WALLS

WALLS

  • Heart Splinters, Whole Parent

WALLS

We are going to talk about the walls we learn to build to protect those heart splinters from being touched. The good news is that the walls are somewhat effective in keeping the bad out, but the sad news is that they also keep the good from entering. God never called us to a life of managing pain. Jesus died so we could be free, and free indeed, of it. Take out a sheet of paper and write down 3-5 adjectives to describe your mom, then do it for your dad. We are not looking for sugar-coated words but your truth. For example, for my mom, I would say emotional, special touches, distant, and polished. For my dad, I would say he is the life of the party, shallow, generous, and available. You are writing down how you received and experienced them. The family is very important to God because it is modeled after God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit, who all have unique roles in the godhead. 

God/Father – is where we get our provision, protection, and identity.

Jesus/Siblings – is where we get our companionship/friendship/sense of belonging. 

Holy Spirit/Mother – is where we get our comfort, nurturing, and teaching.

The ultimate purpose of the enemy in John 10:10 is to steal, kill, and destroy our connection with God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit. One of the ways he does that is through undealt with hurts, lies, and offenses in childhood because the child will naturally project those hurts to the godhead. It is one thing to be hurt by your absent father; it is another to believe the Creator of the universe is ignoring you. It is one thing to be hurt by an emotionally out-of-control mother; it is another thing to believe the Holy Spirit is unsafe. It is one thing to be rejected by your siblings; it is another thing to think that Jesus doesn’t care about your world. At the end of life, it comes down to one simple thing – our relationship with our Heavenly Father. This matters!!! While we might feel peace and closeness with Jesus, if we have distance with Holy Spirit, something will be missing, just like a family where there are not two parents. If you feel close to Jesus, but are afraid of Father God, then you are not walking in the fullness of your salvation. We want to be connected fully and freely to God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit. Take a look at the words you used to describe your mom and dad. Take an honest estimate of your reality. Is that how you would describe your experience with God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit? If not, then praise God for the healing that has been done in your heart. If yes, then this simply reveals where the heart splinter has caused you to build a wall to protect the pain. How do we remove the wall? The Cross is the answer for everything, and forgiveness breaks the yoke that the enemy has been able to influence us. “I make the choice to forgive _____ for _______. I cancel any debt they owe me and turn them over to Jesus Christ to be judged accordingly.” Renounce the lie the God/Jesus/Holy Spirit is _____ (whatever you put on your list). Hand the hurt/sadness to Jesus (just watch and listen to what He does). Ask, “God/Jesus/Holy Spirit, how did it make You feel that I believed that lie about You?” Ask what He wants to give you instead. Declare the truth about God/Jesus/Holy Spirit. Spend some adequate time walking this out. Can you see how vital family connections are and how they affect a child’s view of God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit?

GENERATIONAL BLESSINGS

Do you realize that you have a mighty, mighty generational line? Each generation came from the womb, where they were knit together by Father God. Each and every one of your ancestors has left you something – something good and something not so good. The rich spiritual inheritance from ALL THE WAY BACK is yours. You can receive it. But you can also throw out the deficit that each generation has left in the spiritual realm, too. It isn’t so much that things like anger, abuse, etc. are in your ‘blood’; as much as when the door to the enemy is opened (foothold), and you are raised in an environment of trauma and fear. It is easy to adopt the same behavior because it is familiar. You have heard of the girl hating her alcoholic father and then marrying one, the child who cursed her overweight mother and then became overweight herself. Your bloodline isn’t the issue – it is the modeled and learned behavior. Christ came to realign us with our heavenly family so that we wouldn’t be held captive to the mistakes of our earthly one.

PULLING SPLINTERS OUT

“Hey Lisa! I am reading HEART SPLINTERS right now and was just overwhelmed by the feeling of love. You have truly learned to love, which is why you can give it away. Every person who reads your words gets to feel your love and the Father’s heart pour through the pages. Thank you for paying the price. Wow. I’m overwhelmed with love because of you and your heart and faithfulness to Jesus! Thank you, friend! Rooting for you and praying for strength as you pour yourself out!”

