I love sharing books I’ve read, especially those that have made an impression on me. One of the books I love most is by a man named A.W. Tozer. Even though his book was published in 1961 this man was born before the turn of the twentieth century, way back in the eighteen hundreds. He titled his book The Knowledge of the Holy.

It’s a short book but is full of quotes that ring true to my heart. They are the sort of quotes you underline and copy down because you never want to forget them, they are so impactful. Some of my favorites are:

“The yearning to know what cannot be known, to comprehend the incomprehensible, to touch and taste the unapproachable, arises from the image of God in the nature of man. Deep calleth unto deep, and though polluted and landlocked by the mighty disaster theologians call the Fall, the soul senses its origin and longs to return to its source.”

“Whenever the heart begins to burn with a desire for God, she is made able to receive the uncreated light and, inspired and fulfilled by the gifts of the Holy Ghost…”

There has to be that desire before any of the other things can happen. I think that sometimes disaster is one of those events that can provoke this kind of longing. As sad as that is, I’ve seen it over and over and over again. That pain is what brings people to God, to make them wonder who He is and what His interest in them is. They begin to think that He is what they need to fill the hole in the middle of their gut, or heart that they can’t seem to fill any other way. Once you figure out that the hole can only be filled by God you realize there is a place in you that only He can dwell.

There is this great old story about when man was first created:

The Gods hid themselves to see if man could find them. First, they hid in the top of the Himalayas. It wasn’t very long before one person discovered them and told everyone else where they were hiding. Next they decided to hide themselves in the dessert, where it was hot and the people wouldn’t want to venture to since there was no water. But soon they were found. After some discussion among themselves the Gods decided to next hide themselves in the human heart. “No one will think to look for us there,” they cried. And for many people this is true. They don’t take the time to look inward, to see what is there. They look outward, thinking they can fill the void but they can’t. It can only come with quietness and peace.

I hope you have a blessed day and spend a little time examining your heart. Is there a hole in it? If so, fill the void with the God who created you and the knowledge of Him. And I recommend you read this little book The Knowledge of the Holy by Tozer. It might give you some insight.

Everyone gets hurt in this life. It might be caused by a friend or by a family member. It may be because we lose a job. It may be because someone whom we love passes away. It may be a divorce. It may be because of abuse, etc…
The list of potential hurts is endless.

According to a good friend of mine, “Life is fair”.

She is eighty years old and has seen a lot. She believes life is fair because regardless of who we are or what we do we are all hurt at some point in our lifetime.  It is an unavoidable fact of life.

She’s right, you know.

If we all made a list of all the times we have been hurt it would fill pages and pages. What should we do with all that hurt? If we keep it and think about it we allow it to steal our joy.

The only solution that I have found is to instantly forgive. Immediately. Without a second thought. It’s hard to do when my heart is hurting. But once I grant forgiveness my heart begins to heal.

Forgiveness sets us free. Metaphorically speaking when we forgive we take our hands off the other person’s throat. We let them off the hook and ask God to bless them. In doing so we set our hearts at ease.

Do you know the story of Jesus as he was being nailed to the cross? I’ve read it many times and am always amazed. While those men were nailing Him to the cross He asked the Father to forgive them. He said, “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” Wow!

I think there’s a reason why Jesus chose to do that, maybe even several reasons. One of these was to assure the soldiers that he harbors no ill will toward them. He knew that later, maybe even that very day, they would find out who it was they had nailed to the cross and he wanted them to know they were forgiven.

The following reason is the one I connect to most, personally speaking. Jesus knew that he was going to be physically tortured and that it was going to be excruciating. I think that he knew to die without having forgiven would intensify that torture.

The same is true for us. Life is hard and we get hurt. Our hurt can be intensified if we carry un-forgiveness in our heart.

When we forgive others and ourselves we are set free from the garbage polluting our life. Even though we may be hurt in the present or the future we can rid ourselves of past wrong-doings.

Forgiveness is a gift that we give to ourselves.

At the family coaching office in Lubbock, Texas there is a lovely garden behind the office building. There are lots of trees, a river of flowers, a beautiful waterfall, and a wonderful wooden fence.

The garden has been put together and is maintained by the families that come to family coaching.

There’s one tree in the garden that I enjoy talking about. When it was planted it was less than two feet tall and maybe half an inch in diameter. It was planted in the corner of the garden because we weren’t really sure what kind of tree it was. Later on, as the time came to put the dirt in the “river” for the flowers, we needed a place for the river to flow into and out of the garden. Because there are so many trees we had a tough time finding an opening. Eventually the man who was moving in the dirt chose this little tree as his way to get in and out of the garden.

