Abuse and Neglect

Genuine Healing Lasts For Eternity

October 22, 2023 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Reading time: 5 minutes

Seek healing now. You don’t have to wait for heaven. What happens in this life has relevance for all of eternity. First and foremost is whether a person has a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. A relationship with Jesus has significance right now, not only after this life.

God knew all the days of your life before you were even born (Psalm 139). The history of what Jesus has done is significant; your history is important too. The healing you receive today will help you endure the remainder of your life on earth. All that Christ has done for you is far more powerful than any sin you’ve experienced (or committed).

If history was irrelevant, then Jesus, after His resurrection, would have no need to appear with the holes in His hands and feet. But His sacrifice is part of who He is. We praise God for who He is and what He has done for us.

What Is Healing?

Every human will heal a cut, bruise, or injury in basically the same way. We can look at healing from several different perspectives:

Healing is restoring function back to normal but it could also be improving function beyond previous limits.
Healing is the removal of the disease of sin.
Healing is knowing the truth on an experiential level (in the heart, not only the head) so that it overcomes the falsehoods spread by evil and caused by sin.

What are some things that healing is not?

Healing does not mean the erasure or numbing of memories.
Healing is not coping with pain (through distraction).
Healing is not forgetting about sin.

When God says He forgets our sins, He does not mean this literally. He is condescending to us to help us understand that we do not have to worry about Him reminding us of our sins. God knows everything. He doesn’t forget anything. But He certainly also has dealt with sin once and for all.

The Healing of Memories

The healing of a memory means the pain of the memory is neutralized, but the memory itself is retained. It’s the same for our bodies. The healing of a cut might leave a scar, however, the pain is gone and function is restored.

The nature of healing is to remember personal history, see the truth in what happened, and no longer be negatively affected by it. Love doesn’t keep a record of wrong. That is, it doesn’t keep score and demand payment for deficits. But that doesn’t mean that all such negative events are permanently erased.

A parent might go through a great deal trying to love their child. It can be painful, but because the parent loves the child, there is no need to forget about the pain. The felt love more than makes up for the difficulty. It helps us know what we consider valuable. It helps us know we wouldn’t change anything if we could have a do-over.

Consider another example of being shot. Suppose an evil person “X” breaks into a home, shoots people, and leaves with valuables. This would be a traumatic event! For victims to declare that they are fully healed from such an event, they should be able to forgive “X” and view the gun without being retraumatized. This would undoubtedly involve recalling the events, but the sting would no longer be there.

What Will Healing Be Like In Heaven?

In heaven, believers will retain all their memories from their earthly lives. They will continue to recognize who they are and where they came from. They will continue to understand who Jesus is. Jesus died for our sins. He is our savior. The intimacy we develop with Him while on earth is real. The time spent knowing Jesus in this life is not in vain.

Some people believe that God will erase all memories related to sin or negative events — presumably because we won’t be able to handle the pain. But because we are made in God’s image, we can learn to view evil and sin from God’s perspective. Any negatives are manageable from a position of hopeful strength that we will have in full in heaven.

To believe that our experiences will be forgotten is to discount this life as unreal or unimportant. I would not want my memories erased upon entering heaven. My suffering in this life counts for something. Remembering the bad times helps me appreciate the good times that are only possible because of Jesus’s death and resurrection.

From the perspective of heaven, present day events will be completely disarmed and unable to cause distress, but at the same time memorable. While completely safe in the presence of Jesus, negative memories will have no destructive power. This same healing can take place today, although not to the same degree.

The reality of who God is, including what we learn by experiencing His creation, will survive into heaven. God has granted us consciousness by giving us life. I see no reason why that consciousness would be wiped clean upon entering heaven.

If certain memories were to be completely erased, this would involve an editing process. It would make today’s suffering irrelevant for eternity. Suffering has meaning. Jesus’s sacrificial work has meaning. I can’t see how it would be possible to appreciate Jesus in heaven if we don’t remember what He saved us from.

Instead, memories will be transformed by the truth so that they do not cause pain. The beauty of understanding memories this way is that it maintains a continuity between this life and the next. You can receive healing today because God’s truth is relevant today and for eternity. Eternity begins for you the moment you become a believer in Jesus Christ.

