Joyces Recovery and Setbacks shes faced

Joyce today in our candid conversation where we talk a little bit more intimately. I know that you are speaking to many people who are watching, who are going down the path of emotional healing that you’ve been down. So I would love to talk about some of those things that you faced that were the most difficult challenges. Um, that maybe would encourage other people that they’re going to make it through those hard times too. Well, I think one of the first things I would say is that it’s really hard to face the truth about your own behavior. You know, for so many years, I blamed my bad behavior on the fact that I had been abused and I used that as an excuse. I mean everything from fits of self pity to whatever. I would just say, well, if only I wouldn’t have been abused and you know, as long as you’re making excuses for something, you can’t get free from it. I want to say that again. As long as we’re making excuses for something, we can’t get free from it because we’re giving ourselves permission to keep it. So excuses. Like it’s not my fault, it’s not my fault. I deserve to feel this way. It’s because I was abused, anybody that’s been through what I’ve been through would would behave this way. And uh, I had a real problem with self pity. I mean among many other things, but I particularly had a problem with every time, things didn’t go my way or I didn’t feel like Dave was paying enough attention to me or whatever. I would sit and feel sorry for myself and you know, God spoke to me, you can be pitiful or powerful, but you can’t be both. I was trying to minister already and you know, I’d be in the pulpit talking about being a powerful woman and yet having these pity parties. And I said, well, you know, you know how we talk to the Lord, I mean, I said, well, I anybody would, I feel sorry for themselves that they’ve been through what I’ve been. And he said, what? You have a reason, but don’t let the reason become an excuse to stay that way. So how is that affecting you behind the scenes, you’d be on stage and you know, you’re teaching and God is using it. But what’s happening at home? Well, that’s what I’m saying. You know, at home, I would be, I mean, not a totally different person, but I would um, the thing that happened with me a lot is what God was teaching me is what I would be preaching. One lady said, you’re just letting us eat off your plate. So sometimes I was teaching people, but it wasn’t yet perfected in my own life. And The Bible says in John eight, if you continue in my word, you will know the truth and the truth will make you free, but it’s the truth applied, that makes you free. So, you know, just to those that are watching today, the first thing that you might want to pay attention to is am I stuck in a place because I just keep making excuses for it are blaming, you know, blaming everybody else. And so really, no matter what you do or you do or you do, I’m still responsible for my own behavior, even if somebody doesn’t treat me right, I’m still responsible for my attitude toward them. And that’s hard and that’s true for everybody. Yeah. It’s I mean, it’s it’s easy to face truth about somebody else. How often do we hear a message and think, Well, yes. So and so really needs this when really we’re the one that that needs it. Some of the things that were the most challenging for me was learning how to be a submissive wife. You know, and you know, not in a weird way where I had no minding my own or no choices or you know, where Dave was trying to control me because he’s not even the kind of person to do that. But I just because I’ve been mistreated by men, I didn’t have respect from him. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And I didn’t I didn’t trust like if a decision needed to be made, I didn’t know how to trust that Dave would make a good decision for me as well as him because I men had always used me. And so I didn’t it was very hard for me to believe that you will make a decision that’s in my best interest. I remember Dave saying to me one time, why do you act like I’m your enemy? And so that, but that was your experience, that that was experience and I think that something that we all have to learn and this, this was a challenge for me. You have to learn how to act on the word of God rather than reacting. Mhm to whatever is bringing that emotional upset to you. You know, like if if Dave would be or anybody else would be the least bit stern with me because my dad was so mean, I would immediately get, you know, like you’re not, you’re not gonna treat me that way. And you know, some people just have stronger personalities. They don’t, they’re not trying to be mean or something, but I was, I was very overly sensitive and so I’d like for people that are listening today to remember that if you’ve been hurt a lot, you probably are going to be overly sensitive to certain things that you need to be careful about and to take responsibility for your own behavior. And this was big to be patient because when you have the kind of mess in your life that I had in mind, no matter how much you want it to, it’s not all going to change overnight. It’s going to take time and you’re gonna have setbacks? You’re gonna have times where, you know, you feel like you’ve gotten free in an area and then all of a sudden it comes up again and you know, like if you’ve ever peeled an onion, which I know you have it’s comes off in a little tiny layers and sometimes you think, am I ever going to get to the good part of this? And that’s kind of the way emotional healing can be sometimes because your emotions are there a hidden part of you. And so it’s a great way to explain it. Yeah, it’s on the inside of you and so we can pretend that everything is okay, but still just be having really bad thoughts about people and bad attitudes behind the scene and God really wants us to face truth. The psalmist, David said, God desires truth in the inner being. So he wants he wants us to be authentic and genuine and real. And It just takes time, Philippians 16 says that he had had begun a good work in us Is well able to complete it and bring it to its finish, Deuteronomy seven says that God delivers us from our enemies little by little. And that onion is a great example because as you peel off those layers and deal with different things and get deeper, there’s gonna be a lot of tears. It’s gonna stink a little bit now and then. So that’s really a very good way to look at it. And when you say to have patience, you’re talking about having patience with yourself and and others too, I’m sure as you walk through this, But did did you have those times that you’re like, God? When am I gonna get there? Oh my God. Yeah, ginger I had I probably gave up 1000 times, you know, And sometimes I’d even try to get