Breakups, bitterness and blossoming…

Since my young and gifted interview came out with a brief outline of my testimony and how I came to Christ I’ve been receiving a lot of questions about break ups, advice on becoming BETTER in Christ, not going astray because of heart break and handling those who have mistreated you. So I thought I’d finally approach the most requested topic since I started blogging. I pray that my story and the encouragement you’ll receive from the Holy Spirit will bring you to a place of peace, comfort and restoration.

Psalm 147:3 - He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds.

The most crucial factor in healing is having the courage to give it to GOD. Make the decision to surrender your emotions to a God that cares about the things that concern you, a God that reaches His hand out to you, a God that is more than willing to heal you completely. In His word, God assures us that His healing power is enough to cure every bit of pain that was caused. Other words for ‘bind’ are ‘to hold together’ and ‘to secure’, revealing a God who is more than powerful enough to close up and mend what you may think is impossible. You won’t be healed without Christ. You won’t be able to heal your broken heart in your own strength. What you can do is attempt to cover up your need for God’s healing power with your fake sassiness, new found ‘confidence’ and new boys/girls. Is that a temporary fix? Yes. Will it bring you to a sound place of a healed heart, renewed strength and a better understanding of who you are and who God is? Nope. The first step is realising that you can’t do it by yourself and that’s what’s beautiful about GIVING THE SITUATION TO GOD. Sometimes God will slam a door shut, lock off your plans and tug on your heart consistently, to get your attention. You’ve been running from Him the whole time because you’ve been distracted by your partner and now God has finally bought you to a place where you can cling to Him for grace, mercy and strength.

Your most powerful tools to fight through this battle are prayer and the word of God. SPEAK TO GOD ABOUT IT. If you’re anything like me, I don’t particularly enjoy pouring my heart out to people when I’m upset or crying in front of anybody I know, but this mind set of not wanting to let it out can cause issues to be amplified. But one thing I did ensure when going through the break up was that I was speaking to God every night about the situation and the progress of my healing. Matthew 11:28-30 – {Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”} Jesus instructs you to come before Him, lay it all at His feet and literally cast your care unto The Lord. He teaches that we will find REST for our souls. When you begin to pray about your feelings of depression, confusion and discouragement, the situation is no longer yours, but it is now given to God. One thing I do want to emphasise is the importance of honesty. You can lie to your family, friends, church people about how you feel, but understand that God already knows how broken you are before you even tell Him. God can work with an honest and broken heart, so don’t approach His throne attempting to have it together, but rather allow Him to pull you together bit by bit as you tell Him what’s on your heart.

Switch your focus! Stop looking back – on both a practical and spiritual level. I’m not going to sit here and tell you whether to still communicate with the person or not, but what I am going to encourage you to do is ask God for HIS eyes, to see ETERNITY, the KINGDOM, and not what He has already made clear is not for you. Ezekiel 36:26 – {I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.} God is ready to heal you and renew your heart and mind towards Him. He’s more than capable of tearing out all of the anger, frustration and hardness within you and replacing it with a heart that will glorify Him. All it takes is faith in Jesus Christ and full belief that God will fulfil what He promises in His word. 

For many of you, a change of attitude is needed. God is tearing you down so that He can begin to transform you into His new creation in Christ. But whilst you’re still checking up on what he’s tweeting, who’s picture she’s commenting on and all sorts, God is pursuing you, dying for your attention and whole heart to be given to Him ALONE. Your focus needs to CHANGE. SO YOU CAN CHANGE. Have full faith that the God has given you a new spirit, one that is focused on the Kingdom of God and acting more like Jesus rather than the memories, heart break and soul ties you are desperately hanging on to for comfort. Let me share this with you also, my experience was UNCOMFORTABLE. Restoration is not always cute. It really isn’t. God made me crumble so I would finally acknowledge just how much I needed Him. A new beginning takes the power of God, but also the willingness within your heart to control your thoughts and stop looking back, but rather of the things of above { Colossians 3:2 - Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.} Work with Jesus to reach a place where you allow God to start working within you without all the stubbornness of wanting to hold on.

Forgiveness. Now this is the one ain’t nobody trying to hear. But it is NECESSARY. Not just for the civil status of the relationship between you and the other person, not just for your own spiritual sanity but because it is a COMMAND and TEACHING of Jesus. Matthew 18:21-22 –{ Then Peter came and said to Him, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?"  Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.’’} Jesus Himself teaches His disciples multiple times to forgive and to not keep count of how many times you have to forgive that person. It’s not just that temporary forgiveness where you say you forgive the person then the next minute you’re going off on one about how much they’ve hurt you (guilty lol). It’s that unconditional forgiveness. That pure, genuine, Christ-like forgiveness that is covered in love.