Learn more about healing and eternity.
Will we remember our previous lives in heaven?
Image by James Glen from Pixabay

Shame Is A Prison

May 25, 2018 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Reading time: 3 minutes

Shame might be a prison, but Christians are no longer prisoners. You have the freedom to leave the cell anytime. Past behavior can fuel guilt and shame only because of a poor understanding of what God has done for you.

What you do does not define who you are. What you do is only one moment in time. What you do might be mean, evil, or hurtful. If we could never change, then what we do would offer a picture of who we are. We would bear the shame of our actions forever.

Fortunately, because of a relationship with God, we can grow more loving. In this case, the hurt that Christians cause does not ultimately define who they are. God has shown us a better way and He is helping us have the heart that can love like He does.

Shame Results When You Fail To Look To God For Definition

Tenth Avenue North has a fantastic song, You Are More. You are more than what you do. That’s true because worth ultimately originates outside of creation altogether. Only God, as Creator, has the power to define what is worthy.

Those who look to him are radiant;
their faces are never covered with shame.
Psalm 34:5 NIV

If you only look within and find defects and sin you will experience shame. When you believe that doing defines who you are, you’ll be caught in hopelessness. I started my book, Confident Identity, with the following description:

Shame is the deep-down sense that who you are is defective and worthless and therefore, you aren’t needed or wanted by anyone. Shame is a problem of epidemic proportions. All who struggle with it become isolated from the cause and the cure: relationship. Relationships have the potential to affirm or to reject who you are.

Shame can be activated when someone has done something wrong to you or you’ve done something wrong. It lingers when you haven’t received forgiveness and acceptance. Abuse, getting what you don’t need, and neglect, not getting what you do need, aggravate your need for acceptance.

Accepting God’s Acceptance Cancels Shame

God accepted Mary and He accepts all His children no less.

And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
Luke 1:30 ESV

He accepts you because of Christ’s sacrifice, no doubt. But Christ’s sacrifice was not given begrudgingly for a people that He believed to be worthless. He loves and saves because that’s who He is. But the people He sacrificed for have worth. His sacrifice proves exactly how valuable they are. He accepts you because of who you are – who He made you to be – not what you’ve done.

Emotional health requires the ability to separate the results of wrongdoing (guilt and shame) from the benefits of unconditional love (peace and confidence).

For all Christians, guilt and shame should be temporary and acceptance should be eternal. God allows you to reconsider what you’ve done and start with a clean slate. This means hope.

Shame thrives without the hope of forgiveness and a new start. It is only possible when you feel trapped in a prison cell with no hope of escaping. Make a list right now of what is keeping you in prison. For every hopeless situation, God has a way out. Nothing is impossible with God. Elizabeth, Mary’s relative, conceived in her old age.

And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.
Luke 1:36-38 ESV

Tell God you’re ready to start over with a clean slate. Ask Him to show you the way out. Then tell Him to, “let it be to me.”

Learn more about overcoming shame.
Image by Jeff Jacobs from Pixabay

Jesus Will Never Reject His Children

September 10, 2023 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Reading time: 4 minutes

How would it change your life if you knew that Jesus will never reject a believer like you? Life is hard with many difficult situations to endure (death, pain, suffering). God asks us to believe He is perfect love despite sometimes allowing terrible circumstances. Real faith is required to look beyond life’s negative events and see God’s love.

Fortunately for us, God gives us His Holy Spirit, enabling us to see God by faith. He makes profound promises about His relationship with us. If you are a believer, uncertainty and rejection die with your belief in Jesus’s death and resurrection. Certainty and acceptance are possible as faith sees the reality of God’s kingdom in the present moment, even though it isn’t fully realized, yet.

Never Rejected, No, Never

Jesus explains the kind of salvation he offers in John 10.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
John 10:27-29 ESV

In the clause “and they shall never perish” John uses the double negative with the aorist subjunctive, which is a very emphatic way of declaring that something will not happen in the future. Jesus is categorically excluding the slightest chance of an apostasy by his sheep. A literal translation would be something like, “They shall not, repeat, shall not ever perish in the slightest.”
Christian Theology, M. J. Erickson, Baker Book House, 1985, pg. 992

This kind of assurance is truly Good News. The Gospel, without such security, would be a different gospel than the Bible teaches. Can you imagine believing you will be in heaven today, but tomorrow fearing God’s eternal wrath believing you have been ejected from God’s family? Then with repentence the next day believing you will be in heaven? Then rejected again when you sin? The Bible says this is impossible because Jesus’s death was sufficient for all time (past, present, future). If it lacks the power to keep a person saved, Jesus would need to die all over again (Hebrews 6:4-6). Thankfully, God is all powerful rendering such worries unwarranted.

Never Rejected, But Doubting

Even with such direct statements of eternal security, believers must contend with the spiritual forces of fear and doubt. God would have us strengthen our trust in Him against these principalities and powers.

What might cause someone to doubt their salvation? It’s typically a sin. It’s hard to face when we do something cruel to someone else. The guilt can cause us to believe God will reject us. Jesus’s sacrifice means there is no longer condemnation for believers. Such forgiveness can seem to be too generous to believe, but that is the Good News of the Gospel! When this wonderful generosity is accepted with humility, it creates a heart response of gratefulness rather than a desire to sin more (Romans 5:20–6:3).

What about when someone sins against us? We might learn (come to believe) that we are not worth being saved. Present-day experiences can trigger memories of events that were intensely harmful. Following are some situations that might dig up the past:

Being lied to
Being ignored
Being interrupted
Waiting (uncertainty)
Being teased
Being criticized
Invasion of personal space

What do these have in common? They all can communicate insignificance (some directly and some more subtly):

Being lied to -> can’t trust or be trusted
Being ignored -> not worth the time or engagement
Being interrupted -> voice is not important or worth hearing
Waiting (uncertainty) -> don’t deserve good things
Being teased -> inferior
Being criticized -> defective
Invasion of personal space -> don’t have a valuable self that is worth protecting

These will likely cause everyone some distress, but people who have experienced abuse might recall the deep distress of older abuse. Some people have become resilient enough to overcome the negative experiences. The difference has to do with a person’s self-image. The weaker the self-image, the easier it is to allow negative spiritual forces to overwhelm with falsehood, intensifying the pain to crushing levels.

The combination of (1) significant past negative treatment (2) current triggering negative treatment, and (3) preying spiritual forces can be enough to cause people to question their status before God.

But as we have seen, Jesus is emphatic that believers are securely His. The song Love Still Bids You Welcome captures this well. Even though we sin, God holds onto us with a grip that does not slip. Anyone who has tasted God’s goodness would never want to let go of God, but even so because of our weakness, we must rely on God’s strength.

He will not cast you out. Whoever enters in will forever dwell with Him. A believer cannot be rejected by God; he or she is a child of God forever.

Learn more about God’s goodness amidst tragedy.
Listen to the song sung at CCF.
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Image by Jeff Kingma from Pixabay

Labels Like Gaslighting Harm More Than Help

March 28, 2021 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Reading time: 4 minutes

Labels can promote better communication. But, they can also sow seeds of dissension. How and when should you use the power of labels?

How Labels Help

Labels are shortcuts. I could ask you for a dark red fruit that grows on trees. Because there is more than one type, I’d need to be more specific. I’d like the kind that is more tart than sweet. Instead of having to describe all the details, I could have said I would like some cherries.

Without labels, communication would be cumbersome at best. But, labels only help when we can agree on what the label is referring to. Maybe there are several varieties of cherries. But a cherry is a cherry, not an apple.

Shortcuts are most effective when all involved parties have a shared experience. What if we drove to a cherry farm and picked and ate cherries from the same tree? We’d probably have the same idea in mind when we use the word cherries.

What happens if there is no shared experience or the experience is so complicated that it frequently generates a unique experience? If, at the fruit farm, we ate two different species of cherries, one of which ripens faster than the other, we’d probably be thinking different things when we use the word cherries.

How Labels Harm

Labels such as gaslighting or narcissism have become quite popular recently. They definitely describe a complicated experience that can be easily misunderstood. In this case, I suggest you avoid the words and stick to the descriptions.

Gaslighting is a form of verbal abuse. Here is a definition from Wikipedia:

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person or a group covertly sows seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or group, making them question their own memory, perception, or judgment. It may evoke changes in them such as cognitive dissonance or low self-esteem, rendering the victim additionally dependent on the gaslighter for emotional support and validation. Using denial, misdirection, contradiction and disinformation, gaslighting involves attempts to destabilize the victim and delegitimize the victim’s beliefs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

Not only does gaslighting sound complicated, it also sounds evil–like a tactic the devil uses to cause believers to doubt their faith in Jesus Christ. When used intentionally as a weapon, it is abusive. Note also the phrase “covertly sows.” This means the gaslighter tries to be sneaky. They don’t want others to catch on to what they are doing. It’s premeditated.

