Why Is There So Much Brokenness in the World?

 Why do bad things happen to good people? How do such unspeakable tragedies strike innocent children? Why is there so much brokenness in the world?

I hear these questions often. I hear them in my practice as I sit with individuals who have endured a lifetime of pain with little relief. I hear them in the church at large. It is here, where we tend to believe everything in our lives is healed at the moment of conversion, that these questions gnaw at us. They disturb us.

Why are there so few emotionally healthy adults, even in a community of spiritually minded, Christ followers?

Life continually writes upon the slate of our emotional identities. And yes, even after conversion there are some wounds that are to be healed over the course of our lives as we, “continue to work out our salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12, NIV). Some wounds just don’t disappear instantly no matter how much we study and pray.

Yet, if we understand the nature of our journeys here on earth, we can recognize that God is always about the process of healing, teaching, and growing us up to become more and more like Him. What a beautiful picture!

Here is an excerpt from my new book, Peace For a Lifetime, where I explain why there is so much brokenness in the world and how we as individuals can move beyond our wounds to experience healing, embrace wholeness, and cultivate the kind of peace we’ve always dreamed of for our lives.

If children develop emotionally as they do physically and intellectually, why are there so few emotionally healthy adults? What happens that stops or prevents children from attaining Emotional Abundance—that ability to feel, reason through, understand, and effectively manage emotions—as they arrive at adulthood? The short answer is this: life happens.

We are born as blank slates. However, since we live in a broken world, that brokenness makes its mark on the slate of our identities in many ways. Brokenness changes everything about how we see the world, how we see ourselves, and how we see relationships. Life in a broken world creates broken people, and that brokenness is our universal wound. No one escapes being broken. No one is exempt. Brokenness is simply the reality of life and relationships on this side of heaven.

For example, many children living in environments where they are helpless to protect themselves or those around them learn to see themselves in adulthood as powerless to affect change in any area of their lives. They sometimes begin to experience themselves as deserving of the abuse they attract in relationships, and they may begin to feel a certain comfort in unhealthy environments and relationships because that unhealthiness seems familiar. Because they feel powerless to affect any change in their worlds, they continue in the pattern written on their physical, cognitive, and emotional slate many years earlier in childhood.

We are left to carry our wounds with us into the relationships that mean the most to us. We unconsciously wound those we love with our wounds.

That doesn’t have to be the end of the story.

God loves you. He weeps for the ways your childhood wounded you. He longs for you to be healed, to be whole. Whole — spiritually, emotionally, physically. Complete. Lacking in nothing. Abounding in everything. Every wound. Every relationship. Every heart. Every life. Yours.

My new book, Peace for a Lifetime, provides step-by-step information and tools for how you can experience healing in the darkest, deepest wounds within your heart and mind. This material can help you create and experience an indestructible peace – not just for today, not just for tomorrow, you can experience peace…for a lifetime!

 To learn more about the book, click HERE!

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How I Found Peace on the Road from Brokenness to Abundance

 We have all experienced seasons of winter. Each of us has felt the gnawing pain of barren and broken places deep inside that nothing seems to heal. Sometimes our brokenness catches us off guard and snatches the breath from our lungs in an untimely and unguarded instant. Sometimes our brokenness is a collision we can see careening towards us in the far-off distance but are otherwise helpless to escape. We come to the end of ourselves and we can go no further.

The good news is, for everyone who has experienced moments or seasons of brokenness, wounds that may be years old but are still tender to the touch, your broken places don’t have to stay broken.

God desires healing for you! John 10:10 (NKJV) encourages us that, The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

I’ve included an excerpt from my new book, Peace For a Lifetime that shares the importance of Emotional Abundance and how we can begin building a life of abundance and peace. Peace is not something out of reach, it’s not something just for others. Peace is powerful, peace is possible!

I watched as the light changed from red to green. Cautiously, I pressed the gas pedal and accelerated through the intersection of this quaint little town. I had been through this intersection so many times before, but never to this destination.

The building was once a historic home, now turned into offices. As I entered the office, the corner office in the front of the house, I noticed two large windows. Old windows—windows where the glass slightly distorts the images outside, almost like a watercolor painting.

In between the two windows was a large fireplace. Though the fireplace did not work, and there was no fire lit, I immediately felt its warmth, as if something told me I was safe here.

I moved toward the sofa and noticed a book displayed on the mantel of the fireplace—one book sitting alone. The book must be important, I thought. I didn’t know how important.

That day, my first day, was the beginning of my healing. I had arrived here after a season I like to call the season of my undoing. Like those in recovery say, life had indeed become unmanageable.

No, there was no addiction, no rehab, or such. That might be easier to label somehow. I had simply come to the end of myself, and I could go no farther. I had reached, for me, the place of critical mass.

Change was no longer a matter of choice. Change was a necessity.

Like everything else in life, change was a process, so he said. My therapist spoke eloquently of a journey. He said since I didn’t arrive here overnight, I probably would not get out of here overnight. He said to trust the process. I did. I had no other choice.  