I invite you to get your own copy and allow God to align your heart with His. You can order here: Heart Splinters BOOK – Let the Children Fly

NOT JUST FOR PARENTS

One of my spiritual daughters shared this sweet testimony of ministering to a young gal. Our JOURNEY class is not just for loving your children but all of His children. 

“Hi Lisa, here is a testimony I wanted to share with you. The lessons I have learned through Let the Children fly helped me lead her to Christ for this healing. This girl is not a mom yet and is struggling with some insecurities and lies that she believes. So I walked her through writing down those lies and tearing them up, stomping on them, rejecting the lies, and how to instead accept God’s truths, as you taught me in the JOURNEY class. Here is her testimony on what that did for her: ‘Hey! So I finally had the guts to do it last night. I wrote down all the lies and things that kept hurting me in my mind and flushed them down the toilet. It came out to be about six pages worth of crap. It took me a while to get the courage to do it. The crazy part is that I wrote it in a red marker, and about halfway through ripping it, I realized that red represented Jesus’ blood. I was just choosing a marker, and I chose the red one. I was praying while doing it. I feel so much better now like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. I feel like I can accomplish and do what I am called to do now. It sounds cheesy, but I feel free now and confident in myself and the Lord. It’s already been a blessing that He took those lies and stomped on them! I’m so excited to live! To truly live freely! No more bondage!’”

MY YES

I knew God wanted me to write the book HEART SPLINTERS – Resolving Childhood Issues in Childhood. But I was walking through a season of deep discouragement and feeling disempowered. It is super hard to feel confident in your calling and put your voice out there when feeling disempowered. The manuscript was always a work in progress on my desk, but I was dragging my feet. I saw a Facebook post about a well-loved husband who had committed suicide leaving behind a precious family. While I had not met them, we had many mutual friends, and it rocked our community deeply. His wife shared her raw experience on social media, and it came across my news feed countless times.

One day, I saw it pop up again, but I kept scrolling since I had already read it. I so clearly heard God tell me to go back and reread it. I did, unsure of what He wanted me to see. I heard Him tell me to print the picture of this family. It was so strong that even though my printer was out of ink, I went to the local drug store to obey. I felt a little odd holding a picture of a family I had never met and who was going through so much tragedy, but I held the picture in my hand and asked, “God, what do You want to tell me about this family?” and He said, “This is your YES – this is why I want you to write HEART SPLINTERS. People are perishing without this information.” The tears were instant as I fell out of my chair on my face, and wept for hours. “Oh, Jesus, forgive me for partnering with being disempowered. Forgive me for walking small. Forgive me for not opening my mouth. Forgive me for laying down what You have called me to pick up. JESUS! Use me to tell Your sheep there is hope. Let what You did in my life, and the lives of my four children serve as a testimony of what You can do. Light and life always trump death and darkness.”

And with that encounter, the manuscript was finished.

TAKE BACK GROUND IN OUR FAMILIES

Is sibling conflict breaking out in your home? It did in our house, and I AM SO GLAD! I am keeping our days moving by having a balance of rest, school, and movement. I got two of them settled on a project and took another for a brisk walk with the dog. While coming back inside the house, I could FEEL strife and knew there was conflict. My daughter came to me sobbing, telling me how she was mean to her sister and pushed her. Her tears were massive, and she was fully repentant, confessing her wrongdoings. I told her she was indeed wrong and that a consequence was appropriate, but that life was pretty hard these days, and I wanted her to spend an hour in her room alone processing and giving her heart a voice to herself. She is my easy-going, always smiling, glass-is-half-full child, and her heart needed to get real – life IS challenging right now. I moved to the other child involved, who flashed this massive smile across her face as I approached her. She did not know that I knew about the conflict. I asked how she was doing, and she said, “Great.” I said, “Really? How can you be doing great if your sister just pushed you?” and she burst into tears. I instructed her too to go into her room and spend an hour giving her heart a voice. She not only lied to me but herself. I went to her after a bit, and she began to unpack how her sister doesn’t like her and has been rude and disrespectful to her for days and that her heart was hurting. I went back to the offending child and asked what was going on, and she, too, broke down, telling of pains and hurts that have been piling up between them. 

