Hi there ladies! I pray this is a blessing to you.
*Inset paragraph- I originally published this 5/19/2022 and updated it on 7/23/2023. I took it off being published for awhile until I felt like going back over it. A few months after I wrote this I wrote a testimonial for coming to the Sabbath for The Sabbath Sentinel. The link is below to the blog post of it. I really liked how that came out and then I wasn’t so sure about this one anymore for some reason. Both of these go together and they give away parts of what led to the life I have now.*
This particular topic has been on my heart for a long time to write about. Every time I work on it, I am taken in an even better direction for it.
It may be hard to comprehend right now and truly internalize but things we have been through do NOT have to define us or hold us back from moving forward with growth, as they shouldn’t. Yah doesn’t want that for us. He wants to heal our hearts. We know that because of this verse:
Psalm 147:3 He heals the broken in heart and binds up their wounds.
You might have come across preaching about forgiveness, bitterness and not holding onto things that have been done to us or things we have gone through.You may have seen it shouldn’t bother you anymore. Some say to just get over it and that you have to do these things. It seems like the vast majority of the time that is all that gets said. I do believe it is meant well for the most part, however, I know how unhelpful it actually is to see what feels like lecturing and a lack of truly showing the hope we do have while being helpful. We all know we should move forward. We all know we should be forgiving. We know we shouldn’t let it define us. We know what should be the case. Not everyone who struggles with forgiveness, moving forward and being in a better state or has bitterness WANTS to be there. When you have been broken inside and want to get past these obstacles internally it can make you feel super guilty and like something is just so wrong with you because our hearts often need time to get to the point that Yah wants for us. It can be a process. He does heal our hearts and wants to! That is what the brokenhearted need, HOPE AND HEALING! Yes, that is what needs to be offered, not just a preaching AT people what is required. People generally already know that. HOPE is powerful. HEALING is powerful. YOU can find it.
I know how hard it can be to feel like you will ever feel worth it and able to get to point where your heart no longer hurts. Boy, do I ever. But, I am here to tell you it happens! He will do what He says. He wants to heal the brokenhearted. I was a very damaged child. I know without a doubt He started working on mine many years before I even recognized it. He sent me my husband when I was young to start that process. I knew something was different about him and knew he was special even at the age of 15! Yah had a plan and I had no idea for some years. He knew I needed the young man who became my husband who also is the only one who ever stood up for me and confronted things he knew needed it. As much as I truly needed him he fully admits he needed me too. We finished growing up together and grew together. Yah knows exactly what He is doing.
I won’t get into all the details or everything I could because that is unnecessary but I can tell you my heart felt so worthless, rejected, unloved, and even hated, I knew I was a burden and abandoned among so many other broken feelings.
You can read my testimony here at https://sabbathsentinel.org/2022/05/31/my-journey-to-finding-god-his-healing-and-his-sabbath/ I wrote this awhile ago and think it would be useful here too. I talk about part of my story that led me to where I am now.
My mother abandoned us when I was a baby. I very well could have come from her affair. She left my father when I was an infant for that man and then she took off and haven’t seen her since. My father got custody of us some months later. I didn’t know until adulthood that at least some of them knew I might not be his. I knew the mans name and other things about it all. One time my father made an offhanded comment that went over my head when I was between 11 and 13 about if I ever turned out not to be his. I didn’t understand why he said it and forgot all about it for a long time until I was in my 30s I think. I wasn’t the child from that affair after all (that I thought) . I knew about that particular brother since I was young. I found out I could have too and more starting at the age of 17 and as the years went by how big of a possibility it was as I got older and it would take me 20 years to accept it and be ok with it fully. That isn’t something pleasant to know and internalize. Now at 39, none of this bothers me anymore. I dealt with it all years ago with the exception of trying to start a relationship with that man. I got to where I did want to find out who my father really was, that is what took me the longest, I just wasn’t interested to know. So I asked for a DNA test and started to try to build a relationship. After being asked to come around for 20 years, I talked to his girlfriend since I was 17 off and on, I finally did reach out. So all that was within the last few years and let’s just say… it is what it is and I am ok with that fully now. I still don’t know who my earthly father is. Honestly, I no longer care and it really doesn’t matter. That is a whole other story in itself. Another place where my identity and worth are not defined!
