HOW CAN I TRUST SOMEONE, WHEN TRUST BEEN BROKEN? - Part 3

One of the hardest questions we can ask ourselves is “How can I trust someone, when trust been broken in our lives?   This question isn’t an easy one to answer, but I have learned through my experience that with God’s help, and the assistance of others, we can trust someone again.   One of the things that can help us trust someone again who broke our trust, is first, to be healed from the emotional hurt of it, and second, find a way in our heart to forgive them.  Forgiveness is one of the keys to being healed emotionally from any hurt or pain. I believe no matter how deep the hurt is, God can heal us from it.   In this blog series we have been looking at trust being broken in the area of marriage and family relationships, and practicing certain choices that can help us heal from the emotional pain of broken trust.   Today I want to talk about the third choice that is called “The Choice To Forgive The Offender”.   This choice says we need to be able to forgive the person who broke our trust, in order to be healed of the emotional hurt that can allow us to restore our relationship with them.

Still referring to the book “Healing Is A Choice” written by Stephen Arterburn.  In chapter 7 of the book in the section entitled “The Choice To Forgive”, he talks about how forgiveness frees us to be healed of any emotional hurt we experience from someone in our lives.  When we don’t forgive someone for the wrong they have done to us, we can allow such feelings as resentment and anger, to kill us physically due to holding a grudge towards them.  Arterburn says, “A justifiable resentment is the type of resentment that will kill you.  It is not about anything petty.  It is about real and horrible abuse or mistreatment.  It is about a real-life event that anyone would say was terribly wrong, and most anyone would tell you that you are totally justified in feeling the way you do.  Tenderhearted people will cry with you over it, and many probably have.  All evidence supports your feelings of anger, resentment, bitterness, and unwillingness to forgive.  The other person doesn’t deserve it, and no one wants him or her to have it.  That is what I call a justifiable resentment.”

When someone like our spouse or rebellious child have broken our trust, only forgiveness can help heal us from emotional hurt, and allow us to try to restore the relationship.  In this series I have focused on a story of a married couple named Tina and Teddy, which went through a tough situation in their marriage.  The couple was on the Steve Harvey show. Tina talked about how her husband cheated on her, and the emotional pain she experienced because of his actions. Tina practiced “The Choice To Forgive The Offender”, which this allowed their marital relationship to be restored with each other as she depended on God for help.  True emotional healing and freedom comes from being able to forgive our offender, who wronged us because it helps us to restore the relationship with the one that broke our trust.  Tina and Teddy still loved each other, and her husband repented and took ownership of his actions to make things right with his wife.  God has restored Tina and Teddy’s marriage, with the couple renewing their marriage vows all over again, but it took forgiveness and time to heal the emotional pain of mistrust.  

There is a biblical principle that we can practice to help us forgive people who have hurt us deeply.  In Colossians 3:13 it says, “Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you.  Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.”  Resentment will keep us from forgiving people, who offended us because of abuse or mistreatment they have done to us.  I believe there isn’t any situation that happens in our marriage or family, which forgiveness can’t heal over time.  The key is the offender must truly repent and take ownership of their behavior instead of blaming others for what they have done, and the other person must be able to find it in their heart to forgive them.  When our trust been broken by someone, for us to be able to trust him or her again, the person must prove to us through their behavior they have changed.  Forgiveness is free, but trust is earned.  You can’t forgive someone in your own strength, but it takes a supernatural work of God to help you do it.  Forgiveness gives you the ability to get healed from the emotional pain of broken trust by someone, and helps you to trust him or her again.  It isn’t easy, but “Yes” it’s possible to trust someone again that broke our trust.

Would love to hear your thoughts, questions, or feedback.

HOW CAN I TRUST SOMEONE, WHEN TRUST BEEN BROKEN? - Part 2

My mother use to always tell me it takes a lifetime to build up trust with someone, but it can be broken in minutes.  In order to rebuild your trust with someone, it takes hard work and time especially when there has been a breach in the relationship.  In this blog series we have been looking at the question “How can I trust someone, when trust been broken?”, in light of marital and family relationships.  Our spouse or children could have caused the emotional pain and hurt we feel.  Before trust can be restored in a relationship with someone, we need to first be healed of the emotional pain from the broken trust.  As we look at several choices to help us heal from emotional pain caused by broken trust with someone, the first choice is “The Choice To Connect With Others.” Today I want to talk about the second choice we can make to heal from our emotional hurt of broken trust, which is called “The Choice To Feel And Express Our Life”.  This choice says we need to be able to feel the full impact of our emotional pain in our lives, work through those feelings with people who understand and sympathize with us, which can help us heal emotionally from our pain or hurt. 