I’m going to let the word of God speak for itself with this aspect. I used to read this constantly, meditating on it and aiming to apply it to my situation to ensure I had peace about my progression of forgiveness:

Love for Enemies - Luke 6

“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that.’’

Pray for those that mistreat you. Probably one of the hardest things you’ll have to do as a believer, simply because it goes completely against the natural fleshly desire to be wicked, hateful and bitter towards someone that has wronged you. However, taking time to reflect on the relationship (not dwell, REFLECT), is good and can allow God to reveal areas of your character that need to be developed or changed. It’s important to analyse what happened, why it happened and to pray for your ex -partner. I get asked this A LOT ‘’but Caitlin what do you even pray for with him? Like I don’t know what’s going on with him so how do I know what to pray for?’’ I say pray over everything. Cover the person’s character and heart, presuming that they are also possibly hurt from the break up. Pray as if they were anybody else; covering areas of their life such as their relationship with God, their family, their career etc. Bringing yourself to a place where you feel comfortable talking to God about them in a more positive light will only be done by God’s grace and the way He will soften your heart. The more time you spend in prayer, reading and applying God’s word, and seeking God to reform you as a creation, the easier you will find it to cover the person that hurt you in loving prayer. Getting into the habit of this will ease the bitterness and avoid any kind of built up anger or resentment towards that person which will affect you, and possibly your future relationships.

Grow from the experience. Don’t look at the break up with a discouraged and distraught attitude (easier said than done, TRUST ME I know), but instead rejoice through the trials and tribulations that God has set before you. James 1:2 – {Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.}  Know that when you’re going through these emotions, long nights of crying out to the Lord, that your faith is being tested. Your ability to trust God and fully depend on His grace to get you through the heart break is being tested. A key scripture I would always refer to is 2 Corinthians 12:9 – {Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.} God is glorified the most when we are unable to fix things ourselves. That’s why God is so necessary. The grace that He pours out for us through His Son Jesus is what makes us worthy, adequate and strong, despite the circumstance.

That sacrifice through Jesus Christ that I just referred to? That is what determines your worth. I’ve seen too many young people, especially females come out of relationships broken because their worth was so heavily rooted in the wrong thing. You crave that person’s attention and love because you fail to embrace God’s incomparable love for you. Your worth is not found in the opinion of your ex, it’s not found in whether you were sexually intimate with them or not, and its most definitely not found in the bashing opinions of everybody else’s view of the situation. Christ paid the price for you on that cross, and from that is what your confidence to get up, move on and live for God should stem from. When you come to realisation of this, you’ll watch your mind set shift, your focus be fixed on King Jesus, and your Godly character blossom.

When you come out of a fresh break up, you may go through the identity problems but not even realise it’s such a big deal and can transfer into so many other aspects in your life… Because your heart is confused. Proverbs 4:23 – {Above all else, guard thy heart; for out of it flows the issues of life.} You’ve got people left right and centre telling you to forget them and get over it, whilst the enemy is prowling around your vulnerable state trying to convince you that you are unworthy and unqualified. GUARD YOUR HEART AGAINST HIS LIES! He’s the father of deceit and will do anything to install the opposite of what God is telling you about how precious your identity in Christ is. I got hit with this one hard myself. I very much had the mind set of ‘’if he doesn’t want me then no man will’’ ‘’what did I do? Was I not a good enough woman for him or nah ’’. I began to feed into the enemy’s lies about whom I was and the power of the God that I claimed to serve. The enemy tried to snatch the desire for marriage that God had placed inside of me, by twisting my thoughts to think that because of one failed relationship, it would never happen. But despite this, I grew day by day in fellowship with God and He trained me to see myself the way He sees me; cherished, adored, and important.

So I encourage all of you going through a break up, whether it was last week or 5 years ago ; give it to Jesus and He will heal you if you LET Him. His grace will finish the work He started in you. It will challenge you, convict you but always comfort you. I understand how hard it is to trust God through these kinds of situations because you don’t see how it’s all going to work out. However, the word declares that God makes ALL things work together for our good. And He means ALL things. If I could leave you with one thing God taught me during my own personal season of healing, is that God see’s, plans and moves with ETERNITY in mind. I know you’re confused, so was I. I didn’t see it all coming, but God did and He knew exactly how to get me to where I am now. So embrace your desperation for Him and lay your broken heart at His throne for real this time.

Praying for you always!

CONTACT ME

Email : kingdomambassadors@hotmail.com

Twitter: @_caitlinnunez

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