10: healing continues by living in the truth

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

3 JOHN 1:4, NIV

WE BEGAN OUR INNER healing journey in the previous chapter by discussing these initial three steps: (1) pray; (2) identify core lies; and (3) explore their impact. In this chapter, we will look at the final three steps that will help lead us into the abundant life God has planned for us.

Step 4: Apply God’s Truth

To heal, we must change our thinking. Scripture teaches us that our lives will literally be transformed by the renewing of our minds (see Romans 12:2). I (Debbie) learned a lot of Scripture after becoming a Christian, but I later realized that what I had learned in my head had not traveled to the depths of my heart. My negative view of myself as a result of my relationship with my mother was rooted deep. Instead of applying the truth of God’s Word to my real life and hurts, I was studying the Bible for knowledge. I memorized verses, but they didn’t change the way I lived. The music of my soul was made up of despondent chords. Maybe that is why this quote resonates with me:

There is a difference between memorizing Scripture and thinking biblically. There’s a difference between knowing the words and experiencing their meaning. There is a difference between having the sentences embedded in your head and having their impact embedded in your heart. . . . There is a difference between “doing Christianity” and being a Christian. You can memorize all of the words, but if you’ve forgotten the music, or never experienced it firsthand, then you still won’t be able to sing the song with fullness.[23]

I grew up singing and know what it’s like to forget the music. It’s a vulnerable feeling. In the same way, when we forget the music of God’s love for us, we are vulnerable and often stuck in the wrong thinking of our past. We might confess that we are new creations in Christ, but we don’t live like it. At a conference for the American Association of Christian Counseling, Sandra Wilson summed it up well: “We don’t always live what we profess, but we always live what we believe.”[24] That is why it is so important for us to look at the core lies we learned through our relationships with our mothers—and to bring those beliefs to God for change.

As we’ve mentioned, the healing process isn’t a quick fix—rewiring our habitual thinking requires attention that often can seem overwhelming. But be encouraged: God will walk with you every step of the way.

It is often said, “I know it in my head, but how do I get it in my heart?” The authors of The Common Made Holy gave a helpful picture of the process:

Imagine that your mind is like a pitcher that was intended to be filled with crystal-clear water, but it got contaminated with coffee over the years. One day you decide you want the water in the pitcher to be pure, but are saddened upon discovering that there is no way to get the coffee out. Then you discover nearby a bowl of crystal-clear ice cubes, which is labeled, “Word of God.” There is no way you can pour the whole bowl of ice cubes into the pitcher at once, so you drop in one ice cube a day. At first the task seems hopeless, because the coffee is so pervasive. Slowly, however, the daily infusion of truth eventually nullifies the effects of the coffee. Then finally comes the day when the coffee can no longer be seen, smelled, or tasted even though a remnant of it is still there. Likewise, that process of renewing our minds will work provided that we don’t pour in a tablespoon of coffee for every ice cube.[25]

What core lie did you identify at the end of the previous chapter? If that lie is the coffee that contaminates your pitcher, what biblical truths will be the purifying ice?

For example,

As the example of the pitcher and ice cubes shows, change may be slow, but it still requires our direct participation. Inner healing happens when we live remembering the heart of God rather than staying stuck in our own thoughts. The Holy Spirit, whom Jesus called the Spirit of truth, makes the truth known to us, embedding it deeply in our souls:

I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth.

JOHN 14:16-17

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future. He will bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me.

JOHN 16:13-14

Danielle sat in silence as she remembered the times her mother had asked, “What’s wrong with you? Why are you so sensitive? Why can’t you shake things off?” With each memory of her mother’s glower, she felt a surge of insecurity. She also recalled the times when her mother would flippantly say that she loved her, but Danielle didn’t believe that her mother even liked her. As a result, Danielle had learned to question herself and be ashamed of who she was. She knew that God’s Word said Jesus loved her, but it didn’t move her. She was stuck.

