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August 30, 2021 2:00 am
There are times when our pain seems unbearable. Lysa TerKeurst talks honestly about how some of her deepest pain affected her life, and how the blood of Jesus not only covered it, but became her anthem to help others.
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My counselor said today's a great day to start working on forgiveness. I remember thinking that's not even possible. They haven't said that they were sorry and really honestly I don't think that they've suffered like they should suffer like they don't deserve my forgiveness because if I forgive them. Isn't that me saying at this point what they did was okay when it very much was not okay welcome to family life today where we want to help you pursue relationships that matter most and Wilson Wilson. You can find us if we live today.com or on our family life.
This is family life today. I'm going to quote ours if you can finish pass or fail grade. No, I think you'll easily finish this case we wrote about in our book. I've said it many died from the stage is a life-changing quote for me the first time I heard you were sitting right beside me at the we can remember we were there as an engaged couple and went to this marriage conference which we didn't know anything about what I daily life the weekend.
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I'm in a cage should I get it on the chin that literally started me on a journey which was the hardest journey of my life because I thought okay I'll forgiving this weekend and it didn't go that way will I remember you saying I can't forgive my dad this weekend and then it took years and behind every journey like that is a really hard story and I discovered a book that I thinks the best book I've read on forgiveness and we got the author of the book Lisa triggers with us today Lisa, thank you for being here.
Welcome to family life today. Thank you so much. It's an honor. As always to be here, but such traits to be here with you guys today yeah were pretty excited, especially we were on vacation then reading your book and Dave is handing the yearbook.
Every high guy on the second read this report were supposed to be like the minivacation right were on the beach were lay there and she looks over and goes. What are you working for your reading a book that you not read it because were going to interview you and I like honey I cannot stop in this book Lisa, I'm not kidding. Thank you. This book is such a gift to the body of Christ to anybody really your honesty, your vulnerability the journey you been on which you have loved to have you talk about today, but you opened up things I've never even considered in the area. Forgiveness, let let's let our listeners know it's called forgiving. What you can't forget your subtitles amazing discovering how to move on. Make peace with painful memories and create a life that's beautiful again and many of you know Lisa, she's a New York Times bestseller.
Three times I think 4×5 yeah, every book that comes out is you know a great book and you've written 21. Actually, there's a debate on our team.
I think it's actually 25 but I recommend the five latest books when you start going back to far. It's painful for me to read some of my earlier books is like anything else on ground as a minor and a communicator and everything so I'm very grateful that God has given me the ability to process life through writing words and I'm always quick to say I write about what I struggle with. So this book wasn't born be out of the some kind of fake notion that I'm a forgiveness expert, that's not it at all. I was struggling with forgiveness so much thinking that I honestly understood forgiveness and had a general concept of it because of been a Christian for a long time but I write this message because I needed this message. Most of all, you can tell by reading that it is in some ways I felt like I was reading your journal. You know because you write so well. It's like I'm living where you know is a reader you're sort of. There you can feel the pain. Yeah, you captured in the story as you take us on a journey this not just your journey. It's really everybody's journey that needs to go on that like Louis Mead says to get free and it has to do a forgiveness.
So, tell us a little bit because I'm guessing 10 years ago for 20 years ago you were thinking. I can't wait to write this book. Now this is not the book you want to write but I also thought it was interesting as we get into your story that you are talking about how your life is divided into the BC and A.D. when is that mean it's before crisis and after devastation and I think sometimes we walk through situations or issues in our life. It could be hurt to be heartbreak. It can be a disappointment, disillusionment. There's such a scale that when we walk there's something that's so hard and maybe even so harsh, it's easy to define our life from before that happened. And then there's such a sharp line that divides before and after and so usually that's how time is marked according to the birth of Christ. But in my life.
There was also a real marking of when my life appeared even to me to be one way and then there came this enormous emotional crash after just realizing that some dynamics in my family were not what I thought they were. And then forever marked that this is not after devastation. But when talking about a forgiveness message.
I love that you said I bet 10 years ago. This is in a message you ever thought that you wanted to write. I would say hundred percent because it's not a message ever wanted to live and when I talk about forgiveness. I automatically know that just uttering that word. People are going to attach that this word is connected to probably one of the most devastating or a series of very devastating, hurtful events, so it's easy to hear the word forgiveness and think that's nice. I know I should do it. But, and it's easy to cross her arms, kind of push back and feel an enormous amount of resistance. And that's exactly where I was so I knew I needed to work on forgiveness.