In the book titled “Healing Is A Choice” written by Stephen Arterburn, he talked about making important choices that can help us experience emotional healing in our lives.  In chapter 2 in a section called “The Choice To Feel Your Life”, he says it is important to give people who are hurting emotionally the opportunity to feel, and work through their pain without pushing them to heal instantly from it.  In other words, he is saying we should be able to have someone who we can honestly express our true feelings to, who won’t try to get us to skip over or not deal with our hurt in a healthy way.   In the last blog we looked at the story of a married couple named Tina and Teddy, who made different choices to heal from the emotional pain of mistrust because of the husband’s affair with another woman. The first choice the couple made was to connect with other people who could walk along aside them, to help them get the emotional healing they needed to have a successful marriage.  The second choice the couple made was to heal emotionally by feeling and expressing their pain to others, who would give them the opportunity to work through their feelings of anger and mistrust, especially Tina because of her husband’s affair.  The couple had the support of other people who they both submitted their lives to, in order to get healed emotionally.  Tina had to get healed so she could forgive her husband for his infidelity, and Teddy had to get healed from the pain he caused his wife to go through.

The example here was with a married couple involved in infidelity because of trust being broken by a spouse, but mistrust can be involved in any situation between friends, a married couple, or a parent and a child.  Whatever our situation might be, we need to have the opportunity to feel the pain of our hurt before we can become healed emotionally.   Too often people want us to instantly get healed over the things that hurt us, which can lead us to burying our emotions causing us not to resolve the pain that is within us.  Resolving our emotional hurt happens as we feel and work through the pain with God’s help, and others we trust who understand and sympathize with us.  If we don’t resolve the hurt we feel within us, our life will revolve around those feelings controlling us.  We will be controlled by feelings of anger, bitterness, anxiety, and fear.  Being controlled by these feelings will cause us to try to get relief from our emotional pain by using such things as food, alcohol, drugs, sex, and gambling.  When we deal with our emotional pain of broken trust with people we trust in a safe environment, it can allow us to get the help we need to heal from our hurt.  Once we are healed emotionally we can then forgive the person that broke our trust, whether it is our spouse, a friend, or a rebellious child.

Even the Bible tells us in Galatians 6:2, how we need help those who are experiencing emotional hurts by understanding and sympathizing with them.  We are to help others by carrying their burdens (emotional pain).  We need to have the opportunity to feel our pain in order to be healed emotionally.  Resolving your emotional pain properly can help you heal, which can open the door for you to forgive the offender.  Let’s choose to make the choice to feel and express our life to others, who can help us to heal from the broken trust we might experience in our friendships, marriage, or family relationship. 

Would love to hear your thoughts, questions, or feedback.

 

HOW CAN I TRUST SOMEONE, WHEN TRUST BEEN BROKEN? - Part 1

Many of us in life at one point in time had to deal with the emotional hurt of someone who violated our trust.  They could have done something to us intentionally or unintentionally.  It could have been a spouse or a family member that broke our trust, and the weight of their actions caused the pain and hurt we felt.   The reason why I referred to a spouse or family member is, because we want to look at this topic in light of marriage and family relationships.  Emotional pain is just as real as physical pain, and it affects us in so many different ways, physically and psychologically.  Dealing with emotional pain coming from the mistrust of someone who we are in a relationship with, whether it is in a marriage or family takes time to heal.  The question is “How can we trust someone, when trust been broken?” I believe there are several choices we can make to help us to heal from the emotional pain caused by the broken trust of someone, and one of them is the choice to connect with others.

I would like to recommend a book titled “Healing Is A Choice” written by Christian counselor Stephen Arterburn.  In chapter 1 of the book called “The First Choice: The Choice To Connect Your Life”, he talks about connecting with other people as a way to help us heal from emotional hurt and pain.  He says the first choice we must make in order to heal emotionally is for us not to live in isolation with our hurt, but to connect with others who can assist us in overcoming our pain.  A married couple name Tina and Teddy made this choice to connect with people in order to deal with infidelity in their marriage.   On the Steve Harvey show, Tina talked about how her husband cheated on her, and the emotional pain she experienced from his actions.  She had to deal with different emotions of anger and rage that rose up out of her, in the safety of a small group of spiritually matured Christians.  Tina didn’t want to be around a bunch of bitter and complaining people who would have just focused on her problem, but she wanted to be with people who wanted their best interest.  Tina and Teddy still loved each other, and her husband was repentant and took ownership for his actions, and he strived to make things right with his wife.  As a married couple they wanted to do the right thing for their marriage, and they trusted God to bring them back together.