He ran over it on the way in, breaking it, and ran over it again on his way out. It was such a small tree we all thought for sure it would die from the abuse.

But now, four years later that tree is the largest tree in the garden. Something about breaking it made it grow. I think the same idea is true for all of us. I know for myself the more times I have been broken the stronger I become.

When I look at that tree it reminds me that being broken may not necessarily be a bad thing.

I have often taken families and individuals going through a tough time to look at that tree. Stuck in the ground next to it is a very small stick. Long ago I had put it there to hold up that small tree after it had been broken so many times. Now it serves as a reminder of where the tree was when it first began growing.

When someone looks at the tree it helps them see that being broken may not mean that they will be crippled permanently. Sometimes we can use our brokenness for good.

We can grow stronger and taller in our hearts just like that little tree who has given hope to so many people.

Overcoming Abuse: Sexual Abuse -

I choose to read some of the books I read because of what I do everyday. One of these is The Wounded Heart by Dr. Dan Allender. It’s a book about sexual abuse; what happens to the psyche as well as the emotional and physical effects of the abused.

I’m sorry to say that we get many people in the office who are working towards overcoming abuse.

Some were abused as children while others were in a romantic relationship with their abuser. As you can imagine all of these people have had to cope with the effect of these actions their whole lives. Reading this book helps the counselors at Family Coaching to guide the abused through the normal and natural reactions they must work through before overcoming abuse. We also encourage them to read the book, because the better their understanding of the healing process the better they begin to feel. As sad and as gut-wrenching as it is, it is possible to walk out of this situation.

There is also a chance that they will become stronger and more able to use their experiences to help others who are being sexually abused to begin overcoming abuse.

One of my favorite parts of the book is really applicable to our work at Family Coaching. Allender says, and we try to encourage those we work with, that as the abused you don’t have to live in the shadows, you don’t have to be ashamed. Despite what has happened to you, you can see the world as full of beauty and possibility.

“Passion can be defined as the deep response of the soul to life: the freedom to rejoice and to weep.  One of the most difficult commands to fulfill is to “weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice” Romans 12:15. It requires open-hearted, other-centered, reckless involvement. Passion is tasting pleasure with delight, brokenness with tears, and evil with hatred.”

I think this is such a powerful statement about living big and being fully alive. In that, you glorify God.

Find your passion.

You can actually heal. There is always hope.  I believe this works towards overcoming verbal abuse, overcoming mental abuse, and overcoming physical abuse. Overcoming abuse can be a hard and painful task but it is possible.

Healing a Broken Heart -

After living many years with a broken heart and seeking to find the answers for the pain I had lived through I found a simple but profound answer to healing a broken heart. One morning while I was spending time with God complaining about how hard my life had been, I heard in my spirit this quote:

“How long are you going to give today to yesterday?”

It was true. I had spent so many days complaining about the hardships I faced that I was missing the good things that were happening today. From that day forward I began each day by meditating on the good and no longer paying attention to the past except to use it as a lesson in growing. I began my spiritual healing.

I had missed a lot of very good days because I was paying attention to the hurt from the past. My sons and I were doing okay. We had what we needed, we loved each other, and we were safe. So with that understanding, I started living each day as a gift from the Father. As I became more grateful for each wonderful day, each day became more and more fulfilling.

Healing a broken heart became as simple as focusing on God and on my present day.

It was true. When we shift our attention from ourselves to others, we begin to see the world with brand-new eyes. We become a gift for others, a tool to help them leave their past in the past.

This lesson I learned so many years ago, is something I call a 2 x 4 understanding. (As in, getting smacked with a 2 x 4 piece of wood.) It was one of those adjustments that changed my life, shifted my focus, and aligned my purposes. Quickly and powerfully.

In the Bible, the first chapter of the Gospel of John teaches us how God continues to teach us and give us good gifts. This understanding was one of those good gifts and a powerful teaching. I like to share this lesson in hopes of healing a broken heart or two.

Anger Management For Children -

Something happened yesterday that brought back a bunch of old memories.

I was working with a six year old whose parents had recently gone through a divorce. There is also a baby in the family and the divorce had been traumatic on both the kids. The mom had come in a while ago but since the divorce her six year old has been angry. So angry that almost every morning at school she goes to the nurse’s office with an upset tummy. She never gets sick but she’s just miserable. It’s so bad that sometimes she even goes in the afternoon as well. The mom knows that it’s anger and stress, not illness and doesn’t know what to do about it. The sad truth is that many families are in similar situations. One of the parents will leave the home and then doesn’t see the child on a regular basis. Because of this the child feels more and more rejected and feels like no one cares about them. They become lost in their heart.