But when I started writing the message I spent over a thousand hours studying forgiveness in the Bible and my team showed up one day and I had typed out, they thought it was good to be a chapter but when I actually typed out were all the reasons why absolutely should not be the one to write this book and all the people that I really felt like I would not be able to forgive and all the reasons why was so very justified in not forgiving this people, and it forced me to come face-to-face with the reality that I agree with biblical forgiveness as a principal, but deep down inside of me. I have so much resistance to living it out so that brings them back to the fact that I studied forgiveness the Bible for over a thousand hours. I didn't do that because I wanted to become theological expert. I did that because I was looking for the loophole in the exception. Shirley there has to be some circumstances where forgiveness doesn't apply take us back to that point of what happened that made you dig in the word of saying God I need answers so I experience a very dramatic crisis in my most precious relationship and I wrote all about that and it's not supposed to be this way and it's the very thing that threatened to tear my family apart very much was the worst betrayal of my entire life. I think I thought I was doing okay until I went to a counselor and he has become an amazing advocate for my emotional health in this whole journey. I can't say enough about just combining therapy and theology as one pursues wholeness, healing and health.
So I went to my counselor and it was during a particularly devastating part of the journey that I was walking through.
I walked in.
I remember had this thought. I don't remember when it was the last time that I actually washed my hair or brushed my hair or even put deodorant on so that tells you like I was at a low place because I am one like I'm going to attend my first day I please go to put deodorant on a cake dry shampoo can really be a gift to those of us with complicated hairs.
I may not wash my hair every day. Shampoo is way overrated. Yeah you you can't testify right now you have a complicated relationship with the time that it takes exactly what you're really you word that you hadn't. Yes, I was just in this desperate place of feeling so broken and so hopeless and so exhausted from being hurt and then hurt again and then hurt again and constantly caught off guard in a situation where I thought trust was being rebuilt, but you can't build trust that keeps getting broken and so I felt utterly lost at what to do with my next step and just tired, so tired like even the thought of washing my hair was overwhelmingly enormously exhausting to me so I walked into my counselor's office and I thought I can handle the fact that he's going to think that I look awful and that haven't washed my hair but I can't handle if I stink so as to his bathroom and found underneath the counter. Some peach air freshener and I thought I'm resourceful, and I used it deodorant. I did minute I walked into my counselor's office and he looked at me and he said Lisa do you want to heal and I said of course. Of course I want to heal.
I'm doubting if it's possible because I I just wonder, is it possible to be so broken that healing becomes impossible, but I do want to heal and he said then today's a great day to start working on forgiveness and I literally remember pushing back in my chair and looking him and saying are you taking something that's made you delusional because forgiveness at this point is not even reasonable for you to say to me, and here's why. I had that perspective, because when I was a little girl. My mom did a good thing she taught me and my sister about forgiveness.
So usually when we would get into an argument.
My mom the great judge would appear and she would listen to what happened and she would declare one person write the other person wrong whoever was wrong, had to say they were sorry whoever's right had to say that they forgive the other person and then my mom would say. Now the two of you hug and makeup and if you don't stop treating each other poorly, then I'm really gonna come in here and give you something to cry about okay and that was a good lesson that my mom taught us that I never let that little girl understanding of forgiveness grow up and I carried that little girl understanding of forgiveness into some very adult situations. And that's where things fell apart for me because when my counselor said today's a great day to start working on forgiveness. I remember thinking that's not even possible. I'm not even in communication with this person that's hurt me so badly they haven't said that they were sorry and I don't know if reconciliations ever going to be possible and really honestly I don't think that they suffered like they should suffer like they don't deserve my forgiveness because if I forgive them. Isn't that me saying at this point that what they did was okay when it very much was not okay. And isn't that me saying that it was no big deal when it was a huge deal and so they need to be remorseful. Yeah, right.
And how do you live in, forgive, you can even have a conversation right and what if that other person doesn't even think that they need to be forgiven, then how do you even get traction in a situation like that. So my counselor listened to my resistance message and he didn't argue with me and he didn't fight against me.
He just listened and then he said okay well Lisa, let's just start with the pain and he handed me a stack of 3 x 5 cards and he said why don't you just write out one thing on each card how you've been hurt and just write this pain and this hurt in this wound. Just get it out.