After prayer and reflection, Danielle knew what needed to happen. She asked the Holy Spirit to make the truth of God’s love real to her at a heart level. As she took what she believed about herself and held it up to what God believed about her, everything began to change. Slowly, she let the truth into her hurt places, and her mother’s words eventually became a faded backdrop in her story, rather than the reality that kept her hating and shaming herself.

Ask the Holy Spirit to replace the lie you have believed with God’s truth. Find verses that refute the lie. You may want to circle them in your Bible, write them on three-by-five cards, and memorize them. Though we cannot fully understand this dynamic, the Word of God is alive and powerful.

The word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

HEBREWS 4:12, NIV

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the [woman] of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

2 TIMOTHY 3:16-17, NIV

Jesus is our example. When tempted, he called out Scripture, claimed it, and based his actions and choices on it. In the same way, we have the power of the Holy Spirit working in us to refute the lies and call out the truth, claiming it as our very own. The Holy Spirit will bring us everything we need for healing.

If this process is new to you or something you haven’t done for a while, here are some practical ways to begin:

For me (Joan), it has been powerful to remember, personalize, and recite to myself Bible verses that directly refute my false beliefs. When everything in my gut brought back the old beliefs from my relationship with my mother that said, I am all alone, I would remind myself of the truth: Jesus’ name is Emmanuel—God with me. God said he would never leave me nor forsake me. In him I live and move and have my being. The Spirit of Christ lives in me. I would acknowledge that the verses didn’t feel true at the moment, but I knew I could choose to believe the Bible rather than what my feelings were telling me.

Slowly, God’s truth began to feel more and more real. When a person would appear in my life at just the right time or my prayers would be answered, I no longer saw those things as luck or happenstance but as the involvement of the living God who was always present and watching over me.

When my (Debbie’s) mother was older and came to live with us, the momplications were often more than I could handle. It was then that I knew I had to do something to survive my day-to-day life and interactions with her. I wanted to hold on to the truth that God had been teaching me, but my relationship with my mother was testing my faith. After recognizing that I needed to be strong in God’s love, I began to reflect and remember truths from Scripture by setting the alarm on my sports watch to signal me hourly.

Each hour I would breathe this prayer: “Thank you, Jesus, that you know me and that you value me. You know the situation I am in, and you are with me.” This repetition centered me so that when I would arrive home from work, I was much more willing to act in that same love toward my cranky mother. “Thank you, Jesus, that you know my mom and you value her. Help me to value her too.”

Before long, I began to change. When my mom was negative toward me, there was a new grace in how I interacted with her. Why? Because I was purposefully remembering the truth. This practice only took seconds every hour but paid dividends too large to measure.

Why is it so important to do these things? Because there is a war raging in our minds. The apostle Paul gave these instructions to the believers in Corinth, but they are equally true for us today:

We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.

2 CORINTHIANS 10:3-5

Strongholds are patterns through which incoming information is processed.

When we give place to the enemy’s lies for any length of time, it’s as if we have made an agreement that these lies are true. These lies can become strongholds in our soul for him to set up shop and torment us. Most of the time we won’t even realize what has happened. He has gained topography in our hearts, minds, personality, or intellect, and we cannot free ourselves because these lies now have a strong hold on us. . . . When we filter things through past hurts, rejection, and painful experiences, it becomes impossible to believe God and accept his love and faithfulness.[26]

Step 5: Acknowledge the Good

As I (Joan) look back through my life, I can see a long line of women God has used to fill in the gaps my mother unknowingly left in me. These women have taught me life skills, emotional skills, and relational skills. They have listened to me, encouraged me, and challenged me. Most important, they have taught me about God and how to develop a relationship with him.

