Tag Archives: Depression

26Jan 2013

The Secret To Moving Past The Hurts In Your Life Once and For All

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Lets face it, we have all been hurt at some point in our life and it really sucked.

It wasn’t really till this past year that I believed I’ve really been healed from the hurts in my past. From the moment I chose Jesus Christ as my Savior, I would say 2 or 3 times a month something will come up that is a direct result from my past and that God wanted to heal it. Out of those 2 or 3 times a month, I would say 75% of the time it’s a bad habit/sin that I’m doing that God puts on my heart to change.

For example, I really struggle with the idea of failure. I often find myself pretending to be someone I’m not in order to make myself feel better. One time I got a medical school license plate frame for my car and I’m not even in medical school lol! I’m totally embarrassed to say it but we put on so many masks each day and the only mask we should really put on is God’s mask.

Another time my mother and I were talking over the phone about school. She made a comment about my cousin whose in law school and finishing up, he’s only a year older than me and she mentions him every now and again. I sometimes wonder to myself if she’s taking aim at me and emphasizing the fact that I took 3 years off of college and I need to do something with my life.

However, I started to realize that her comment could have been completely innocent and I was becoming defensive because I was afraid she thought I was a failure. Obviously, the hurts are probably not the worst things in the world but they’re not innocent in God’s eyes. I found myself become prideful because I would actually convince myself that I’m a better person since I wanted to be a doctor and I would justify that by saying to myself I had a high g.p.a. It’s pathetic, I would have thoughts in my head like, “Oh what does he or she know, I’m smarter than them.” I would also try and be the best in my class hoping everyone else would fail while I did well.

What God made me realize is a couple of things: 1) I’m nothing without him but I can do anything with him, 2) I needed to encourage and help my fellow classmates and to get help from them as well, 3) God wants nothing to do with people who are prideful. Now I don’t think God means he won’t love you despite your pride but I know he distances himself from people who are prideful and it’s much harder for God to work then.

I wanted to show you how something which may seem so small and innocent (hurt) in comparison to the world could turn into something much bigger and destructive. That is why every sin in God’s eyes is punishable by death and he completely hates it. Once we start to see things from his eyes, the sin in our life becomes that much more evil.

There are two kinds of hurts: ones that show themselves and are very obvious and the ones that are silent and can often go unnoticed. For myself, I have always been the type who pushed everything so deep that the silent warning signs that I was desperately hurt would go unnoticed, most times. I also have another defense mechanism in place to mask those hurts, I would try and separate myself from people so I didn’t become too close to them.

In all honesty, I’m still working on this area of my life with God. It’s been difficult since my past has always seemed to send the same message that I’m a failure. I’ve had to rely on God’s promises that I’m not and it’s taken courage and God’s strength to breakdown the barriers that I’ve put up. I’ve accepted what happened in the past and I’ve forgiven all those people who hurt me simply because of what Jesus Christ did for all of us.

Right now is where God is changing all of those bad habits that are destructive to both myself and others and a lot of them I didn’t even know I was doing. The most important thing in the first step of healing is to find someone you can trust and talk about your past. In my experience, this was one of the hardest steps to do but God encourages us to do so in scripture and I can see why. My girfriend is a strong christian and we really got to the core of a lot of issues. My pastor described it as an onion, peeling layer by layer.

How can you move past the hurts in your life?

1. If your not a follower of God it’s going to be that much harder, and in my opinion, impossible without God. Accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior and I promise it’s worth it!

2. Find someone who is a strong christian and you can trust, then find a time to talk with them about your past hurts throughout the week. (Like I said before, this was the hardest step and my pastor and my girl friend were the two people I did this with).

3. Pray and read what God says in the bible specifically related to your hurts.

4. Fill your life up with Godly things so that you don’t revert back to your old habits.

When you magnify God everything else becomes small and possible. You can change right now, it’s not going to be easy but it is possible with God by your side. I promise you he’ll be there with you smiling and encouraging you every step of the way.

“But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted!” -John 15:7

What do you think are some effective ways to heal from past hurts? What are some things you have been hurt by? How did you cope with them? Leave your comments below!