So I started writing one thing on each card. The facts of how I'd been hurt and suddenly it was as if the entire floor in front of us was covered with my 3 x 5 cards. Lisa, as you continue that you think most of us could write down time, or hundreds or maybe 20 things of why we been hurt in our lives. I think that people would be surprised at how much pain is really locked inside of them, because we generally categorize our pain as an incident when in realities, there's 1020 may be 100 facts of how we been hurt that feed into that incident, and unless we look at the pain and deal with the pain. It's impossible to heal from the pain and so a lot of us are trying to fix the incident that happened but without dealing with the pain that is feeding all of the emotion that striving the intensity of the hurt and the chaos without dealing with that. My counselor has told me before when it's hysterical. It's historical and what's not worked out will be acted out and so how was playing out with me is I would say oh no, I'm not better. Oh no, like I'm I've dealt with the pain. But then I would get triggered.
Somebody would say something or something would happen and it was maybe a minor offense but I would have a completely out of proportion reaction to their very small offense and my reaction didn't even have very much to do with them. It's that I had unhealed pain for my past I was pulling it into my very present situation. So any time we act hysterical, not hysterical like ha ha funny but hysterical is in too much emotion for what's right in front of us when it's hysterical. It's historical. It's un-dealt with. It sounds like it's a fun and it's hard to do, but if you could step back and be objective or have a good friend to you look at a situation go well.
That triggered me at eight or nine on an emotional letter, anger, whatever, and it should be a tour through your probably need to go about something right yet or so. Yeah. And I think triggers were just awful. Like the worst thing in the world but now I look at triggers differently.
They are inconvenient. I wish I could tie my triggers.
I wish I could take it Tuesday night at 7 PM sitting in my bathtub. I'll be all alone. I'll be listening to worship music, the perfect time for triggered a hit and then I'll be able to work through it without creating chaos in another relationship right but that's not how triggers work and so because triggers catch you off guard.
I used to think this is so cool.
Why would God allow the triggers to happen like this. It's so awful. But then I realize it's actually God's mercy, because of the full impact of hurt would hit us at the exact moment when the devastation happens it could kill us. And so, how good and gracious of God, to let the pain leak into our life, months, even sometimes years so that we can almost bite off our healing you one little piece at a time.
So, go back here in your counselors yes can you share some of the writings that were on some of those cards. Some of the deepest wounding was I thought I could trust you. I felt like I had it all together and then choices were made that I had no say so over it made everything fall apart. This is my favorite part of my life and you took it away. So a lot of deep pain there and I remember when I stood back and looked at all those cards on the floor. I remember thinking, no wonder I'm so exhausted.
Look at all up in carrying and letting them realize how much was really there until I wrote it out.
You even mentioned that you are sick. Oh I physically yes. Do you think that had something to do without whittling on the floor and the effects of the stress and the pain and the betrayal absolutely because in your body. The neural pathways that carried physical pain also carry emotional pain. The two are very connected. It's just more in physical pain. There is a protocol that set up that people know exactly what to do and you people know how to support you. You know you get to a doctor and the doctor if it's intense enough admit you to the hospital and if there's brokenness, then he put a cast on it. If there's bleeding then you stitch it up. If there's you know him saying there's like a whole protocol, but if you're sitting on the side of the road and it's emotional pain there's no blood there is no broken bone. There's no place to go. Like if I was in this that's physical pain and they did surgery they would put me to sleep because they have mercy on the intensity of the pain when you're in intense emotional pain. You feel like there's been surgery done to you, but without being put to sleep and that almost seems just insane to me that we would have to suffer on that deep level of emotional pain without some kind of immediate relief and obviously people can go and get medication and all that but there just wasn't that instant protocol. It's like there was this time regifted figure it out and it's very complicated so as they are in my counselor's office and he looked at all of those cards and he said back to me. One of the kindest, most meaningful statements that a human is ever spoken to me and he said Lisa I believe you and I not only believe you. But what's happened to you was wrong and if no one in this world dares to say they're sorry I'm sorry I'll say that to you today and so I know that there's a listener right now who is resonating with the intensity of emotional pain, feeling betrayed, feeling abandoned feeling broken and maybe it's because of choices you fed into or maybe you had choices placed on you and whatever the circumstances are. Maybe or even feeling brokenhearted and not able to forgive yourself. Whatever it is I just want to say to you, I believe you that pain is hard and it is all-consuming