Week after week, I would stare out the windows—those big, old windows— as we talked. In the fall, I watched the wind bluster through, causing the trees to shed their leaves. I watched the barren winter wield its mighty hand, reducing nature to a cavernous nothingness. I watched as the spring came and the leaves, the bright yellow-green leaves, began to paint their watercolor brilliance once again.

One day as I peered outside, I could see the wind gently blowing through the branches of those old ancient trees. Like waves on the seashore, theirs was a gentle ebb and flow, as if life was being breathed back into them. I felt life begin to breathe inside of me, too.

Peace for a Lifetime chronicles my journey from brokenness to abundance as I healed the wounds that had kept me stuck for so long and learned what it felt like to be whole. This book will give you simple, practical life steps that will help you heal the broken places inside and will guide you towards cultivating peace in every area of your life —peace with God, peace within yourself, and peace in your relationships.

You can experience peace not just for today, not just for tomorrow, you can experience peace…for a lifetime!

 To learn more about the book, click HERE!

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Why Emotional Abundance Is a Powerful Key To Lasting Peace

 For most of my life I felt anything but abundant. I was exhausted trying to be everything for everybody. I was obsessed with winning other’s approval. I was terrified of rejection. I was demanding and critical of myself. I could never speak my thoughts and feelings and I did my very best to avoid any conflict that came my way. At the end of the day, I was scraping the bottom of the barrel. There was nothing abundant about that!

Just because I was raised in the church and was a passionate follower of Christ, that didn’t mean I was whole on the inside. The truth was, I was an emotional wreck.

For so many years, I sat in church and listened to amazing sermons by profoundly gifted pastors. Yet somewhere in the deepest shadows of me, what I could believe for so many others, I could not believe for myself. Other people could be whole, but that must not be for me. No amount of study, prayer, or faith ever seemed to glue together what was terribly broken inside.

If you’ve ever felt exhausted, empty, hopelessly scraping the bottom of the barrel, too, God has so much more in store for you! God longs for you to experience peace. “Peace” in Hebrew refers to wholeness, completeness, safety, soundness, and fullness. God wants us to be whole —physically, spiritually, and emotionally. I Thessalonians 5:23-24 (NLT) states, Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.

Here is an excerpt from my new book, Peace For a Lifetime, that shares the importance of Emotional Abundance and how we can begin building a life of abundance and peace.

Emotional Abundance, therefore, can be described as the over-sufficient supply, the overflowing fullness in the area of our instinctive, intuitive, feeling responses as we come in contact with our environment and our relationships. EA is the ability to feel our emotions, to reason through our emotions, to understand our emotions, and to effectively manage our emotions so we can appropriately respond to the people and circumstances around us. EA is the capacity to meet the demands of everyday life and create meaning in order to move forward in a positive direction. We can experience Emotional Abundance in our relationship with God, in our relationship with ourselves, and also in our relationships with others.

I like these definitions. EA means that I am not a helpless victim of my emotions; nor am I required to be cut-off from my emotions. I can experience abundance in my emotions!

Some studies have shown that EQ or Emotional Quotient has been determined to play a more powerful role in our success (as much as 80%), while IQ (Intellectual Quotient) has been shown to determine only about 20% of success. How we learn to deal with our emotions determines more about our overall success in life than the grades we got in school or the degree we earned from college. 5

In his book, Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman says, "People with well- developed emotional skills are also more likely to be content and effective in their lives, mastering the habits of the mind that foster their own productivity; people who cannot marshal some control over their emotional life fight battles that sabotage their ability for focused work and clear thought."6

Emotional Abundance also has a direct impact on our physical health. Experts agree that over eighty percent of our health problems are stress-related. When we don’t know how to manage and reduce the stress in our lives, our physical health will suffer.

Our relationships are positively affected by Emotional Abundance as well. The more we are able to feel, understand, and manage our emotions, the better able we are to express them in a healthy way to the people around us. Whether at work or in our personal lives, our relationships will flourish as we are able to be with and listen to another person’s perspective in order to work through conflicts or disagreements.

In addition, Emotional Abundance can have a great impact on our spiritual lives. To be with, listen to, quiet ourselves with, and find meaning in our relationship with God will not only strengthen our spiritual lives, but will make our spiritual lives abound to overflowing.

Don’t abounding and overflowing sound better than exhausted and empty? That kind of life is not out of reach. It’s not something just for others. That kind of abundance is not only powerful, it is possible!

I share simple, practical, life steps in my book, Peace For a Lifetime, that can help you understand the life God desires for you. This material can help you create and experience an indestructible peace – not just for today, not just for tomorrow, you can experience peace…for a lifetime!

 To learn more about the book, click HERE!

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5 John Chancellor, http://johnchancellor.hubpages.com/hub/Why-Emotional- Intelligence-is-More-Important-Than-IQ

6 Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence (New York: Bantam Books, 1995).