I fully believe my mother leaving was the greatest blessing in my life. It led to exactly where I am now. Everyone makes their own choices and has their own brokenness. Sometimes what we think is bad is a blessing in disguise. Yah can turn anything into good! Believe it!
My childhood was filled with general meanness and cruelty. Not at every moment but that was the exception and not the rule. I remember how it felt to be yelled and screamed at for every little thing with such a vitriol that it just wounds you. I grew up with all the adults yelling and screaming at each other too. I learned it as well. I am talking about the kind that is extremely loud and your voice is hoarse after. I still can’t stand conflict and yelling now but it doesn’t do the same thing to me anymore. (Here is the blogpost I wrote about how to stop yelling. It is possible to overcome it, we just have to put in the work. https://torahwoman.com/2022/03/30/how-to-stop-yelling/ )
Angry men scared me for many, many years. My family had more than one angry man. It was scary to say the least at times. I just definitely prefer productive conversations that are in an effort to help whatever is going on to get better. That is how it should be anyways.
I remember being told what felt like almost everytime my father was upset with me starting at a very young age “I didn’t have to take you, I could have left you in foster care”. My father and grandmother both used to tell me “you are just like your mother” when they were upset with me. I didn’t even know her and everything they ever said was bad. Once my father said, “she wasn’t all bad” but not once was I ever told anything that wasn’t. Imagine the damage this does to an already damaged child. They called me names all the time, told me I would never amount to anything, so much like that. I was always in trouble. Sometimes they would be angry and hold a grudge over me for months at a time and regularly would dig it in. Even before I cut ties with my father 15 years ago he was still saying things to me like how much of a fault it was of mine that he couldn’t date when I was young. I had to be made to go upstairs. I didn’t understand why I took it so hard at the time but now know it was because I was afraid he would abandon me too. It would make him pretty angry with me when I got upset and jealous. After all, he was always far more concerned with himself and my mother left so I was worried he would leave too.
Within months of meeting my now husband, my grandmother kicked me out of her house at the age of 15. I only remember kinda arguing on the phone, I don’t even know about what it was over, I really did nothing more than be a normal teenager and I didn’t do a lot of the things many teens do. I had a mouth on me I am not proud of and I had a major attitude, I was a very angry teen especially when I was at home. My environment caused it all. I wish I didn’t have that mouth and behavior but it is true. I was a provoked kid in so many ways and that was something I could control.. my mouth and pushing buttons of those who were so cruel to me. My father did nothing and allowed me to be kicked out. Now I know my grandmother feels terrible about it all and did admit I reminded her of my mother. She would stop me and tell me it wasn’t my fault, I was a child, she was the adult. I would apologize for my mouth and attitude when we talked about some things. I now know that she also had a lot to deal with having all three of us there. I didn’t know at the time so many things. Not to mention the fact that my father intentionally pitted she and I against each other and intentionally caused fights and problems between us. It was tough but it is how things went. And once again she stopped talking to me almost two years ago after five or six years of reconciliation. I don’t remember how long it actually was this last time. You just get used to this stuff and it finally doesn’t bother me anymore either.
When we got married, I was 19 and he was 21, my father wavered back and forth on whether or not he would go. He really didn’t seem to care. Two days beforehand he said he would go. He never showed and never even told me he wasn’t coming. We waited awhile and just started our wedding without him. Two months later I called him and he said he got a chance for overtime at work and took it. I personally think he never intended on going. For some reason I was still hopeful though. When I asked him why he didn’t tell me at the very least his response was he thought I’d be mad at him. That may have even been the same conversation when he told me “you’re his problem now”. It hurt because fathers should want to be there and mine never seemed to care about being there for me. It took me a long time to understand it wasn’t because something was wrong with me. It was his own issues, brokenness and sins. Not mine and it WASN’T MY FAULT! No matter how much they all told me it was.
Rejection has been a constant theme in my life and I finally got something…it doesn’t matter! My Father in Heaven doesn’t and neither does my husband! Those matter! I am not rejected at all by Who it matters most. My identity is in Yah and our Messiah, not in anything earthly.