and we don't need to compare our pain with someone else's pain. We just acknowledge in the context of our life. It's intense and it's hard and what happened to you that fed into all of the situation that you are in and that's causing so much pain. What happened was wrong and I am so so sorry. And if no one else this world has ever dared to bear witness to your pain. I will and when my counselor did that for me on that day. It helped me put my guard down and this is the thought that popped into my head. I deserve to stop suffering because of what other people have done to me and so then it was less about having that epic moment where the other person realizes how wrong they were and they say they're sorry because you don't have any control over what another person says or does or will or will not do. And if you wait for them to make choices to let your healing journey happen then you are letting the person that hurt you the most. Hijack your ability to heal so I knew I had to detach my ability to heal from another person's choices and I put a stake in the ground and said I deserve to stop suffering because of what another person has done to me this is my pain and it's my choice to heal and Jim look back at me and he said okay now it's time to just verbalize forgiveness and have that marked moment where you know you've been obedient to God and I said that's great. What if my feelings are not cooperating with this because my head says yes, but the pain is out of my heart says no and I don't want to fake it with God because God sees and so Jim said Lisa you just have to remember that forgiveness is not something you conjure up in yourself. Forgiveness is something that God has provided and I had this picture of as God's forgiveness close to me. I simply must cooperate with it and let it flow through me so forgiveness isn't something that I have to figure out. I just have to cooperate with God's forgiveness and so Jim gave me a little script to say I went card by card by card and the script that I would say is I forgive this person for this particular pain and what ever my feelings will not yet allow for the blood of Jesus will surely cover it and he handed me some red belt squares and so each time I said that I would lay a piece of bread felt over that card and by the time I got to the very last card in the very last time I said I forgive this person for this specific pain and whatever my feelings will not yet allow for the blood of Jesus will cover it and I covered that last one with red felt. I looked back and it was no longer the pain that was staring at me and I realized I've been obedient to God and I still have some stuff to work through men. That's okay because forgiveness is both a decision which I made that day and it's a process of healing and it can be both. We forgive and a moment for the fact of what happened, but learning to forgive for the impact that's gonna take a long time and God's command for us to forgive. Allow space for both to avoid wonderful. I remember reading that again. Sitting on a beach. Glorious setting that varies chapter where you talk about the cards that I shared it with me.
I shared it with and and I just I need to do that, you know, I've had the big moment in my life of forgive my dad was a big one but there even as you talking even as I read your book in my car.
I have a budget 3040 cards right now.
I could usually run do I think we all could so that's why bring it up, I saw a wonderful listener or thousands or tens of thousands of listeners did that process. Today I few. Don't be amazing be really interesting to share this whole concept with the family around the table. I was thinking be really cool to talk about that and the necessity of it but also the reality of forgiveness is not an easy thing is not a one time thing to process and a source today. Forgiving someone who has hurt us can be really hard. It's also not an option for us who are followers of Christ we been forgiven much. We are called to forgive one another, but I will so the been talking today with Lisa Turk first was written a book called forgiving. What you can't forget Discover how to move on.
Make peace with painful memories and create a life that's beautiful.
If you are struggling with this issue of forgiveness through someone who has hurt you and you think I can't forgive them. We encourage you to get a copy of Lisa's book. It's available. Our family life to the resource Center ordered from us on wind of family life today.com called order at one 800 FL today in the website to order a copy of Lisa Coker's book, forgiving what you can't forget his family life today.com, the number to call is 1-800-358-6329 that's one 800 F as in family L as in life among the word today and don't forget this week and next week we are encouraging you to join with thousands of other couples from all across the country who this fall are to be joining us at an upcoming weekend. Remember marriage got away were so excited to have a full schedule getaways plan for this fall. You can go online. The family like today.com to find out what to get away is happening in the city near where you live. If you register today for an upcoming getaway you will save 50% off the regular registration fee.
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Want to hear more from Lisa Turk first about the process God took her through. As she had to wrestle with forgiving someone who had hurt her profoundly very deeply conversation continues tomorrow.
Hope you can join us on behalf of our host Steven M Wilson on Bob's opinion so you back next time for another edition of family life today like today is family life accrued ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter