Why Embracing Our Brokenness Is Necessary For Us To Be Whole

  We equate wholeness with perfection, with having it all together, with success. Yet the meaning of wholeness is perhaps just the opposite.

Wholeness, at its very core, implies rather than an absence of brokenness, the innate existence of a fractured, fragile, astoundingly imperfect self. Wholeness, is about embracing our brokenness as an integral part of life.

For most of my life, I longed to be whole. I was hungry for it. Desperate. I became vigilant, some might say obsessed with achieving, attaining. My focus was on becoming as perfect as I could be, on removing any faults or defects. For me, the finish line of success was where I would become whole.

As I walked through the “season of my undoing” and stumbled upon the door of my healing, I discovered that I could lay down this mountain of pain I had been carrying, that I didn’t have to become perfect, that I could accept, even embrace my brokenness.

Embracing my brokenness allows me breathe.

It is exhausting to carry the weight of shame and fear on my shoulders. Impossible to bear up under such an insurmountable and unforgiving oppressor – me.

My Abba Father whispered to my soul, Child, Why do you carry such a weight when my Son already carried it for you?

He hung on the cross for every broken place, every shame, every sorrow. Our past was redeemed. Our present is His gift to us, free and clear. And our future is secure. Why do we insist on placing the weight of our shame back on our shoulders?

I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost likesetting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him. _C.S. Lewis

Wholeness allows me to see myself as God sees me, through the eyes of love, of grace, of compassion as big as the universe. Through His tender, aching eyes I can see more clearly who I am. I am His beloved.

Embracing my brokenness allows me to have greater communion with others.

Comparison is the thief of intimacy. External validation is but heroin to a broken, striving soul. And thus we can never truly be with others as long as we are so terribly needy of them for our fulfillment.

We all come to the table of community broken. We are all like Peter himself, stumbling along our journeys with Jesus, bringing our mess-ups and our failings, our weakest sensibilities to our brothers and sisters in Christ. To be encouraged, strengthened, comforted, and built up together. Yes, together.

Settling into a newfound rhythm of release—from needing what others cannot give, and embracing an identity that no one can steal away—we are at once home with our brothers and sisters. Accepting their humanity allows us to embrace our own.

As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down you cannot see something that is above you. _C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Embracing my brokenness creates greater intimacy with God.

Nothing stands between us. No longer needing pretense to validate my existence, I can allow myself to come right up to His outstretched arms and dive in. I am utterly and divinely safe. I have no need to hide. No need to fear. He is here. He is with me. Embracing my brokenness tears down the wall and creates full, unfettered intimacy and vulnerability with the Creator of my soul.

Isaiah 53:5 (NIV) tells us, But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

How can it be? When we're naked and ashamed and alone in our brokenness, Christ envelops us with His intimate grace. When we're rejected and abandoned and feel beyond wanting, Jesus cups our face: "Come close, my Beloved." When we're dirty and tear-stained and despairing, Jesus Christ is attracted to us and proposes undying love: "All that you're carrying I take... and all that I am is yours." How do you ever get over that? _Ann Voskamp, The Broken Way

Embracing my brokenness allows my authentic self to grow.

I am learning to see all the parts and pieces of me as one singular, beautiful mosaic. As I learn to hold the myriad of shapes and shards in my hands, I can finally see them through the eyes of compassion, as He sees them. This is the sacred place where God moves me from being healed to being whole.

God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume. It is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever. _Vance Havner

Brokenness keeps me planted in the good soil of redemption.

Brokenness keeps me drenched in the love I cannot live without.

Brokenness is the one thing that keeps me reaching for, clinging to the Truth that molds me, and transforms me into who I am not yet, but who I am becoming.

Brokenness does not make me weak.  It  is perhaps the strongest part of who I am.

Because in my most broken, wounded, fragile places, I know He is strong.

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About This Community

Don't we all want a little peace?  My heart for this community is to provide just that - a needed refuge from all the burdens that weigh us down, some encouragement and inspiration to keep us weary travelers moving forward on our journeys, and some practical advice to help each of us navigate the challenges of life and relationships.  Whether in our parenting, our marriages, our faith, or the broken places in our hearts, this place is for anyone who dares to reach beyond the hopelessness that surrounds us and embrace a lifestyle of emotional abundance and peace!  

About Peace for a Lifetime

In my new book, Peace for a Lifetime, I share the keys to cultivating a life that’s deeply rooted, overflowing, and abundant, the fruit of which is peace. Through personal and professional experience as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, I've discovered how to take the broken pieces of life and find indestructible peace with myself, God and with others. Through my story and other’s stories you’ll realize that you can experience the life for which you long. You can experience abundance beyond anything you can imagine. You can experience peace, not just for today, not just for tomorrow. You can experience peace —for a lifetime!

Peace for a Lifetime is available on Amazon.com.

