Tag: healing

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Dating/Courting Single

7 Steps to Heal From a Broken Relationship

Black woman crying outdoors

Contrary to common belief, time does not heal all wounds but God does. If not dealt with, no matter how much time has passed, the loneliness, grief and pain felt after a failed relationship can be crippling.  The heart is the source of life, once broken, you may find yourself in repeated cycles of brokenness, carrying your past pains into your present relationship.
Prior to meeting, courting and marrying my now husband, there were several broken relationships I found myself in. After my last breakup, I did several things that allowed God to heal my heart almost immediately to the point where people were in disbelief and amazed. I didn’t experience the loneliness, bitterness, anger, low self-worth, resentment, and regret that some people do after a breakup. I didn’t find myself snooping on my ex’s social media accounts reminiscing or trying to see who was the new boo. I didn’t experience the severity of what many people deal with after a breakup. And you don’t have to either!
It’s imperative that you are intentional about becoming whole after a breakup. Healing from a break up requires spiritual and practical efforts. Here are the 7 steps to help you heal:

  1. Date Jesus. You’re single now. You now have more time to spend with the Lord. Seek him more in prayer and devotion. Psalm 55:22 says, “Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.”
  2. Remove any reminders. Remove everything that connect and reminds you of your ex. His or her phone number, social media accounts, gifts, pictures, letters, or anything else unique to your relationship. This may be hard but it is a necessary practical step.
  3. Break soul ties. Depending on the length and extent of your relationship, there’s a good chance a soul tie has been created. You’re going to have to sever that thing! If your souls are still knit together in anyway it’s going to make it difficult to move on. During your next date with Jesus, pray and ask Him to break your soul tie.
  4. Forgive Yourself. Thoughts of everything you did wrong leading to your break up may be flooding your mind. “Should’ves”, “could’ves”, “would’ves”… it’s time to move on. Free yourself by forgiving yourself. You’ll be unable to move on if you are carrying regret, shame and/or guilt.
  5. Forgive Your Ex. Here’s a big one. Decide to love and forgive your ex as God wants you to. No matter how severe the offense, God still requires you to forgive. By commanding you to forgive, God is looking out for you. Unforgiveness doesn’t hurt your offender, it really hurts you. Carrying around bitterness weighs you down, clouds your relationship with God, and blocks your ability to love others.
  6. Personal Growth. Now is a great time to focus on becoming a better you and prepare for the right one. Work on developing your gifts, finding your purpose, and pursuing your passions.
  7. Avoid Rebounding. The fastest way to re-puncture your broken heart is to get into a new relationship too soon.  Pray and ask God to reveal the one and avoid counterfeits. The devil is an opportunist, he would love for you to enter a new relationship that could be worse than the one you came out of.

My prayer is that your heart is restored and that you prepare yourself for that special one. Once I successfully applied the above steps in my life I found healing and true love. Breakups are now a thing of the past!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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You Robbed Me: A Story of God's Healing Love After Being Raped

Guest Writer: Lauren Anderson
This is the first time I am opening up about my rape two years ago. After it happened, I quickly moved on and “didn’t let it bother me.” But, recently life kind of slap me in the face and I ran into the guy who drugged me and raped me two years ago.
I wasn’t aware of the effects it had on me until I had to re-face the situation. I was traumatized all over again. PTSD does not just happen in war, and it was something I truly had to take the time to walk though.
As I write this post, I know most of you don’t know me, but some of you may. I want my story to be heard because of the beauty that has come out of it. I have felt alone because of this experience and I never really knew how to process it all, or truly heal from it. Today I read this poem to my Counselor, who had me write this to the guy who raped me. For the first time, I felt the healing from the power of what God’s LOVE has truly done through the situation.
No matter what you’ve been through, faith is all you need to get through it….faith that God is GOOD. Truly living by faith and not by sight. We have a choice to live in despair as a victim, or with faith as a conqueror. I chose faith and most of the time it wasn’t easy. But…no matter what you’re facing…..I pray you keep faith. I will never try to understand God, because I know I can’t. My “why’s” may never be answered, but I probably wouldn’t understand them now anyways. So, here it is…….my raw emotions displayed for you to see. A part of who I am.
__________________________________________

