Heart Splinters

Heart Splinters

Resolving hurts, lies, and offenses

CHILDREN AND OFFENSE

An offense is when we feel we have been wronged and hold onto it. While an offense can be truth-based (the person really was rude, mean, or violated our rights), when we hold onto it, the poison harms us, not the one who did the offense. I played the ‘hot potato’ game with the children and explained that the hot burning potato was the ‘offense.’ Just because someone throws it at you doesn’t mean you have to catch it, hold onto it and carry it around with you. I encouraged them to get it off their hands (heart) as fast as they can, just like a hot potato! The cool thing about an offended child is that, in most cases, there hasn’t been time for it to develop into bitterness or a bitter root of judgment. When a child is offended by someone else, they will clearly show you, as an offended child will not speak well nor desire to be around that person.

GUILT VS. SHAME

We were sitting in a restaurant when I noticed a mom squeezing the life out of her son’s arm as she yanked him out of the store across the street. The look on her face wasn’t of anger but rage. About ten long minutes later, they came back. She looked like she had released her anger and was now ‘fine’, but the boy’s eyes were swollen and red. As I watched them return to the rest of the family, the boy immediately looked into the eyes of his younger brother sitting across from him and kept giving him pathetic, fake, forced smiles as if to say, “Do you still look up to me?” The shame that was over that boy broke my heart. Guilt is a built-in emotion that God gave us to tell us what we DID was wrong, but shame is what the enemy uses to tell us WHO WE ARE is wrong. Therefore, our parenting should always deal with the guilty person in a way that still communicates they are FULL of worth and value.

REMOVE THE WEIGHT

Imagine your child on a boat, and the boat begins to rock back and forth from a wild storm. Imagine them doing everything they can to hold on but have a backpack full of weight that is being tossed around by the waves. Some children may be able to hold on for dear life, but others will find themselves thrown overboard into the sea because of the backpack’s weight. This is what hurts, lies and offenses do. They serve as weight that adds to our trials and seasons making it very difficult to hold on tightly. Shed the weight of the backpack, and now it is just you and the boat managing the storm. While this may be a weak analogy, it serves to be true. I passionately believe we are in a season where God is calling us to shed every weight not designed for us to carry. To resolve the hurts once and for all. To align those lies with His truths and to release the offenses so that we can endure what is coming with a pure heart.

We created an entire 136-page magazine-style book to give you language, tools, activities, encounters, and exercises to resolve the things weighing you down. Heart Splinters BOOK – Let the Children Fly

WE WILL REAP TOMORROW WHAT WE SOW TODAY

The Father cares deeply about what is happening in our homes today because He sees the fruit it will produce.

During a parent coaching session, a mom shared that she had difficulty growing up in her home. There wasn’t a lot of love, and she felt rejected by a sibling, which caused a lot of pain and confusion. When she graduated, she wanted to get far away and start over someplace new. She left her home and traveled to another country. Can you imagine the parents whose family is broken up years later simply because they didn’t know how to help their children get along when they were younger? Ask any mom in the season of grandparenting; we will reap tomorrow what we sow today. Good or bad, our choices will grow fruit. If you want your children to have unity when they are older, we must sow into their relationship when they are younger.

CONDEMNATION

I have a core value: condemnation and accusation do not get access to me. Of course, if I fail, I repent. If I am wrong, I am humble. But I will not let the enemy speak to me about my journey.

SOBERING REALITY OF PARENTING

When my daughter was 10, she was working through being honest with her heart. She would often have tears in her eyes but a smile on her face. I could tell something wasn’t right and that she was dealing with something heavy, but she always told me she was ‘fine.’ One night, we went for a family walk, and the smile on her face didn’t match the heaviness all around her. After the walk, I sent everyone inside and sat with her on the driveway. I told her that lying, even to herself, is still a sin and that the truth sets us free. I was not prepared for what she was about to tell me. She told me that she had been battling thoughts of suicide for the past year. It started as a foreign thought, and she took it captive, but the thoughts kept coming back again and again. Each time she dealt with it knowing it was a lie, but she was getting overwhelmed by the rapid rate at which the thoughts were coming to her. My baby girl was battling the same thing I did as a child, and I felt so overwhelmed with guilt that I had opened the door and paved the way for her struggle. I was dumbfounded, felt paralyzed, and was crushed. I knew I needed help processing it, so I called a mentor friend and asked her to come over. I cried through an entire Kleenex box, and she just listened to my sobs. She finally responded and said, “Lisa, it doesn’t work that way. You HAVE repented and closed the door to suicide. She isn’t struggling because there is a legal right of the enemy. The enemy throws the lie out to anyone who will listen. She discerned it was a lie and was dealing with it. She never acted on it, and it came to light tonight.” I learned a very sobering reality about parenting that night. Our children have an enemy and must learn how to fight their own battles. They do not get a ‘get out of jail free’ card just because you have overcome your battles. They have to pick up their sword and fight for themselves. Of course, our freedom makes it easier for them, but they have the same enemy and must be taught how to overcome it with the tools of heaven. We need to be teaching our children how to: hear God’s voice, discern the enemy’s lies, renounce the lie, and ask Jesus for His truth.