REJECTING LIES

My daughter woke up early with me, so we went on a date to grab drive-thru coffee and ended up at the bookstore. I noticed a book about the lies young girls believe and handed it to her. She spent a great deal of time browsing the contents and finally put the book down. I asked her why, and she said, “Because I don’t believe lies.” There was such an anointing on what she said. She was not saying she has never believed a lie, nor was she saying she is 100% lie-free, but she was right to say she doesn’t believe lies. I have taught my kids what lies feel like, and they have begun to self-govern when lies are being entertained in their minds. Lies always remove your peace, make your mind spin like crazy, and create feelings of anxiety, worry, and stress in your heart. When my children are feeling this, they know how to ask, “Jesus, what lies am I believing?” and they know how to ask Him for His truth. Can you imagine what this generation would look like if they knew how to stomp on the lies that come to steal, kill and destroy?

GOING TO GOD ON YOUR OWN

My kids were all taking turns being upset and offended with each other. I finally called a family meeting to discuss and eventually left the room, giving them instructions to ‘work it out.’ An hour later, I came back to find a greater mess. It was not only unresolved but worse. I told each of them to grab their HEART SPLINTERS book and their journal and go process with the Lord. I told them to ask God to show them what page to read and let Him guide them. I went to check on them and found this: One child was deeply convicted over how mean they had been to her sister for something she did last week. They were holding onto offense. One child was crying, realizing how she had lacked kindness and felt bad for the way she was hurting her sibling. One child said, “God told me to look at page 72,” and it was the very issue they were having with their sibling. Another child said they were punishing their brother because they were mad at their dad for something (profound). 

Parents, I cannot encourage you strongly enough to purchase a copy of HEART SPLINTERS – Resolving Childhood Owies in Childhood for your own parenting tool belt but also to walk your children through the pages and teach them in the times of peace that Jesus has keys and solutions so that they can use them in their time of need. Children are hungry for the tools of heaven to be the answer and solution to what concerns them!! Buy one for your teen and usher them to encounter Him in their pain and process. 

Heart Splinters BOOK – Let the Children Fly

DO WHAT IT TAKES

Parents, do what it takes so your children don’t reap the fruit of your wounds and hurts.

LIES DON’T FIT

My daughter started to cry, more like wail. I came running into the room thinking she was hurt, and she said, “He called me a boy!” I reassured her she was a girl, but the crying would not stop. I asked her what she would think if I told her she was a puppy or had purple hair. She thought that was pretty silly. Exactly! Just because someone calls you a boy doesn’t make it true. She was distraught because she accepted what he said, which didn’t fit.

Children need to learn that rejecting words spoken over them is okay. They need to be taught that not everything they hear (from others and in their minds) is true. Lies don’t feel good, make sense or bring peace because lies are demonic. Children can be empowered to say NO to lies!

RESTORING CONNECTION

 A mom messaged me, saying that her daughter believed lies and had shut down. She wanted my help with how to handle it. This is an excellent example of being led by the all-knowing Holy Spirit and not just checking off a religious formula to fix your child. I first asked her WHAT the lie was. She replied that the daughter believed her parents were abusive and did not love her. While that was obviously a lie, it was the daughter’s truth. I asked the mom to ask Jesus what He thought of the daughter’s words. The mom humbly returned to me, reporting that Jesus showed her that she was using a tone and responding in a way that was hurting her daughter. Can you see how a religious mindset would have disciplined the child for being so ‘un-Christ-like’ when the reality was that the mom needed to hear something? The daughter doesn’t have the language yet to explain her heart, but the words ‘don’t love’ and ‘abusive’ were the best things she had to describe her heart. The mom repented to God, and then her daughter and their heart connection grew. Can you guess what the daughter’s love language is? Children who hear love through words are very sensitive to yelling, harshly spoken words, and overreacting parents.