That’s the way this little six year old feels. When she came in recently instead of working on any of the Family Coaching exercises I just let her talk. All she needed was someone to talk to. I asked her if she could look at me while we talked. She said no, that she wanted to draw. I asked her if she knew how to count to ten, which she did, so on top of her drawing she wrote out the numbers one through ten. (We had a little trouble remembering which way the flag on the five pointed, but everyone gets confused sometimes.)

When she was finished, I drew a line under the numbers and asked her if ten is the most and one is the least, what number describes how much sadness she was feeling? She pointed to the number nine.

I drew an arrow pointing to the nine and asked her which of the numbers describes how mad she is. She asked me was I talking about how mad she was right this minute? I told her yes, how mad was she feeling right now? She pointed to the number two. I commented that two isn’t a very big number; she must not be that mad right now. She told me no, she wasn’t very mad today. She said she gets the angriest when her dad says he’s coming to see her and then doesn’t show up. She gets all dressed up and waits for him and is so disappointed when he doesn’t come. Hearing a child talk about it is heart breaking. You can see how much she hurts. I asked her what happens to her anger when we talk about her dad not showing up.

She then asked me, “Is there a number more than ten?” I told her yes, there is. And she said to me, “That’s how mad I get; the number more than ten.”

I asked her what she wanted to do about all this mad inside of her and that if she didn’t know what to do I could give her some anger management tips.

I told her about the time when my ex-husband and I were divorcing. My youngest son was six and my oldest son was ten. They were mad and hurt. The divorce caused them a lot of pain. This got me thinking about anger management techniques we had used in the past and anger management for children.

We had to come up with ideas to get rid of some of that pain and I could tell her one of the things we loved to do that made us laugh, but also helped to get rid of the mad. She said, “I’ll do it!” She didn’t even wait to hear what it was before agreeing. I told her how my boys and I would take a kitchen timer, set it for five minutes, and then find some pillows. Once the timer began we would have the best pillow fights ever!! We would have so much fun; we would be laughing from start to finish.( It really was one of my favorite anger management games for children ) She got so excited and asked her mom if they could please have a pillow fight? Her mom said of course they could. After a few minutes of her fretting about their lack of a kitchen timer and how using the microwave wouldn’t be the same thing, this little girl and her mother agreed to go get an egg-timer. Once that was established she began to grin from ear to ear. When I told her that I had another suggestion, a sit-down activity, she immediately asked what it was and could they do it tomorrow?

I told her that she and her mom could make home-made play-doh. They could squish it and play with it, even pound on it if she felt like it. This precocious little six year old looked at me and said, “Well, have you given my mom the recipe yet?!” I assured her I would and then I asked her a question for the second time. I asked her how mad was she feeling right now? She thought about it for a moment and said, “Zero means nothing, right? Then right at this very minute it’s at zero. I know I can’t do anything to change my daddy but I can have a pillow fight with my mom and I think that will really help me to feel better.”

After that I was thinking about how much anger many of us carry around. There are so many things you can do to help work out your anger. I told this mother how I used to take a baseball bat and an empty appliance cardboard box out in the backyard. I would let my son take the bat and beat that big box until it was torn into pieces. Then once we felt better we would clean up the yard and throw the trash into the dumpster. This mama knew how much these ideas were going to help her kids. As they left for the day this little girl and I made a contract with each other. She would call me everyday that she didn’t go to the nurse’s office. At the time there were seven days left of school before summer. She assured me that she could go all seven days without going to see the nurse as long as she could call me everyday and have a pillow fight every night.

As I walked them out to their car my little friend asked me, “Are you too old to know how to text?” I laughed and told her that even though I may be older I know how to text and would she prefer to text me instead of call? She replied that one day she would text and the next day she would call.

It was an amazing thing to see her anger completely disappear for a while. She felt like she had some control over her life. I think that’s why we must deal with anger sometimes. To help us move forward, change our circumstances and get on with living big and happy. Remember a pillow fight isn’t just good anger management for children but is great for adults as well.

Sometimes we hold onto the people or situations that enslave us which makes releasing anger all the more difficult.

What if we could just let go of our captives?

Pat reads a translation of Isaiah 58 from The Message Bible

What’s inside your heart? If there is pain, how do you extract it without hurting yourself more?