AS GOD HEALS OUR HEARTS, OUR FAMILIES HEAL TOO - by Sarah Breon

It boggles the mind that God entrusts us humans to raise tiny human beings. When we bring them home from the hospital their innocence and dependence on us inspires awe and wonder. “How can God trust me to do a good job?” “How do I make sure I don’t mess up this little life?” we ask ourselves. Or sometimes we contemplate,”how can I make sure this little baby is protected from all the harm, negative messages, or even from the painful lessons I have had to learn the hard way in this life?” Our desire is to do whatever we can to raise this little person in all the best ways of God’s love, peace, and joy and make sure they don’t suffer or struggle in any ways that we have. We feel this same weight of responsibility when we are positioned by God to influence other people’s lives, perhaps as a teacher, a coach, an aunt, or an uncle. God could put us in so many different types of situations where we are called to shine with his love and demonstrate his ways in relationships. In raising kids I discovered that the responsibility of caring for other lives can indeed feel very weighty. But God didn’t choose us because he didn’t have anyone else to be his representative. I believe he allows us to parent and be the primary influencer in little lives, knowing we will feel confused, clueless, frustrated, or even hopeless at times. But in our helpless state we will learn to trust him in greater ways, which will cause us to grow deeper in our walks with him and show us more of his beautiful, fatherly heart of love and commitment toward us. Of course we are not all called to be biological parents. But all of these truths apply to us anytime we invest in close relationships where we are impacting others. This verse from Isaiah is so reassuring of the guarantee we have in our relationship with God:   He will care for you as a shepherd tends his flock, gathering the weak lambs and taking them in his arms. He carries them close to his heart and gently leads those that have young. Isaiah 40:11 TPT In Your Family Can Heal, I document my and my husband’s journey of trying really hard to be good parents, using all the teachings and information we could collect in order to parent in healthier ways than we were raised. But all of the left brain knowledge only brought us so far once our three kids got a little older and started to have independent thoughts and ideas. Once they  hit the pre teen years, unresolved pain in the childhood parts of our own hearts as parents began to be triggered. The most anointed teachings could not get us unstuck from the many negative emotions we started living from, such as fear, anger, self-pity, and shame.  By the time the kids were 10-12  they had stopped sharing their hearts with us and were hiding their struggles and mistakes. We could see our family culture was not a place of connection, peace, or joy. As the kids reached high school age, I became more like an enforcer, and my husband practiced ways to check out from the pain of the disconnection and feelings of helplessness that ensued.     Our unresolved pain from our pasts was propelling us to react to their struggles with fear,control, and denial. So they learned to keep their own pain on the inside and cope with it in ways that brought more shame and disconnection from our family.  It was so painful to see our kids struggling with deep anxiety, perfectionism, addictions to pornography, and anger. But they didn’t feel safe enough to talk with us about their problems.    In desperation I cried out to God for help. Isaiah again provided so much comfort and awareness of God’s nearness and involvement in our family:    “Rise up in splendor and be radiant, for your light has dawned, and Yahweh’s glory now streams from you! Look carefully! Darkness blankets the earth, and thick gloom covers the nations, but Yahweh arises upon you and the brightness of his glory appears over you!”Nations will be attracted to your radiant light and kings to the sunrise-glory of your new day. Lift up your eyes higher! Look all around you and believe, for your sons are returning from far away and your daughters are being tenderly carried home. Watch as they all gather together, eager to come back to you!  Isaiah 60:1–4 TPT   God’s heart is for us to walk in light and victory in our relationships. He challenged me to take responsibility for my reactions, my emotions, and my own wounds from the past. He showed me that, although I had taught my kids a lot of good things about Him and His ways, I was still parenting out of past pain. I tended to control them because deep inside I was really scared they would make mistakes that I couldn’t fix. I thought I was trusting God with them, but because I hadn’t yet invited God to bring truth to many of the lies that still resided in my heart, I was just replicating the fear based parenting that I had experienced.  So much changed as we learned to humble ourselves before God and ask him questions about the fear and the shame and invite him to bring the truth and needed transformation. As we changed and learned how to create love bonds instead of fear bonds, our kids wanted to be more connected to us. God has been amazingly faithful to bring restoration to our relationships with our kids.    We are  still on the journey of healing with God, as we all are. I am so grateful that He truly walks with us as we parent our kids and pursue connection in the other close relationships in our lives.   If what I shared has made you curious and wanting to see some transformation in your own heart, here are some activation questions you can use to interact with God and invite him in for more healing.   Activation: Is there a relationship with a child in your life that feels painful? Or perhaps there is a relationship with a spouse or a parent or friend that feels disconnected?       *Ask God: what do you want me to know about you in this relationship?     *What do you want me to know about me?     *Is there a lie I am believing about this relationship?     *Where did that lie come from?     *Let’s bring that lie to Jesus and let him give us the truth to replace it.     *What’s the truth, God?     *Is there any action step you want me to take: a conversation, repentance,      forgiveness, thankfulness   Click to check out Sarah's book on Amazon