HE STILL PARENTS ME

A mom shares: “This teaching has definitely been a huge game-changer for me the last couple of years with my oldest especially. It’s also been huge for me with my healing. I endured some hurt in friendships at ages ten and fourteen, where I was abandoned in favor of other friends. I realized that when I saw friends together without me (photos, at church, neighbors hanging out), I felt left out and threatened that there wouldn’t be enough friendship to go around, and they would start liking me less. The Lord walked me through the heart splinter and how it still affected me. He has completely removed that gut-wrenching anxiety, and when I see those similar situations now, I can go to Him so fast and have Him remove that desire to compete for affection. It has made my relationships so much healthier too. I feel so sad that I had to deal with that for so many years, but I am definitely spurred on to help my kids have their heart splinters identified and removed much sooner. There’s a lot that the Lord has done with my parenting of my oldest, too, in this area. Your teaching has allowed me to go from behavior modification to really seeing how his heart is doing. It’s so good!!”

GOD’S LOVE

When I picked Ellie up from youth camp, I could tell she was exhausted but also that her heart was heavy. I sensed the Lord saying to minister to her physically and to make sure she was showered, fed, and rested. I took her out for coffee early the next morning, and the tears poured out of her. She said everything about camp was amazing and her love tank was overflowing, but on the last session during worship, someone commented about God’s love, and she began to question, “If God loves me so much, why have I endured so much pain?” And the thought was tormenting her, as it was evident by her flood of painful tears. I had her ask Jesus to show her if this was pain that was seeping out that needed to be healed or if the enemy was whispering to her with an agreement against God. She heard the latter (so did I). She was in receiving mode during the youth camp, and it was incredible, but the enemy thought he could chime in with a lie about God’s love for her, and she embraced it. The more she thought about the ‘evidence,’ the more tormented her heart began. She needed help seeing it was a LIE, and she had to break agreement with the LIE. The moment we did, her entire countenance changed, and her joy returned. A week later, she stood up in front of others, declaring that she experienced revival in her life when she made a massive mess, and in her brokenness, she experienced God’s love for her. Out of that love, she rose up with a conviction over the thing she made a mess in, and God has used her mightily in that area – not because she is bold, but because she encountered His love IN that place. This wasn’t an attack on God’s love for her – it was an attack on the conviction as the fruit of that love. Heart splinters (hurts, lies, and offenses) always come with a lack of peace, yet Jesus always comes to restore our peace as we defeat the enemy.

FIGHTING KIDS

How would you answer this question? “When my children fight, argue, and yell, I feel _____.” Siblings are going to have challenges because it is part of their training ground in learning how to respond to others in love. HOWEVER, if you are being triggered every time they have conflict, you will only add to the chaos. They need a loving parent to step in and teach and train them how to resolve their issues, grow and mature in areas and how to increase their love for the ones God has given them to care for. 

PROPER LENS

So touched by this. Years ago, we had a ministry student do some work for us, and she made a choice that caused my daughter intense pain and heartbreak. God used it for good in my daughter’s life, and she is completely fine today from the event. She reflects back on the story through the lens, not of pain and grief but of how the Father was so real to her. I recently received a text message from a number I didn’t recognize, and it took me a moment to put the story together. It was from this young gal who lamented sincere repentance. I am not sure about the events that unfolded in her journey, but God was clearly convicting her, and despite the time passed, she was eager to make it right. She offered to send me money to buy something for my daughter and owned her choices. My goodness, there is something so beautiful about holy conviction of wrongdoing AND humbling yourself to make it right. My daughter was able to respond directly, assuring her that she was fine and that nothing was owed. I just wanted to share to encourage you that there is no time limit on clearing the air and making things right with others, especially in God’s family.