God to feel sorry for me. Well, that’s it. I just can’t I can’t go through this anymore. I just give up. It’s almost like funny because you’re not gonna give up, you know, once you really fall in love with jesus, no matter how hard your days are, you’re always gonna come back around to knowing that you need God. Let’s talk about this reaction are acting on the word. You see, I had to find out that I could feel wrong and still behave right. And that was a pretty major thing for me when I realize that. And I’ve written a couple of books on managing your emotions and one called Living Beyond your feelings. And that’s that’s even to forgive somebody. You know, when you forgive somebody, you don’t necessarily feel like doing it, nor do you feel like it’s fair or but you do it because you love God, and that’s what he’s asked you to do and we need to be smart enough to realize that God is always right. Whatever he tells us to do is for our benefit and, you know, so I would have a lot of these pouting spells where maybe, I mean, in the very beginning of our marriage, if Dave made me mad ginger, I could not speak a word to him for three weeks, three weeks, 3 weeks now that there weren’t too many three week ear’s, but I would, I was very bad at pouting and staying mad. And the reason why I did that was because I had always seen my dad get his way through anger. And so I would I would react the way I had seen him behave. And I learned I had to learn enough of the word to learn how to act on the word rather than reacting. And so what happens is at first you don’t do it at all. And then after a while you start, you’ll recognize it. And so maybe you’ll act bad for a little while and then you’ll say no, that’s not right. And you change your mind until all the way up to now. I would say the biggest majority of the time and I’m not saying never because I still do sometimes, but instead of reacting to the devil’s stimulus that he’s trying to use against me, I can say, I recognize it’s the enemy and I recognize that I don’t have to be that way. But if I were to talk about the thing that probably was facing truth was really hard. What kind of truth? Well, just like, I mean, I always thought all the problems in my marriage was Dave if Dave would do this, if Dave would do that if Dave would do this. And one day I was praying for Dave to change and the holy spirit spoken, my heart day is not the problem. And I really thought, I honestly thought, well who is? There’s only me and him. I mean, they had, you know, and God revealed to me what it was like to live with me and I cried for like three days. I think I was just so I don’t know, just disappointed in myself didn’t want it to be my fault. You know, when you’ve had a lifetime of blaming other people, it’s very hard, it’s painful to say, I’m hard to get along with. Yeah, those are hard words to come to grips with. I have unforgiveness in my heart, you know, I make a big deal out of every little thing I’m not merciful. It’s it’s challenging to admit all those things, but I want to say again, that is the first step toward freedom. But probably the thing that took me the longest to get over completely was feeling guilty all the time because I had always felt guilty about what my dad was doing to me, even though it wasn’t my fault. You know, it’s our secrets that make us sick. And so I had this big nasty secret that I had keep all the time. And so I always, always felt guilty always. And it didn’t it didn’t matter if it was a little thing or a big thing. And then as I got into a relationship with God and I started hearing these things about there’s no guilt, there’s no condemnation. I became a very religious christian in the beginning to keep the guilt away. Well, no, yeah, trying to do everything perfect. So I didn’t have to have that burden of guilt. And it it took me a good number of years. It got better. That’s the thing that people need to, you know, realize and something I’d like to say to our viewers today is please please please celebrate your progress. And don’t only think about how far you have to go and and some things are gonna be harder than others. I mean there may be some things that you’ll get over much quicker. And then there’s other things I share that. One of the things that I still deal with is I don’t like any kind of strife or upset in the family. You know, it’s like, I mean, one of my sons told me one time he said, you can’t expect us to all work together and be around each other as much as we are and never ever have any kind of a conflict. But see it doesn’t matter. I mean if it’s two of my kids not getting along or whatever. I can’t, it’s hard for me to settle down and be peaceful until it’s solved and it relates directly to the turmoil that was in my house all the time and the whole game that everybody played was let’s keep dad from getting mad. You know, my mother did it, I did it, my brother did it and if he was mad then we started doing I guess what I call the dance, you know, where we would just, you know, try all these different things to get him back in a good mood. And so it took me a long time to get to the point where I didn’t carry some kind of a burden of guilt or always be kind of um vaguely. You gotta be careful about the vague things in their life your life, they’re not the like right in your face type things. But I always had like this feeling around me that just kind of like waiting for the next bad thing to happen. And there’s a scripture in proverbs 1515 that talks about evil for votings. And so it’s like we’ve been set free from that, but I was always instead of expecting something good, which is what hope is I was more expecting the next problem because that’s all I’d had, you know, in my life. But if you want to just boil it down for our viewers to probably two of the things that were the hardest, I would say it was just facing truth. Yeah, I still don’t enjoy it, you know, who does, who wants to say? You know, I didn’t act right in that situation and it doesn’t really matter what you did. You know, we always want to say, well, I shouldn’t have acted, I shouldn’t have acted that way. But you know, you shouldn’t have. But God wants us to get to the point where we just take responsibility for us. And I think if we can stop playing this blame game, it opens the door for God to deal with the other person if they aren’t behaving right. So I would say that that facing the truth and that the guilt thing getting over that we’re probably two of the hardest things for me. Well, thank you very much. I’m sure it’s encouraging to people when you talk about having patience with yourself and knowing that you can stand on what God says, that he will continue that good work in you. So there’s hope out there. Yes, there is. And I hope everybody has been encouraged.