Book Trailer: https://vimeo.com/155392891

Because Anniversaries Need To Be Celebrated...(Plus a Giveaway)

Who doesn't LOVE anniversaries?  I can’t believe it has been a YEAR since my book, “Peace For A Lifetime” launched! What a sweet year it has been to see how God turned my healing journey into a passion to equip others to find the healing and abundance God has designed for each of us.

From where I sat twenty years ago, I could not have imagined that life could feel anything other than scattered, overwhelmed, broken, and hopeless. Yes, hopeless. I felt the life I longed for was way beyond my reach. I thought a life of peace, of strength, of abundance was for everyone else, NOT for me.

But then God changed EVERYTHING! He gave me the missing “PEACE” in my life. I discovered that He not only longed for me to experience spiritual healing, or even physical healing. In truth, He longed for me to experience emotional healing, too.

God showed me how to find balance in my emotions, how to sort through them effectively. He revealed to me my belovedness, taught me how I could love myself, and began to build in me a strong, solid sense of my identity in Christ. Amazingly, He showed me how I could build relationships that were safe, healthy, and abundant.

“Peace For A Lifetime” is the story of my broken path into healing and abundance. I could not have imagined how it has helped thousands of individuals, couples, and families find peace for their lives, too.

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Order Your Copy Here!

One Amazon reviewer described “Peace For A Lifetime’s” impact this way:

I now know what happened to me and I need healing and not 1000s of pills that never work, many doctors, shock treatments, millions of dollars my insurance has paid out for over 30 years to relive me of the pain. I can't calm myself or control my emotions, and what is more amazing solutions that really work, which I have never found in my life, until I read this book. You know me 100%. Father, I thank you for leading me to this wonderful book. I will always treasure the writer for finally setting me free from the darkness I have lived in since I was a child.

Another detailed:

What is my dream? Emotional Abundance! I can't explain impact, depth and soul searching that I encountered when reading Peace for a Lifetime. No matter what "group" that we had experienced AA-NA-CR-or one-on-one therapy Lisa makes you think... really think. My first read I rushed through and wanted more so back I went for my second read and WOW the light was shining brightly over my soul, spirit and brain and I dissected each chapter like a scientist would a project... but this was my project and chance to fulfill the questions and why's of my emotions. The section of building an emotional vocabulary is pure genius and I have already put this vocabulary to use along with the meanings of my emotions that I was otherwise blowing up or glossing over...Life Changing!!! Seriously... Life Changing! Thank You Lisa Murray! If you are looking for a roadmap to emotional peace, I pray if you haven’t read “Peace For A Lifetime” yet, you will get a copy TODAY!

Order Your Copy Here!

“Peace For A Lifetime” hit #5 on Amazon’s Best-Selling Christian Counseling List!

“Peace For A Lifetime” has a 5-star rating on Amazon!

The book has even been selected as a Featured Resource by the American Association of Christian Counselors!.

So what are you waiting for? If you or someone you know needs emotional healing from depression, anxiety, brokenness, addiction, relationship struggles, or spiritual questions, give them this book!

Since this week is the one-year anniversary of “Peace For A Lifetime’s” launch, I would also LOVE for you to share this on your social media channels.  Please consider the book for a group Bible study, as a resource in your church's library/bookstore, or as the topic for your women's retreats this year.  Our church's need resources to meet the emotional needs of its members.

This might be just the thing someone needs to read today!

Leave a comment, tag someone, or share the post this week, using the hashtag #PeaceForALifetime and you will be entered to win a FREE book!!!! 

Winner will be announced next week:)

Blessings,

Lisa

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About This Community

Don't we all want a little peace?  My heart for this community is to provide just that - a needed refuge from all the burdens that weigh us down, some encouragement and inspiration to keep us weary travelers moving forward on our journeys, and some practical advice to help each of us navigate the challenges of life and relationships.  Whether in our parenting, our marriages, our faith, or the broken places in our hearts, this place is for anyone who dares to reach beyond the hopelessness that surrounds us and embrace a lifestyle of emotional abundance and peace!  

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Peace for a Lifetime is available on Amazon.com.

www.lisamurrayonline.com

Facebook: Lisa Murray

Twitter: @_Lisa_Murray

Book Trailer: https://vimeo.com/155392891

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Why Unlocking the Past Can Hold the Key To Our Healing

We all have a past. No matter who we are, no matter where we were raised, we each have a story, a history that has been etched into the seams and shadows of our hearts.

We didn’t ask for the things we experienced as children. Whether it was a chaotic family life, our parents’ divorce, or financial struggles, whether it was the rejection and ridicule we experienced from our so-called friends at school, by the time we made it to adulthood, life had already begun to take its toll.

The problem is, the wounds we carry from our past into our adult lives don’t just fall by the wayside once we graduate from school. Our wounds affect and infect everything from our work, our relationships, our faith and our inner peace. We can’t outrun our wounds, we can’t ignore them, we can’t escape them.

We can heal them. We can find freedom from them. The abundant life God desires for you doesn’t include your wounds, or your burdens.

