The way you walk out your healing can affect not just your own life, but also the lives of your children. Facing our past mistakes and finding forgiveness and healing in Christ is so important. Today, I share I found healing through walking out my faith and how that affected our family.
Walk Out Your Healing
When my daughter was 13, I called her “mini-me.” When she answered the phone, people often thought it was me. Leslie has the same tone as me, and her voice carries the same inflections. Even though she had her own collection of CDs, she would often rifle through mine because she liked that music, too. She learned to put on makeup by watching me, and when she would see me engrossed in a good book, she would naturally want to read it. Even now that she is a grown adult, I see so much of myself in my daughter. She has many of my same convictions… And also some of my hang-ups.
When our kids are toddlers, we think it’s so sweet when they pick up a block and place it to their ear like a cell phone. But the older they get, the more they’re mimicking matters, and if they aren’t dealt with, the rock-solid bad habits in your life will most likely be theirs, too.
Walk Out Your Healing
In those days when you were slaves of sin, you weren’t concerned with doing what was right. And what was the result? It was not good, since now you’re ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom. But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life.
Romans 6:20-22 NLT
What I love about that scripture is the fact that Paul isn’t trying to play down the past. Instead, he reminds fellow believers that what matters is what we are now free from the power of sin and slaves of God.
The word free here means “to liberate,” and this word has special meaning to me personally. Several years ago I wrote my first novel, From Dust and Ashes. It’s about liberation from a Nazi concentration camp from the points of view of both an American G.I. who opens the camp gates and a prisoner inside. To write the book, I interviewed both veterans and survivors alike. I also attended a ceremony in Austria organized by the survivors to celebrate their liberation 60 years after the fact!
Walking In Freedom
These men and women — prisoners of the Nazis – had been near death, oppressed, and hopeless. Yet their victors came to open the gates and offered them not only hope but a future too. Once they walked from those gates, they were prisoners no more. They were liberated. They might revisit those times of bondage in their mind, but they no longer had to live behind the barbed wire. They did, however, have to realize their freedom and live in it, no longer behaving as if they were still in bondage. Likewise, if we don’t know the joy of true freedom in our hearts, how do we expect to lead our kids in the same freedom?
Kids go where we take them, they have no choice. How sad it would be if our own inner struggles pulled our kids back to our own past issues… Merely because we ourselves have not yet fully realized our freedom in Christ.
Walk Out Your Healing
It’s taken me years to deal with some of the issues from my past. I’ve attended Bible studies for women who’ve had abortions. I helped start a crisis pregnancy center in our community. I’ve spoken at purity retreats for young women. And I’ve mentored teen moms. For me, healing from my past involves helping others who face the same struggles. My heart is renewed when I help others find hope.
The additional benefit is that my children now have a mother who has wholeness in Christ. They’ve heard about my mistakes, and they’ve seen me reaching out. They’ve also gained conviction in these areas, following what I say . . . and what I do.
Now, it’s your turn. How have you walked out healing in your life? What has God done to liberate you from your past? Share your testimony with me in the comments!
Walk It Out
You’ve heard the phrase Trust God. It’s easy to say but can be hard to do. But what if you did it. What if you did the things that God asked you to do and solely relied on Him? Women often pack their lives with family, friends, and faithful service, yet still feel empty and unfilled. Bestselling author Tricia Goyer has been where you are. She gets it and knows that the only way to live a fulfilling life is to walk it out with God.
Walk It Out: The Radical Result of Living God’s Word One Step at a Time is a resource that teaches women how walking out the mandates of Scripture will allow God to spark passion and mission within them. Goyer teaches women, of all ages, how to:
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- Use your healed heart to love and serve
- Create space and craft purpose
- Give generously without question
- Be vulnerable
- Truly love your family
- Do the work that God has given you to do
This book is for women:
- struggling with anxiety or depression
- feeling like they lost their way and are living by comparison
- who feel like they’re never enough and always too much
- searching for ways to develop a closer relationship with God
- raising families while facing crossroads
Sometimes the steps we take in our faith are easy, but many times they require a move outside of what feels safe or secure. When women stop focusing on their own dreams and purposes, and instead focus on God’s dreams and purposes, everything changes. Get your copy of Walk It Out today!
And, as she walks you through Bathsheba’s story, Natalie addresses some of the common responses to life’s disappointments, offering encouragement and practical help for sorting through suffering as well as moving forward on the healing journey.