Four Proven Strategies That Can Help Make You a Better Decision-Maker

Overwhelmed.  I sat with the application for graduate school in my hands, but for some inexplicable reason, I could not make a decision.  For weeks, I could not put the stamp on the envelope and mail it in. 

What-if’s paralyzed me.  What if I hate it?  What if I love it?  What if I am terrible at school?  What if I am great at school?  What if it has been too long since I’ve been in school?  What if it is too much for me to handle?  What if I am too old?

The negative thoughts were endless.

I always wanted to go to graduate school.  Me, the plumber’s daughter who barely thought it possible that I might go to college at all, wanted to go to graduate school.

My husband, the courageous one, said, What have you got to lose?  If this is not the right program, you could simply switch and try something else you might like better.

I could?  That seemed too easy.  Surely there must be something else I am not considering.  I felt an immense pressure to make the right decision, the perfect decision.

Isn’t that what traps us all at times – the pressure to get things right, perfect?  Decisions, it seems, weigh heavily.  Trapped underneath the weight of ought’s and should’s and must’s and if’s, we can find ourselves teetering on the brink of collapse at the very notion of what might befall us.

So, how do we know if we’re making a good decision?  What is there that can help us feel more confident about taking the next step, whatever that step may be?

There are four proven strategies I’ve learned that can help make you a winning decision-maker.

1.  Learning the Art of Calm.  I don’t know about you, but when faced with a decision, I can almost feel my blood pressure rise and my heart start pumping faster.  My mind is dizzy and scattered.  I can’t feel confident about any decision when I am physiologically stressed because it shifts me into fight or flight mode.  My thinking becomes confused and disorganized, which makes decision-making even more difficult.

Learning to calm our bodies and quiet our minds with deep-breathing techniques, helps us to release all of the thoughts flooding our minds so we can arrive at a place where we are mentally and physically calm and centered.  We can never make healthy decisions when we are in a stressed state, which is why this step is vital.  Some of my worst decisions have been made when I made knee-jerk decisions in a moment of stress or emotion.

2. Developing the Habit of Information-Gathering.  When faced with a decision, my “go-to” power step is to begin gathering information.  Are there articles I can read online?  Is there an expert in the field to whom I can ask questions?  Does this fit me – my personality, my strengths and weaknesses, my beliefs and values?  Does this feel like a natural extension of where I am going or does it feel like a left turn?

There are no right or wrong answers.  We just won’t make a well-informed decision without the answers to some of these questions.  For me, the additional benefit to developing the habit of research is that is helps calm me.  As I gather information, I usually feel less overwhelmed.  I can see the picture more clearly.  The more detailed information I collect usually provides a sense deep inside as to whether something feels right or not.  Some people may call this their gut instinct, I call it my inner voice, that distinct, loving, compassionate voice of the Holy Spirit, moving and breathing inside of me.  Longing to speak in only the way He can speak.  Beckoning me.  As I gather information prayerfully, the pathway before me usually becomes more clear, more illuminated.

3.  Committing the decision to prayer.  So I come to this place.  I've calmed myself.  I've done my best to gather information and wisdom that will help me make the best decision possible.  Now I cover my decision in prayer.  I release.  I submit - my will for God's, my plans for His, knowing that His will is infinitely better, His thoughts infinitely higher than mine could ever be.  In this moment I am free.  In casting my cares upon Him, He will order my steps.  I need not fear.

For me, I don't want my strategies.  I don't want my will.  I want His will more than anything.  Prayer releases whatever hold I may have, whatever desire to which I may cling.  Prayer prepares me to step out, though I may not be able to see where I am going.  The outcome may be hazy and unclear, but my identity, my passion and my purpose gives me the courage to move.  My destination is owned by my Heavenly Father and that is forever crystal clear.

4. Daring to Take the Next Step.  So I step.  Out into the unknown at times.  But I step.  I’ve learned that paralysis will never yield the result I want, nor will it lead me where I want to go.  I have learned through the years that most decisions do not carry life-or-death, all-or-nothing outcomes.  Every decision can be an opportunity to learn and grow.

If somehow along the way, I made a mistake, that is okay.  I don’t have to get everything right the first time.  I certainly don’t have to be perfect.  I just have to try my best.  And if for some reason, I did take a left turn —well, I can calm myself, gather more information, and take another step in a different direction.

Ultimately, individuals who are actively involved in taking steps in their lives, even if they make a mistake, build a forward momentum that carries them where they want to go.

What is the decision you face today?

What is the weight that looms over you, that threatens to paralyze you and keep you trapped right where you are?

Don’t let a decision overwhelm you.  Don’t fight against it.  Don’t run from it.

Walk right up to your decision,

learn the art of calm,

develop the habit of information-gathering,

commit your decision to prayer,

and dare to take the next step!

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I'd love to hear about how you've approached decisions in your life and how you've dared to take the next step!

Thanks,

Lisa Murray, LMFT

Director of Counseling Ministries

Grace Chapel

(615)294-3424

www.lmurraycounseling.com