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18Jan 2013

Losing the Security in Your Life

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Abandonment is one of those secret hurts that manifests itself in so many ways such as loneliness, depression, anger, and fear. I know this firsthand because I experienced all of these feelings growing up but at the core of all of it was abandonment. As I matured in my faith I have found three things, why we feel abandonment, how it manifests itself as destructive behaviors, and the solution for it.

The very moment that my mom gave birth to me, she gave me away. I didn’t know at the time, but the moment that I needed my mom the most, she abandoned me. The same recurring message was sent to me again when my mom divorced, and again when she divorced a second time. I felt as though all of these people, the people most important in my life were leaving me, and why? It was like a message that was being sent to me (my heart) that said, Dear Peter, I’m leaving you because I don’t love you.

When the people most important in your life are leaving you, it’s hard not to wonder if something is wrong with you. You add on top of that, growing up in a community that is largely very different from you (racially) along with a lot of racism and you could say I was a pretty broken child inside.

How did I cope with all of this? All of the feelings that I had, anger, loneliness, depression, and fear had become a part of me. I started to believe that people really didn’t love me, that I had nothing to offer this world, that I was a failure, and maybe that was the very reason why everyone had left me. I ended up going on dating sites trying to get girls to like me, to see something inside of me that I thought my biological mother had missed.

I drank alcohol and watched porn, I even ended up flunking out of my freshman year of college. I had no idea where I was going, who I was, and if anyone really cared about me. As I look back, I found that I had used those things as an escape, a place to getaway from the reality that I didn’t want to face. For some of you, the place to escape might be drugs, alcohol, prostitution, abuse, pornography, violence, romance novels, or even behaviors such as putting other’s down in order to make yourself feel better.

All of these behaviors often stem from a core issue of abandonment. When the people we love hurt us and then leave us, we begin to feel as though something is wrong with us, that we have nothing to offer. This can’t be farther from the truth, which brings me to my next point, what is the solution?

I tried a lot of things in this world to try and escape the hurts that wounded me for many years. I also knew a lot of people who tried things such as drugs and violence to escape the pain they felt from experiences they were hurt by. But what I can tell you is that all of those things, all of the things that the world has to offer will only provide temporary relief which is why it’s so easy to become addicted to those places of escape.

Since their so temporary and fleeting, there is no way they will ever satisfy and give you the peace that each one of us so desperately desires. When I finally found God which took me several years to finally give my life to him because I was so afraid, so hurt, so fearful that God might do the same to me. I also had a hard time believing that God’s promises were true when my experiences told me that promises get broken all the time.

I also thought how could a loving God put me through so much pain, how does that show me that he cares about me? Well, I got an answer one night when my girlfriend’s mother called me. Her mother knew I was adopted but didn’t know I was hurt by it. That night she called Seonyoung to tell me to look up a scripture that God wanted me to know.

“”Never! Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? But even if that were possible, I would not forget you!” -Isaiah 49:15

I couldn’t explain it but I was in tears that night. I knew that God was speaking directly to me and It really put me in tears knowing that he really did care about me.

 What gives you security? Do you believe in the author’s perspective on security? How do you handle times when you lose the perceived security in your life? Leave your comments below!

 

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20Nov 2012

Divorce as a Christian – Linda’s Experiences

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In this post Linda shares her experience with divorce. I pray that God may touch your heart through her experiences and that one day you might be able to share with us here your own experiences with God.

“Look at the fallen pastor’s wife!” My reflection shouted at me from the mirror. I stared back, in horror, at the broken, defeated image. Surely this wasn’t me…this couldn’t possibly be me. Memories of the previous months whirled and danced in my mind, flinging their arrows of accusation and hopelessness like poisonous darts, into my heart.

In a split second the inquest was over and the verdict was in . . . “GUILTY WITHOUT HOPE!” I turned from the mirror and threw myself across the bed. I wept uncontrollably while the tide of guilt and despair spread quickly through my entire being. Condemnation announced the penalty…DEATH! Death was the only way out. “God,” I pleaded “please be merciful and let me die.” The silence was deafening. If God wouldn’t let me die . . . I’d have to figure some way myself!

I lived in anguish for the next months, desperately wishing for death. However, death wouldn’t come. Life went on and on in unending moments of torment and despair. Throughout the following days, as I watched my life unravel, my mind demanded to know the answer to the same question: “How did I get to this point of despair and hopelessness?”

I was raised in a Bible preaching church and have served God since childhood. I began preaching at age 15. By the time I was 16, I was traveling and preaching in various churches. Upon graduation from high school I attended Bible College where I met and married my husband, James. As newly weds we entered the full time pastoral ministry. The years ahead were filled with a mixture of happiness, disappointment, stress and the toll of exhaustion which ministry takes upon ministers.

The path of ministry we chose to pursue led us through seventeen years of home missions ministry, during which we planted three churches and pastored another home missions work. Four healthy children (three boys and one girl) were born into our home.

Although our ministry was successful and rewarding in many ways, our personal lives began to crumble. Unfortunately, while tending to the vast needs of others, our own relationship was neglected and deteriorating. Anger and resentment began to brew while walls of isolation were erected. As the marital problems surfaced, James and I coped with them in individual ways. James poured himself deeper into the ministry, while I withdrew and sank into depression. After twenty years of marriage and ministry my heart became callused and I made terrible choices resulting in sin. Hurting and devoid of hope, I filed for divorce. My world had come crashing down around me. I felt like Humpty Dumpty. I had indeed tumbled off the wall and my life was shattered.

Hopelessness and despair became my constant companions. The enemy of my soul taunted me. “God won’t forgive you” Satan shouted, “your sin is too horrible.” In sin and disobedience, I tried to run from God but his unending mercy followed me. In fear and torment, I tried to hide from Him but His unconditional love found me.

I could not forgive myself so how could I expect God or anyone else to forgive me. For weeks I struggled with the idea that if only I could find a way to clean up the mess I had made of my life, I could go back to my Heavenly Father. Awe! Perhaps then He would welcome me. However, I was totally unable to change my own condition. Try as I might, I couldn’t put my life back together again. Suddenly, the story of the Prodigal son came vividly to mind. The Prodigal didn’t have to take a shower and clean up before he went home. He got up out of the pigpen and went back to his father’s house just the way he was . . . dirt, filth, stench and all.

The words to that old hymn rolled over and over in my memory: “Just as I am, and waiting not to rid my soul of one dark blot, to thee whose blood can cleanse each spot, Oh Lamb of God, I come! I come!” The sweet Spirit of God whispered to my heart: “Linda, get up and come just as you are.” By faith I placed all the broken pieces of my life back into God’s hands. Slowly and gently He began the healing process as He put the pieces of my life back together again.

My husband and I are remarried (to each other) and we went back in full time ministry. Our marriage was better than it was before. We learned to communicate, as well as the importance of keeping our priorities straight.

My husband has since died, and I am now remarried to another wonderful man of God. (You can learn more about it on our ministry website: http://www.humptydumptyministry.net/ )

Our world, the Church included, is full of hurting broken people who live in hopelessness and despair. I know, I have been there. It is true all the king’s horses and all the king’s men could never put Humpty Dumpty together again. However, the King of Kings will reach down and put the broken pieces of your life together again.

If you have fallen and are broken, you are not hopeless. You don’t have to clean up the mess before you can come home. You can come JUST AS YOU ARE!! Your Heavenly Father stands ready to forgive and heal. There is hope for the broken . . . and His name is Jesus!!! If you would like to be reconciled to God today, please click here to learn how you can do that.

Ministering hope and healing to the oppressed and the broken.

“Rejoice not against me, Oh my enemy; when I fall… I shall arise!!!”
Micah 7:8

NOTES FROM THE EDITOR: Linda’s anointed ministry offers hope and healing, to the oppressed and the broken. Her speaking flows from a rich background of ministry, Bible study, and personal experiences of healing from brokenness. She has been a speaker in Colorado, Southern New England, Arizona and Nevada for over twenty-five years.

As a victim of incest and product of an extremely dysfunctional home, she identifies with and ministers to those whose lives are in bondage to wounds from their past.

She also ministers hope and healing, from God’s word, to those whose lives have been shattered as a result of their own failures. Many in our society, the Church included, are broken and need to know there is hope, healing and forgiveness in the blood of Jesus. Society discards and rejects broken vessels, but Linda knows from personal experience, God’s grace can restore them. Unlike Humpty Dumpty, there is hope for them. The King of Kings will pick up the broken pieces, heal them by His blood, and lovingly put them together again.

Just as the prodigal son got up from the pig pen and went home to his father, our Heavenly Fathers invites those who have failed Him to come home… just as they are.

Linda is a wife, mother of four, and speaker. She has spoken at Women’s Aglow meetings, Joy Fellowships and churches of various denominations. Her ministry embraces people from all walks of life. Although she has a special burden for women, she ministers effectively to the entire congregation.

You can learn more about Linda’s ministry at her website: http://www.humptydumptyministry.net/

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11Sep 2012

Abuse No More – Bunny’s Experiences

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In this post Bunny shares her experience with abuse. I pray that God may touch your heart through her experiences and that one day you might be able to share with us here your own experiences with God.

I started my life unwanted, the product of a relationship my mother had between marriages. I took my first beating at 10 months old at the hands of the babysitter my mother had boarded me with. Shortly thereafter my half sister, (who was 2 years older than me), was kidnapped by her father from my grandmother’s house while my mother was out shopping. My grandfather accepted money to help her father and held my grandmother at gun-point so he could take her.

After my mother got over this loss (my sister was never recovered), she remarried, and in the course of time, produced a son and two more daughters to this man. Until I was about nine years old, we were sent (or taken) to church every Sunday and I learned of Christ and His love for me. I accepted the Lord at the ripe old age of seven or eight, but it didn’t take too many years for me to get into the world’s way of doing things.

Much of my childhood has been erased from my memory by a condition that is known as Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. I do however remember some of the cruelty suffered at this man’s hands – such as being made to eat in my room because I was told I was not fit to eat with the family; being picked up by the collar and beat against a wall, having my tailbone broken at least three times by being kicked with steel-toed boots; being raised and told that I was stupid ( I have an extremely high IQ); and being told I was dumb, lazy, unfit, and unwanted.

My mother and he would fight and a continuing theme presented by him was to send me somewhere else. He didn’t want me there. At 11 yrs old he sexually abused me. I quit speaking for a period of time. He was the first of many adult men that sexually abused me and I was so afraid of people in general and men in particular that I was afraid to say “NO!” Compliance had been beaten into me.

I knew what I was being put through was wrong and I tried to go to Social Services to get us all (my brother, sisters and I) out of the house, but we had a “nice” upper-middle-classed family and back then, things like that just didn’t happen in “good” families like ours. It was decided that I was a liar and incorrigible.

At 14 years old, convinced that I was the reason my parents fought so much, and having overheard the many comments made, I started to run away. I would head across country and disappear, but every time I left it only took a few months for someone to figure out I was underage and report me. I would be sent back only to run again the first chance I got.

The first few times I left I would get a job and a small housekeeping room and just try to live quietly and at peace. I kept to myself. After several attempts though, and being on the streets I started to be led by others. At different points I stayed with a motorcycle gang, was approached many times by people who offered to “help” me, make me a “star”, slept in cars that someone had left open, stayed at “crash pads”, and in general learned to survive on the streets. There were so many times that I could have been coerced into hard drugs, prostitution, or even turned up dead that I dread to even think about them now. But God was faithful to me even if I was not faithful to him. No matter what the environment, he kept me safe from the worst of what could have happened.

I even landed in jail at the ripe old age of 14 1/2. When I was picked up (having been talked into helping the guy I was with to steal a car) , I was so afraid of being sent home to my stepfather’s tender mercies that I told them I was 18 and spent the next 3 1/2 months in the Don Jail in Toronto, which at that time it was considered the worst jail in Canada. The Lord provided for my protection even in that environment in the form of a woman who convinced everyone that I was her “old lady” and off limits to everyone else. She never laid a hand on me.

I did suffer a good beating though because the guards showed me some favoritism in the form of chocolate bars and privileges not normally given out and some women formed the opinion that I was telling information to them to get these things. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Due to what I now know was the Lord’s intervention in my life, people just seemed to want to naturally protect me! (My nickname was pixie for a reason *Smile*). When I refused to tell who had done it to me the other prisoners left me alone.

Incidences similar to this happened to me continually throughout my life. Far too many to go into here – not to say I have escaped all things.