My problem with using terms like gaslighting is that they are sometimes thrown around too casually by people engaging in black-and-white thinking. Some things are all-or-nothing and some have gradations. A woman is either pregnant or she’s not. However, a communication technique might only look like gaslighting and not qualify as abuse.

The so-called gaslighter might have no intentions to manipulate or abuse. What if they are only attempting to describe their own perspective? During communication, both people have a need to be heard. The person who labels others (as a gaslighter, narcissist, or other popular terms) might be the one participating in verbal abuse. It can become a way to avoid responsibility. It can be easy to label someone, thereby casting blame on them and correspondingly away from self.

Instead of using these labels which can be judgmental (calling someone guilty when you are not an unbiased judge), I suggest returning to the basics of communication. Instead of saying “You are gaslighting me,” focus on revealing your experience with something like, “I feel discouraged when you talk to me that way. I believe I am correct but I’m open to being convinced otherwise.” Leave some room that everyone involved can contribute to the problem.

I am not trying to explain away real abuse. One-sided communication does happen. What I’ve been suggesting only works when both people approach conflict resolution in good faith. The challenge is discerning between a plain ignorant person (someone having a bad day or someone who lacks understanding) and an evil person (someone who is being intentionally destructive).

The good news is a little bit of discernment goes a long way if you have good boundaries. Being confident and knowing who God made you to be will protect you from both the naive person and the evil fool. Keep in mind though that sometimes these two qualities, along with some of the best qualities, can all show up in the same person.

You cannot fool God, so don’t make a fool of yourself! You will harvest what you plant. If you follow your selfish desires, you will harvest destruction, but if you follow the Spirit, you will harvest eternal life.
Galatians 6:7-8 CEV

Maturity Requires Radical Breakthrough Change

February 19, 2023 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Reading time: 4 minutes

Maturity is that process we all go through but also resist. We want the benefits of maturity but not the required labor. The good news is that the sooner you start the process, the less work you have to do later in life.

Start children off on the way they should go,
and even when they are old they will not turn from it.
Proverbs 22:6 NIV

This proverb is stated in the positive, but it can be equally true for the negative. Whatever we learn early in life, even if negative, can be extremely difficult to change. That’s because whatever we experience early and regularly becomes normal. In this context, normal is like cement. It’s not indestructible, but it takes a lot of work to remove and replace it.

God places in our hearts a desire for meaning and purpose. We can look at life and draw conclusions and form understandings. Inevitably, we will have the opportunity to realize we have developed a distorted worldview. Then, even if it would result in a better, more true worldview, we’d still rather not go through the disorientation of blowing up our old one. So we can stubbornly resist change which is only good if we got it right the first time.

Maturity Requires Love and Discipline

God creates each person with a unique identity. We start with this potential predetermined. But a person’s environment can confuse or conceal a person’s true identity. You can think you are one way (such as worthless), but in reality, you are not (you are valuable).

Parents have a significant degree of influence over their children. There are many different skills needed to be good at parenting, but we will only look at love and expectations. Love can also be the quality of a relationship. Expectations can also be the degree of discipline.

If love and discipline can take on values of low or high, this simplifies parenting styles into 4 categories:

Low Love and Low Discipline = Neglectful Parenting
High Love and Low Discipline = Indulgent Parenting
Low Love and High Discipline = Performance Parenting
High Love and High Discipline = Optimal Parenting

Each parenting style will tend to create a particular worldview:

Neglectful Parenting -> Lost Child
Indulgent Parenting -> Spoiled Child
Performance Parenting -> Perfectionistic Child
Optimal Parenting -> Mature Child

If you are reading this, chances are you are already an adult. The cement probably dried a long time ago. But it’s never too late to improve upon your worldview. What will it take to see significant improvement?

Maturity for the Lost

Someone who has experienced little love (grace, nurture, encouragement, support) and little discipline (correction, structure, firm boundaries) can feel lost. So much is missing that is essential to understanding the person’s God-given identity.

The message parents send: Figure out life on your own.

These people need more love initially and then need to have discipline gradually introduced.

Maturity for the Spoiled

Someone who has experienced a good amount of nurture, but little discipline can feel entitled. This person’s worldview could be something like: So far, everyone has made life too easy, so why shouldn’t it continue that way?