My mother was never able to show me the way to overcome suffering, but God has sent me women who have. There have been personal friends like Diane, who, like my mother, lost her son to leukemia, but became stronger as she drew closer to God. There have been women I have met through their books, like Corrie ten Boom, who experienced God’s presence while in a Nazi concentration camp. I have heard the testimonies of women like Joni Eareckson Tada, who was paralyzed from the shoulders down, yet grew stronger in her faith as a result. These women have put flesh on the Scripture I read, assuring me that God is always with me and will work all things together for my good (see Romans 8:28). Their stories challenge my old beliefs that there is no God, that no one is in charge, that I am alone, and that life has no purpose—helping me rewrite those beliefs.

Do you believe God is always at work in your life? Do you believe he always has been? As you explore your momplicated past, can you see evidence of his divine hand?

Carmen struggled with deep emotional pain from a sense of feeling unloved, but she was unable to fully connect with the “why” of that pain. God impressed her to take out childhood photos of herself and put them on a bulletin board. She began praying in front of that bulletin board for the little girl in the pictures. Soon she began to remember her childhood in enough detail to realize why she grew up feeling unloved.

For Carmen, what seemed like a crazy idea at first turned out to be God leading her to the core lie that needed to be changed. Then the truth began to set her free. God showed her that he had always loved her, kept her safe, and been in every chapter of her personal story. His truth began to flood her mind: “I have cared for you since you were born” (Isaiah 46:3). As Carmen looked at the images of her young self, internalizing that truth, she began to deeply feel God’s compassion and love for the little girl in those pictures. God’s love became real. It was more than a verse to hold on to; it was a relationship with God as the parent she had always longed for.

Some women have to admit the hard truth that they have no memories of their mothers showing them love. If that is true for you, God is waiting for you with open arms. He offers to bind up your wounds and fill your empty places.

We (Debbie and Joan) have both good memories and bad. Most women, when asked to describe their mothers, do so with a mix of positive and negative statements, such as “I don’t remember her ever hugging me, but she worked hard as a single mom to support our family,” or “She was depressed and spent a lot of her time in bed, but I know she loved me very much.” The majority of us have received both hurts and gifts from our mothers, and both need to be examined for us to see the whole picture.

We’ve spent a lot of time looking at the ways our mothers did not meet our needs. Now let’s see if we can find ways they did. What are the gifts your mother gave you? At the very least, every mother gives her daughter life. She was the person through whom you entered this world. She carried you inside her womb, and her body fed your body.

Even with momplications, some women will easily find positive memories about their mothers. Others, however, will have a harder time. In order to completely heal, we need to be open to telling ourselves the full truth. In the end, our goal is to move beyond the negative and focus on what is good, hopefully in our mothers, definitely in God.

Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

PHILIPPIANS 4:8, NIV, EMPHASIS ADDED

The word translated think is the Greek word logidzomai, which means “to consider or calculate.” The NASB uses the phrase “dwell on these things.” This is not a fleeting thought of a Bible verse or a happy memory but an intentional, deep reflection that enters our hearts and affects our actions. When we focus on any good that our mothers brought to our lives, we are lining our thoughts up to God’s desire that we dwell on the good. As we cultivate gratitude, we open our hearts up to love, healing, and a new perspective.

Pray for a softening of your heart and understanding for your mother. Ask God to show you his hand in your past and in your present. As you pursue healing, look for practical glimpses of his love and care for you. Be open to nudges from him to take action. God will often allow situations in our lives that we don’t understand or welcome, but the reality is that he may be pulling out our weeds of distrust and uprooting the unhealthy messages that have tainted our hearts. Trust the process and cling to his promise: “If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me” (Jeremiah 29:13).

Step 6: Live Out of Your Spirit-Led Self

Are you beginning to grasp what it looks like to align your mind with the truth of God’s love? It’s a relationship that God has always wanted to have with you. In the past, you may have responded to life in ways you learned as a little girl. Old triggers may have dictated your reactions and hampered your relationships. “When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things” (1 Corinthians 13:11).

God wants to grow us into our mature, Spirit-led selves. Living in the Spirit means you are free to love God, others, and yourself rather than being in bondage to old coping mechanisms that make you defend, control, or withdraw. And though we once lived as our mothers’ children, we are now learning to live as God’s children.