You Robbed Me……
When a robber breaks into your house, they invade your space, they go where they don’t belong.
A place you considered to be safe and comforting, the place you called Home.
They go in with the intention of taking something of value, something that is not theirs.
You Robbed Me.
You took the comfort and safety out of the very home that I live and breathe in.
You invaded my space and who I am.
You changed me.
Because of you I am different, I see differently, and I feel differently.
I did not invite you in to change me and to take value, but you took without thinking.
You took without considering the true value of what you were taking.
…..a part of ME
A part of me that someone else will want “to have and to hold,”
A part of me that requires trust and time…..You just took it.
I may not remember it and I don’t have memories to haunt me, but I feel the void.
In the very core of who I am I know what you took, and THAT haunts me.
It haunts me in a way that I feel at fault, that I should have done something more to stop you.
That I was the one who was wrong.
That I should have seen you coming.
But no…you came in the darkness of the night…my unconsciousness.
Waking up and knowing something was different, knowing what you did and my body was unable to stop it.
You took away my control of the sole thing I thought I may have real control over in this world….myself.
You took beauty and replaced it with filth.
You took light and replaced it with darkness.
You took confidence and left insecurities.
You took romance and left doubt.
You took faith and trust and left me with question.
You left me with a scar that I have to know is within me the rest of my life. A scar that is not visible, but felt. Felt in the very inner part of me.
You will never know, or even give it another thought.
You took and yet got nothing.
You took a part of me….A part of me you never even knew.
BUT
Here’s the Beauty in the Midst of Darkness.
You also GAVE me something.
You took what no man can replace yes, but you gave me reason to search.
You gave me a situation to overcome.
You gave me darkness so I could truly search for light.
You gave me questions so I could truly search for who I really am.
You gave me something I could never overcome alone….and though you made me feel alone…I now know I am not….and never was.
You gave me a rock bottom so I could know who was the rock at my bottom.
WHY?…………because I have a God who turns ashes into Beauty.
 
About the Guest Contributing Writer: My name is Lauren Anderson and I am currently working towards my Masters Degree in Counseling at Dallas Baptist University. I am passionate about helping people and this has only grown by walking through my own traumatic experiences of being raped two years ago. It’s nothing you see coming as is true with every traumatic event and is nothing you can be prepared for. It’s been a long journey but God has shown me more about him and myself than I could ever ask for. You are never alone.

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Dating/Courting Home Marriage Physical Intimacy

3 Reasons Why Christian Men fall Slave to Porn

Pornography. The dirty secret of mankind, the killer of relationships and the destroyer of lives.
Statistically, more than 50% of (christian) married men immerse themselves in this vial content. But, whether Christian or not, to deny the negative effects pornography has on ones life would be naive. It is even proven in scientific studies that porn can:

  • Destroy trust in intimacy between couples
  • Lower your sensitivity to vulgarity
  • Cause a belief that marriage is restraining
  • Create a lack of desire to raise children or be involved with family
  • Distract your from your work, career, dreams and calling on your life

While there is no specific place in scripture where God says, “Porn is bad,” there are crucial scriptural references from which we can pull an adequate and biblical standpoint on the subject. Scriptures that cover addiction (Corinthians 6:12,) impurity/sexual immorality (Ephesians 4:19,) lust (Matthew 5:28,) etc., are all powerful and relevant references.
Still, marriages are destroyed daily, kids are left fatherless, leadership positions in the house of God are abandoned, and commitments are forgotten…all for what?
Pornography?
Let’s take a deeper look into this topic as I reveal 3 Reasons Christian Men Fall Slave to Porn.

I. They Have a Misunderstanding of Love

Point blank: God is love.
Pornography provides a false sense of love, where love is demonstrated by passion and desire rather than commitment. A misunderstanding of love can stem from a vast array of life issues, (we all have them.) But, when we don’t understand that God is love, we tend to fill that void with things that temporarily make us feel good.
When you are living a life without a true understanding of love, you are holding yourself back from complete freedom in the Lord and are willingly opening the doors to resentment in your marriage.
You can, however, overcome; not by your own strength, but by gaining knowledge and wisdom on the subject of true love from a biblical standpoint.

II. Their Marriage Is Not Satisfying

Relationships, especially marriages, take a lot of work. Day-in and day-out, it takes effort to sustain a Godly marriage, which can be quite draining, mentally and physically. Porn offers (Christian) men a ‘solution’ where they:

  • Don’t have to make commitments
  • Aren’t required to express romance
  • Don’t have to sacrifice
  • Aren’t limited to one woman
  • Don’t have to hear “no thanks…”

The often unknown truth about marital intimacy, is that sexual satisfaction takes time (longer in some marriages than others.) There needs to be a balance of understanding, grace and sacrifice that takes place during this time of growth.
III. They Don’t Understand God’s Order
A man is driven by his ability to conquer, lead and protect; we are hardwired with these natural instincts. But these instincts can become distorted, and we can easily forget them if we allow our marriage to get out of order. When your marriage operates out of God’s order, it leaves room for you to turn to addictions that still give you that sense of control.
If a man understands and obediently follows God’s order in his Christian marriage, it leaves no room for error in sexual sin. (Note that I said ‘no room for error’ and not ‘no room for temptation.’  Temptation will always be there, but error doesn’t have to be.)
Ultimately, when you look past all of the distortion that porn addiction brings to a marriage, it all boils down to the fact that the man is changing up God’s intended order. He is putting his own needs before His wife’s needs, and since he is the spiritual leader of his home, impurity is inevitably where he leads his family.
Don’t go down a path you weren’t created for. Man up and lead your marriage to greatness.