If you’ve ever felt hopeless that life could ever be different – it can! Here is an excerpt from my new book, Peace For a Lifetime, that shares why unlocking the past can hold the key to our healing.

Debra was forty-eight years old when she pursued therapy in order to deal with her addiction to alcohol. Our initial conversation revealed that Debra grew up in an alcoholic family. She was the oldest of four children.

Growing up, she watched daily as her father came home from work and began his evening ritual of pouring himself a few drinks before dinner. With each drink, his agitation increased. He would start with angry comments about the news. Then he would bicker with her mom, and yell at the kids to, “shut up so I can have some peace and quiet,” as Debra recalled. By suppertime, he was in a virtual rage. His bickering escalated into cursing and name-calling. Seemingly he was looking for something that would give him an excuse to explode.

Debra remembered a night when she was six years old that her dad stood up from the table and began to beat her mom violently. Debra immediately took the little ones to their room. When she came back to the dining room, she started pulling on her dad’s arm, desperately trying to get him off of her mom. He merely flung her off while he continued his vicious attack.

One night when Debra was fifteen years old, as another fight began, she stood in front of her mom with a knife and threatened to kill her dad if he ever touched her mom again. He never did.

To make matters worse, Debra was molested by a teacher when she was twelve years old. Though she told her parents, they didn’t believe her and refused to take any action that might embarrass the family.

Since then, Debra has always found herself in relationships where there is a lot of drama. Whether the drama is from her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend, his boss, or a nosy neighbor, there is always a fight to be had, and she is ready for battle. The relationships usually end when there are no more battles to wage.

The losses have been tremendous for Debra. She began to rely on alcohol many years ago as a way to deal with the pain of the break-ups. She feels so alone, and the sadness is overwhelming. She just wants to feel loved, to feel safe. Her current boyfriend truly does love her but can’t take Debra’s drama anymore.

When I asked what role faith played in her life, she responded she had a general belief in God. She related having a lot of anger toward Him, not understanding how a loving God could have allowed her to experience everything she did as a child. She also felt God had abandoned her just like her parents did when she told them of her molestation. Certainly she could not feel safe with someone else who was going to leave.

Though Debra survived her childhood, she did not escape the emotional residue that contaminated everything in her life, including her relationship with God.

Thankfully, this is not the end of the story for Debra. God had another plan for Debra’s life. A plan for healing, a plan for life, a plan for peace.

God has another plan for your life, too! He has not abandoned you. He has not forgotten your wounds or your pain. He longs to heal all that is broken in you. He longs to give you a new life and a new future.

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!

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Peace For A Lifetime Video Trailer

https://vimeo.com/155392891 

Imagine if... we traded brokenness for healing, emptiness for abundance, chaos for peace? In my new book, Peace for a Lifetime, I share the keys to cultivating a life that’s deeply rooted, overflowing, and abundant, the fruit of which is peace.

Click here to learn more about Lisa's book!!

Or buy the book NOW on Amazon!!

How God Can Use Our Wounds To Make Us Whole

Our wounds leave us feeling frail, broken, desperately unwhole. It seems like everyone around us must be living the abundant life, but with our wounds, that kind of life feels like an impossibility. We feel helpless. Hopeless.

I felt that way too, for most of my life. I never dreamed that God’s healing could be for me. I had prayed so many times. I had hoped —only to see my hopes dashed when the healing I longed for never materialized. Then I discovered how God could use my wounds to make me not only healed, but whole.

If you’ve ever felt hopeless, hurt, and wounded, 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 how God can use your wounds to make you whole so that you can embrace a life of hope, wholeness, and harmony.

God created us as physical, emotional, and spiritual beings. All three are necessary and important components to understand if we want to build peace into our lives and relationships. At the time we received Christ as our Lord and Savior; He healed us uniquely and completely. Yet, some of our wounds, burdens, and infirmities remain. How can that be? Because as humans living in a fallen world, though we are healed in the spiritual realm, we may not see the fullness or completion of that healing until we reach heaven.

While at the time of conversion, some individuals experience immediate freedom or healing in certain areas, all of us spend our Christian lives “work[ing] out [y]our salvation with fear and trembling.” (Philippians 2:12 NIV) [Additions mine] In other words, we take the salve of God’s healing and apply that salve to our physical, spiritual, and emotional wounds so we can find freedom and peace in areas of our lives we never thought possible. If we were all completely healed at the time of conversion, we would all be perfect then, wouldn’t we? I find great comfort in hearing Paul describe his affliction in 2 Corinthians 12:7–10 (NIV):

“...because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

I wish for the church to be more gentle and compassionate with the weaker, more broken parts of the body so we can experience healing and wholeness too. Sometimes our wounds are the safest place we know. If the church can create a safe place for the broken to uncover and acknowledge their wounds, we, the body, can begin applying the salve of compassion and understanding. The broken can then start to heal.

You don’t have to spend the rest of your life limping along. You don’t have to carry the weight of your wounds one day longer. God desires to take your wounds and give you a life of healing and abundance.

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!

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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