The message parents send: You don’t have to pull any weight. I’ll do it for you.

These people need to learn that God designed them to carry their own weight and also to help others who genuinely need help.

Maturity for the Perfectionistic

Someone who has experienced a good amount of discipline, but little nurture can come to believe self-worth is based on performance. This person’s worldview could be something like: I am only valuable when I perform exceptionally well on my responsibilities.

The message parents send: Pull your weight and everybody else’s too.

These people need to learn that God never meant for them to over-extend themselves.

Maturity for the Mature

Someone who has experienced a good amount of nurture and discipline is probably relatively mature. This person’s worldview is likely positive and balanced: I can love myself and love others, even if it means some suffering on my part.

The message parents send: Pull the weight you were designed to pull.

Hopefully, you can see that only Jesus is able to fully love Himself, God, and others. No parent is perfect. Jesus didn’t have perfect earthly parents, but He did have a complete connection with God.

You can’t be perfect, but you can mature over time and follow God’s calling to be more like Jesus.

Suffer For The Right Reasons

February 5, 2023 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Reading time: 4 minutes

God works out everything for the good of those who love Him. But in the midst of suffering, those words from Romans 8:28 can feel trite. God wants us not to repay evil for evil. The person that can achieve this will demonstrate that God is real (1 Peter 3:15). That’s because the ability to respond to evil with kindness can only come from God.

However, the right response doesn’t always mean continuing to allow someone to take advantage of you. There are times when it makes sense to move out of harm’s way and times when God calls us to suffer for His purposes.

Appropriate Suffering Advances God’s Kingdom

When God expects us to endure suffering, there is always a purpose with eternal consequences. Enduring hardship for the right reasons allows God’s purposes to come to fruition. Because of sin, we live in a world where doing the right thing often results in suffering:

we don’t feel better and might even feel worse
we don’t get what we want and might even feel miserable
our immediate living (on this earth) might seem unproductive (by this world’s definition)

Jesus has an extremely difficult teaching for us. God’s kingdom is more important than any happiness or satisfaction you can derive from this life.

There are many different paths people can walk on in life. But there is only one kind of path that takes you to a desirable destination. It is the path of suffering and growth. This path is undesirable because it is difficult to walk. Choosing this path is counter-intuitive. It’s the right path, but it will feel wrong because it’s impossible to walk it without suffering.

The other paths appear much more desirable and are much easier to walk. In fact, there may even lead to a long period of ease and pleasure. But there is a catch: the journey is easy, but the destination is undesirable. What good is an easy path if it only takes you to an accursed destination?

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Matthew 7:13-14 NIV

Needless Suffering Only Contributes to Evil

Hopefully, I have made the case that suffering is necessary and natural some of the time–when it is directly connected to keeping your faith in Jesus and your witness to Him.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Matthew 5:11-12 NIV

But there are probably even more ways we all suffer needlessly. There is no reason to allow suffering to continue in any of the following circumstances.

The suffering does not advance God’s purposes
The adversity only harms or confuses the person being hurt (such as when a child is abused). The person does not have the capacity to endure the suffering without loss of personal integrity.
Pure evil is causing the torment, so there is no way that tolerating it will soften a heart.

In any of these kinds of situations, do all that you can to prevent or stop the suffering. Don’t embrace pain if you don’t have to. God’s will is not to suffer needlessly. But it is God’s will that you walk the path that leads to life, which often involves some heartache to accomplish God’s kingdom work.

For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.
1 Peter 3:17 NIV

Finally, remember that even though the right path has many difficulties and obstacles, it is still the only sane path (all other paths lead to destruction), and God guarantees that once you start on the path, you will reach the glorious destination (heaven).

The righteous person may have many troubles, but the LORD delivers him from them all;
Psalm 34:19 NIV

Abuse and Neglect

What Is Healing?

The Healing of Memories

What Will Healing Be Like In Heaven?

Shame Results When You Fail To Look To God For Definition

Accepting God’s Acceptance Cancels Shame

Never Rejected, No, Never

Never Rejected, But Doubting

How Labels Help

How Labels Harm

Maturity Requires Love and Discipline

Maturity for the Lost

Maturity for the Spoiled

Maturity for the Perfectionistic

Maturity for the Mature

Appropriate Suffering Advances God’s Kingdom

Needless Suffering Only Contributes to Evil

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