Today God has restored Tina and Teddy’s marriage, and they are sharing their story.  Teddy had to work hard to gain Tina’s trust again by making restitution for his actions.  The couple was able to overcome the brokenness caused by the mistrust in their marriage, all because they made the choice to connect with others.  As a Christian everything starts and ends with God.  Sometimes we need to get alone and connect with God to get emotionally healed, and there are other times when we need to connect with people to help us get healed from our emotional hurt.  The person could be a close family member, or friend that we have an authentic relationship with, who has our best interest in mind that can help us heal.  We might even need the help of a professional counselor in the area of our situation.  In life we might need to connect with people who we trust to help us heal, instead of trying to do it alone in isolation by ourselves.

There is even a biblical principle that says in Galatians 6:2, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”  We are called to connect with people in order to help them carry their burdens (problems), which in this case referring to their emotional pain.  Only when we are healed emotionally from our trust being broken by someone, can we possibly be able to trust anyone again especially in our future relationships.  In order for our trust be restored with the person who broke it in the first place, it will take both of us working to fix the relationship.   No matter who you are there might be a time in your life when you will need to connect with someone who you know, to help you deal with a major situation in your marriage or family where trust has been broken.   The offender could be your spouse or child.  The first choice toward healing emotionally resulting from the broken trust of someone is connecting with other people.  Share your pain with someone that you have an authentic relationship with, which has your best interest in mind to start the healing process.  Hopefully this will help you to be able to trust the person again.  The choice is ours so let’s choose to connect with the right people.

Would love to hear your thoughts, questions, or feedback.

REFLECTIONS - EVALUATING AND IMPROVING OUR MARITAL AND FAMILY RELATIONSHIP

As we are about to enter a new year this week, this blog is about the importance of us doing some reflections on the relationships that matter the most to us.  The word reflection means to meditate on something, so in this case we will be looking back to see how healthy our relationships are and have been.  We want to focus on our relationship with our spouse if we are married, or the relationships with those who are apart of our family.  As a husband or wife we need to see how we can better our relationship with each other.  As parents or siblings we need to see how we can better our relationships with our other family members.  Good marriages don’t happen automatically, but they take hard work between both spouses.  The same is true in that great family relationships don’t happen automatically, but it takes everyone working together as a team in the home.  Our goal should be to have a healthy and strong marriage or family, and one of the ways we can achieve it is through evaluating and improving our relationships. 

I believe there are three areas we can focus on to help us evaluate and improve our marital relationship or our family relationships, which are communication, connection, and commitment.

·      Communication.  When it comes to married couples, communication is important because it helps them to have authentic conversation with one another.  As married couples we need to be able to talk openly and honestly to one another, in order to deal with whatever is right or wrong with our marriage.  As married couples we need to communicate loving words of affirmation and appreciation to our spouse.  As parents we need to communicate to our children how well they are doing and maturing in life.  We need to have authentic conversation with our children pertaining to their behavior and attitude as they grow up.  As well as speaking words of love, affirmation and appreciation to them, even when we need to correct and discipline to them.  Siblings need to constantly be working on communication with their other siblings, in order to have a good relationship with them.

 

·      Connection.  Another area where we evaluate and improve our marital and family relationships are connecting with each other.  In order to connect with our spouse, or our family members we have to communicate with each other, but it is more than just talking to people, it is doing what is needed to connect with them.  It could be as simple as being present with our spouse or family members, who are going through a tough situation in their life and need someone to listen to them.  It is making ourselves available for people giving them our undivided attention.  It is taking time to understand our spouse, parents, or siblings in order to build a better relationship with each other.  As siblings we need to do activities together that will help to promote a good relationship.   

·      Commitment.  Commitment reveals our loyalty to our spouse and family members, being there emotionally and relationally when needed for them.  Commitment says “I will be there with you through the good and bad times together.”    No matter how good a marital relationship we have with our spouse difficulties will happen, but it is important for them to know we are committed to them in the relationship.  As a parent it is important for our children to know we are committed to them, no matter how good or bad they behave.  We want our children to know we love them, and we are committed to them.

As we are getting ready to end the year and start a new year, it is important to evaluate and see how we can improve our marital or family relationship.  As husbands we need to see how we can connect with our wife heart to heart, helping us to have a close knit relationship where they know they are loved.  My wife and I have learned the importance of speaking the truth in love to one another, being able to have the tough conversations of what are the problems or difficulties in our marriage.  As parents we try to talk to our children to see what is going on in their lives, as well as work on our relationship with them to make it better.  My brothers and I are constantly trying to work on our relationship with each other.  I encourage you married couples to talk to each other to evaluate how well your marital relationship is with each other, and together make the changes needed to better your marriage.  As parents evaluate how well you are spending quality time talking to your children, and make the changes to improve your relationship with them.  The greatest things we have are our relationships so let’s take care of them.

Would love to hear your thoughts, questions, or feedback.