Marla wasn’t invited to a family birthday party. And though she understood it was a small, intimate gathering of her brother’s immediate family, she felt hurt and left out. She realized for the first time that this default reaction resulted from old wounds, a sensitivity to feeling left out as a child. She stepped back and asked God to help her look at the situation objectively. The truth was, she really wouldn’t have wanted to travel the distance to the party, and her brother knew it. God made it clear, so that Marla could see it with an adult perspective. This breakthrough only happened when she moved beyond her childish reactions.

Walking in the Spirit is learning to rely on God’s love for you—learning to live as his daughter rather than living in the broken pieces of the past. When we begin to embrace God’s love, we also learn to assign that love to others.

Because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.” Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child.

GALATIANS 4:6-7

We know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. . . . There is no fear in love.

1 JOHN 4:16, 18, NIV

Have you been afraid to let others in? Perhaps it’s your mother you have trouble loving. Living by faith means letting go of the past and processing things from a different perspective. Each day you really do have a choice—to react like the little girl who was wounded (the flesh) or to respond like the free and new woman you are in Christ (the Spirit). Sometimes you just have to “faith it until you make it”—walking in faith according to what is true and right rather than living according to your feelings, which are subject to your broken and still-healing places.

What are the differences between living in the self and living in the Spirit?

“hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division” (Galatians 5:20)

“love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23)

Jessica jumped at every opportunity to quarrel with her mother. Her mother had irritated her when she was a child, and now that she was an adult, this irritation grew to outright hostility. Nothing her mom did was ever right. What Jessica really longed for was peace with her mom; she just didn’t know how to find it. A committed Christian, Jessica began to realize that all the quarreling and hostility was coming from her own negative thoughts. She was living in her flesh, but she desperately wanted to be a woman characterized by walking in the Spirit.

Over time, Jessica realized that with every irritation, she had a choice. The more healing she found for the hurts of her past, the more she could freely choose to follow the Spirit’s leading. Slowly her irritation and aggression were replaced with compassion and peace. Ultimately, this choice affected not only her mother-daughter relationship but all of her relationships.

What would your relationships with others, including your mom, look like if you were Spirit-led? Imagine living out of the fullness of God’s Spirit:

We believe these wise words from A. W. Tozer: “Get Christ himself in the focus of your heart and keep him there continually. Only in Christ will you find complete fulfillment. Throw your heart open to the Holy Spirit and invite him to fill you. He will do it.”[27]

Explore Your Story

  1. Find one verse that refutes the lie you identified in chapter 9. Using the verse as inspiration, write an affirmation of truth that you can hold on to. For example, “I’m his treasure” (based on Deuteronomy 7:6).
  2. Write out a list of characteristics of God’s love from 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. This will help you learn God’s heart toward you. This is not a list of what we are to do but a list of the aspects of love we are receiving. It may look something like this chart:

    GOD’S LOVE

    HOW THIS CHANGES ME

    MY CHILDHOOD VIEW OF LOVE

    Love is patient.

    God knows my imperfections and yet still loves me.

    I need to try harder and get it together to earn my mother’s love.
  3. Find one or more pictures of yourself as a child. As you look at them, tell your younger self all the characteristics of God’s love you have discovered in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. Ask God to show you the ways he was there for you even then.
  4. Reflect on the fruit of the Holy Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23. Make a list and ask God to bring those peace-inducing, life-giving characteristics into your heart. Journal about how you, as a child, would have benefited from receiving each one of them from your mother.

Connect with God

Lord, we have been on an amazing journey since day one. You have seen everything that has shaped my belief system, formed my habits, and influenced my view of life. I know now that I have been holding on to lies that have kept me self-focused and insecure. I want you to perform a miracle in me that only you can do. Make your words of truth life-giving realities in my soul, and heal the unhealthy places in my heart. I desire to walk in your Spirit and put away childish ways of coping, reasoning, reacting, and responding to life. This is possible with you. Amen.