --> 01:51:30.080
person who can't have too much information, the more

1552
01:51:30.080 --> 01:51:32.320
information you give me, the easier it is.

1553
01:51:33.400 --> 01:51:38.440
Okay, but I think you having the knowledge base, I mean, I it's

1554
01:51:38.440 --> 01:51:43.400
a kid's book, but it's has a lot of information. And so just

1555
01:51:43.400 --> 01:51:45.320
because it's a kid's book, I don't want it to come across

1556
01:51:45.320 --> 01:51:48.480
like it doesn't have a lot of information. And so I can make a

1557
01:51:48.480 --> 01:51:52.360
recommendation for that and an adult level book, but I, I still

1558
01:51:52.360 --> 01:51:56.040
would highly recommend starting with the kid one first, because

1559
01:51:56.040 --> 01:51:59.280
we have to have a starting point. And then build on that

1560
01:51:59.280 --> 01:52:02.080
from there. Because I like a lot of facts. I read books all the

1561
01:52:02.080 --> 01:52:06.440
time on but sometimes you just need a visual connector so that

1562
01:52:06.440 --> 01:52:08.880
you can understand all the facts in the adult books.

1563
01:52:10.800 --> 01:52:12.080
Okay. Yeah.

1564
01:52:12.720 --> 01:52:17.440
But yeah, very good questions. All right, you all were at 952.

1565
01:52:17.440 --> 01:52:20.360
I went a little over but those were really great questions. And

1566
01:52:20.360 --> 01:52:25.080
I loved what everybody shared. Let me pray us out and I'll send

1567
01:52:25.080 --> 01:52:28.600
you all on your way. Father God, thank you so much for who you

1568
01:52:28.600 --> 01:52:31.000
are. We thank you God for the revealings for healing that are

1569
01:52:31.000 --> 01:52:33.960
happening that have happened. God, the ones that are going to

1570
01:52:33.960 --> 01:52:38.160
happen in the days to come. God, we thank you for meeting us

1571
01:52:38.160 --> 01:52:41.360
right where we're at. God, I pray that if our voices were

1572
01:52:41.360 --> 01:52:45.240
silenced in any way, in any situation that we went through.

1573
01:52:46.240 --> 01:52:49.920
God, I thank you that you would show us your great love for us.

1574
01:52:50.000 --> 01:52:52.960
I pray that you would help us to be able to identify the

1575
01:52:52.960 --> 01:52:56.160
emotions that we have. God, that we would be able to identify

1576
01:52:56.160 --> 01:52:59.400
lies we've been believing because of wounds and trauma

1577
01:52:59.400 --> 01:53:03.080
that we've been through. God, and ways that it causes us to

1578
01:53:03.080 --> 01:53:06.640
believe incorrect things about you as well as ourselves. God,

1579
01:53:06.640 --> 01:53:10.440
we thank you for truth coming, for supernatural breakthroughs

1580
01:53:10.440 --> 01:53:14.440
and acceleration. We thank you, God, that any blockages from

1581
01:53:14.440 --> 01:53:16.960
church, herd or spiritual leaders, God, that you would

1582
01:53:16.960 --> 01:53:21.040
remove those blockages from our hearts. We just thank you, God,

1583
01:53:21.040 --> 01:53:26.200
for clear channels in the days to come. In Jesus' name. Amen.

1584
01:53:26.200 --> 01:53:29.480
God bless you all. I hope you have a great night. See you guys

1585
01:53:29.480 --> 01:53:30.840
again soon. Bye, everyone.

1586
01:53:30.840 --> 01:53:31.840
Thank you, Bethany.

1587
01:53:32.120 --> 01:53:32.920
Bye.