I have been raped (several times), robbed, beaten (throughout my life by many different people), held at gun-point, held at knife-point, given up one child and was an unwed mother to another. It was discovered that I have suffered ritual satanic child abuse. I have lived on the streets both alone and with a small child. I have been homeless. I have faced cancer twice. But, through it all, the Lord has kept me safe from the worst of what could have been. He has spared my life.

About three years ago He decided it was time for me to come to a relationship with Him. My second marriage of only a few months had broken up and they had found another growth in my abdomen. The third one. When I walked out of the doctor’s office after being told, I cried out to God and told Him that if it was His will that I die, so be it. A month later, when they did another scan, it was gone! I thanked him with heartfelt thanks, but I could not bring myself to walk into a church. I had drank too much, done too many things I was ashamed of and in a town that was only 1500 people where I had spent most of the past 17 years, I knew I would not be accepted. I knew I was too bad for the Lord to forgive. I was wrong!

On a Sunday morning I got up and could hear someone saying “go to church” (there was a Pentecostal church only a block from where I lived). I, of course, was arguing with the voice I heard. I remember getting showered and putting on good clothes (slacks and blouse) and all the while arguing with this voice inside me and telling it that I was certainly NOT going to go into a church for people to judge me! I got my shoes on and went out the door still arguing.

That Sunday I won (or lost) the argument. I stood at the bottom of the small incline up to the church and listened to them sing, but would go no further. The next Sunday the scenario was repeated, but this time as I faltered again at the bottom of the short hill, I felt hands in the center of my back pushing me! I thought I had lost it for sure! I kept wanting to turn around and run the other way, but I could not. The hands just kept pushing me toward the small church and into the door!!

I sat at the back trying to be as inconspicuous as possible and I started to cry. Not loud enough for anyone to hear me, but the tears were streaming down my face. Then, to my amazement, the preacher stopped all the singing, stood and looked around and said, “The Lord just told me that someone here needs to dedicate their life to Him. I don’t know who it is but I will wait. Please come up and let’s pray together.”

I knew he was talking to me, but I would not move. The pastor kept encouraging me to come forward with the same words for the next 45 minutes, but I could not bring myself to go forward in front of all those people! The next Sunday I did. For the next several months I could not go into a church without immediately starting to cry. I didn’t know it then but the Lord was healing me. I changed from an extremely angry person, who couldn’t/wouldn’t talk to others without the anger, resentment, and hate showing up to one who could not only talk to others, but would hug and was able to show love to my fellow human beings.

Three months later I was baptized (Easter Sunday) and made a decision to spend the rest of my life serving the Lord. I am imperfect; I fall just as does everyone, but I get up, ask forgiveness yet again, and carry on learning to serve my Lord. He forgave me, he taught me to forgive as he has done, he taught me to love and what it really is. He is teaching me new things every day.

I thank him for His grace to me and I know that his grace is there waiting for you. He does love you. It does not matter what you have done or where you have been, He will forgive you. He will teach you to forgive yourself. He is waiting for you to earnestly ask. He is calling to you as a Father calls for a lost child he is searching for. Call out to Him. Let Him know you are searching for Him too. He will receive you right where you are. Don’t wait. His arms are open to receive you now.

If you need someone to talk to, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
I can be reached at the following email address:

Bunnie Klassen

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10Feb 2012

A Poem of Hope

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HOPE

Life is such a struggle

so many hurts and so much pain

It overcomes me sometimes and I feel totally drained

I want to give up

what’s the point of all of this?

Will anyone really care and will I be missed?

A broken world doesn’t seem right

It seems so painful and lonely, with no end in sight

But as I remain still

in the quietest of nights,

I look up and see

all of the brilliant lights

Stars so afar

a black sky as far as one can see

I can only imagine, their must be someone

looking down on me

All of a sudden

out of nowhere I feel

a peace and joy that feels oh so real

My heart cries out, I ask, “who is this?”

and the voice whispers so gently, “oh my child, you’ve been missed.”

“My love for you is like

nothing you’ve ever felt before”

“Please stop chasing things

that will never satisfy you more”

As I look back in the sky and up into space

I can be at peace now, knowing of your ever loving grace

 I say goodbye, and ask, “is this the end”?

The voice says, “No, I’ll be with you till I come back again.”

 

 

 

 

 

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