Healing from Your Difficult Childhood
We all were raised differently, our childhoods are all different. Some of us had amazing childhoods and some of us had dysfunctional childhoods. For all intents and purposes I have done a study on dysfunctional childhoods and how to move on.
A lot of our stories have many different details, for some of us our stories are filled with alcoholism, emotional, mental and verbal abuse from one parent. Listening to people you can sometimes learn that family issues are generational. For example, a child’s mom is abusive, her mom was abusive, her grandma was abusive, great grandma, as far back as the family talks. This all greats generation baggage, generational curses if you will. Abusive and wishy-washy behavior can be very generational. Some people’s families are dysfunctional causing things to be wild while children are growing up. A lot of those kids even into adulthood aren’t completely over how they grew up. Dysfunctional relationships in families even go back to Bible times. In Genesis 12 and 20 Abraham claimed Sarah to be his sister in order to save himself subjecting her to great trauma. He did this to save himself from his own fears starting generational curses in his family. Issac went on to follow in his fathers foot steps and did the same with Rebekah in Genesis 26. He was afraid he would die if others knew she was his wife because they would kill him for her. He told everyone she was his sister. Then later on Jacob never claimed his wife to be his sister however he used deception to get his brother's birthright from his blind father in
People who come from dysfunctional families have a hard time knowing who they are. We shouldn't allow people to identify us. In 1 Samuel David didn’t allow Saul to identify him and he took down Goliath. The dysfunction of families shouldn’t mess up who we are and what our purpose is. If David allowed Saul to identify him it would’ve changed history. The dysfunction of families shouldn’t stop us from doing the amazing things we were created to do.
Sometimes when we have dysfunctional families the way we think and act is changed. We sometimes have a hard time knowing how loving others and being walked all over is different. We have to love ourselves first. We need self-respect to care for others. Matthew 22:37-39 says “Jesus replied, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: Love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” (NTL)” When we don’t love ourselves and we care for others something it is for their approval not for the principle of loving others. God calls us to love our neighbors as ourselves. We can’t do that unless we love ourselves first.
Everything is for a reason?! Yes, everything is for a reason but we shouldn’t justify things that happened to us by telling ourselves everything is for a reason. It does not help our healing. Everything is for a reason that makes God look like the villain. Trauma is caused by evil not by God. Some things shouldn’t need explanations other than the Devil was behind it. Yes, God takes our bad and helps us find our faith but he didn’t intend for the evil. We were lost in our pain and God helped us through it, as long as we allow him to work in our lives. Yes, things being for a reason is an amazing reminder of situations but in some, it is not fair to tell ourselves everything is for a reason. In Psalms 109: 1-9 we are reminded that even in hard times God won’t let us suffer alone it is his job to bring justice to those who have wronged us.
A lot of times we are told everything happens for a reason, suck it up and move on. It is not that easy. Sin is the easy answer. God sees what we need and he helps us: ie, God created Eve in Genesis 2: 15-25 because Adam was sad and needed someone other than the animals. God sees our struggles and he sends us help: a friend, a stranger, the Word. God is the most empathetic individual we will ever know.
Wisdom benefits us as well as those around us. Wisdom means skillful in the Hebrew language. Pursuing wisdom is seeking to relate skillfully with others. To have good relationships with others we need to be smart with our dealings. The wise listens to counsel and the fool listens to self. It is not how wise you are it is about how wise your counsel is. To form healthy relationships from our troubled childhoods we need to move on from our hurts and seek wisdom. Proverbs 9:12 says “If you become wise, you will be the one to benefit. If you scorn wisdom, you will be the one to suffer (NLT)” If we choose the foolish route we will suffer in our own foolishness but if we choose wisdom we will have the knowledge to become our better selves away from our trauma.
Sometimes we are stuck in one place for a long time: a place of doubt, hurt, trauma. In John 5 Jesus approaches a sick man of 38 long, years. He asks the man if he wants to be well. We feel at times that we are too far gone. Life has kicked us too many times. But God doesn’t ask us if we are hurting he asks us if we want to be well. There is a saying that goes, “Dead people stay Dead and Broken people stay Broke”. Yes, the dead stay dead in the literal sense but if we want our lives back, if we want to move on from the wrong we have been dealt we need to push forward. We need to put our full trust in God. We can’t fix what happened to us in our childhoods but we can move forward and do something with our lives that God intended for good.