This is part of what I endured. I do not say these things with any negative feelings anymore and it no longer even bothers me. It took a long time for the different wounds to heal but they did! Yah is faithful and you also have to LET Him heal your broken parts. People sin and we all sin in different ways. I know things that made everyone involved be the ways they were. I do feel bad for them for the things they endured too. I understand why so much went the way it had but, I give no excuses for any of their behavior and treatment. I will no longer be around certain people and that is the decision I had to make. Their sin is on them and it was not ok. I did get to the point of forgiving all of it. It isn’t mine to hang onto, there are verses after all that says to cast your cares and forgiveness…. He doesn’t want us to try to carry things on our own. We aren’t meant to.
Once you get to the point where it no longer affects you and you truly have forgiven trespasses against you, something happens. You even get to the point where all feelings you used to have are gone and you get to the point where you truly hope THEY can find real repentance and come to know Yah! I want to see all of them who have hurt me to know OUR Father In Heaven and find THEIR OWN HEALING! Boy do I hope that happens! I no longer put myself in situations to have to be around certain people anymore but I do hope for those things and I have even shown I hold no ill will towards them. I have told them I have forgiven things. I saw my father a few years ago and was polite, kind, talked to him and his girlfriend and even joked. I had no bad feelings. That does not mean I have to go back to what I know will be the case again. But I did treat the situation like I should have. Years ago it would have been harder. Growth and healing is GOOD!
So to switch gears now. I struggled with my worth, knowing I was wanted, receiving love and so many other things for a long time. I never felt good enough and worthy of being loved or even being liked for so long. All of those things that got ingrained in me as a girl stuck with me for a very long time. You have to face it, you have to pray to be able to do the very things He asks of us, you have to ask for healing. Sometimes you have to ask Yah to even give you the desire to WANT to do these very things. You have to ask to be able to grow and love people the way He does. You have to ask to see yourself how Yah sees you! You sometimes have to ask to be able to let yourself accept you are loved and wanted in earthly relationships and by HIM!
I will never forget the first time my husband stopped, looked at me and just said with so much love I could feel it, in the middle of a disagreement, “You know, just because I am upset with you, that doesn’t mean I don’t love you.” I’m pretty sure as that light bulb went off in my head I just started crying. I needed to hear that! I knew he did but somehow, internally I still had that little girl inside me who felt so rejected, unloved, made known a burden and worthless. He was upset with me therefore he would withdraw his love right?! That is what I learned. That one phrase in itself healed a big part of my wounded heart. It is strange how we equate things from before with completely unrelated things happening now. One has nothing to do with the other… or does it at least to a degree?
It absolutely does!
People who haven’t dealt with rejection, hatred, or being a burden to fathers especially don’t always understand how that truly affects your future relationships and especially with your personal relationship with Yah. It really can. When your earthly father doesnt forgive you, holds grudges, seemingly is waiting for you to screw up so he can “smack you back down” and whatever else you may struggle with, it carries over. You have to sometimes pray for Him to remove those barriers in your brain and heart. HE ISNT AN EARTHLY PARENT, HE IS OUR PERFECT GREAT FATHER! He does love us unconditionally! Of course that doesn’t mean free reign to sin and etc but it does mean that when you do mess up He is waiting with open arms and not a stick! He wants your repentance and turning towards him, not keeping him at arms length because that is our habit. He does not reject us nor does He withdraw His love like people do. NO! RUN TO HIM!
Doing a study on the words and scriptures on HOPE, FORGIVENESS, LOVE and etc are a good exercise. YAH IS LOVE! That did take some time to really sink in and when it does, wow, you understand so much more of His character and other people and what He hopes for them too… the same things He wants for us! Our Messiah came for sinners.. not just “little” or “smaller” sins, He came for SINNERS. We don’t get to define who is worthy of His Salvation. Pull away if you must, I have had to with many. I get it. Pray for them too! Yah never excuses their sins, He doesn’t like it either and He wants their repentance too.
We have HOPE. He will heal our hearts. I am proof of that! Our past hurts doesnt have to define us! What has been done to us doesn’t define our worth! He loves us and wants to reach His arms down and hold us tight to embrace us so He can heal our hearts! He is our Tender Loving Father.
You’ve got this! I pray for the brokenhearted and will continue too! If you are struggling, Yah sees you and He cares! Go to Him and seek what you need. Of course if you need help reach out to those who can. Sometimes that is needed.
May any healing you need come and may your relationship with our Father get closer! Draw near to Him.
Until next time!
