A few years ago, I went through a bitter divorce. As a woman in ministry, I didn’t know how to effectively deal with the emotional outflow—rejection, abandonment, betrayal, disappointment, shame and embarrassment, and much more.
I now had a “D” on my life’s report card, and I felt my only viable solution was to step away from ministry. I thought I had failed God and the expectations of others. At the time, I perceived that the divorce had taken me two giant steps backward in walking fully in my God-created purpose.
As Christian women, we are not exempt from pain. God didn’t promise us that we wouldn’t have to deal with pain.
Instead, He promised that He would be with us as we walked through our painful circumstances. Maybe you’re questioning God’s call on your life after picking up the pieces of your broken marriage. Possibly, you are trying to sort through the damage that the divorce tornado has ripped through your life. Also, you might wonder where you start to rebuild your life.
I discovered an effective way to move beyond my pain by inviting God into my painful circumstances. One of the first essential steps in me breaking free from the emotional pain of the divorce was to learn how to release it to God. So I wrote a letter of release to God, and my heart responded beautifully—it started to heal.
This letter of release taught me how to let things go, something I wasn’t taught how to do.
Dear God,
I’m writing this letter to you as a desperate prayer to release the pain that I’m processing as I walk through this divorce. I’m at a place where I don’t expect or need an apology to forgive or move on. I only need to know that you are with me.
I can see the good that you are birthing in me through this painful place. I’m getting to a place of being thankful for it. If I hadn’t taken the time to walk through my pain and not stuff it as I did in the past, I would have missed out on seeing what you have created me to be.
Today, you spoke to me about who I am, and you gave me a key to ease my pain and walk in new freedom. You told me that I should hear your voice louder than the voice of the enemy. WOW.
Your message was eye-opening because the harmful lies the enemy spoke over me for years have crippled me. I have allowed the enemy’s voice to consume me and throw darts of insecurities, fears, disappointments, and comparisons at my heart. These darts have penetrated my heart deeply. They have convinced me that I will never heal. These darts have also disqualified me and labeled me as not having a creditable voice to minister and fulfill your plans and purpose for my life.
So today, I wage war on the voice of the enemy by counteracting his lies with the truth You have spoken over me in Scripture. I let go of the past. I release all emotional pain at the feet of Jesus, and I press into the resurrection and restorative power of the cross.
I know that the Holy Spirit is interceding for me at this moment. This intercession is powerful and filled with blessings and favor over my life. I need your help to change my confession to agree with the intercession, and plans You have for my future:
I let go of:
• The emotional prison of the years of neglect, rejection, abandonment, and lack of approval. I am set free from being negatively defined over the years. I no longer play the negative tapes in my mind—help me destroy all negative recordings.
• Hiding emotional pain because I thought that was my role as a Christian woman.
• The lie that I’m not good enough. When the enemy tells me, “You can do everything 100% right, and it still wouldn’t be good enough,” I will remind him that I am the apple of Your eye.
• The lie of perfectionism. No more thinking that I need to perform perfectly to be loved or make others feel secure, respected, and needed.
• The trust issues from the betrayal.
• Taking responsibility to help heal others’ brokenness.
• Not feeling valued or loved.
• Disappointment of not being chosen first.
• Being seen as a human doing instead of a human being.
God, teach me the real meaning of this love and how it doesn’t act a certain way. Based upon 1 Corinthians 13 (MSG), I understand how, according to Your original plan, love is not supposed to act:
Love never gives up Love cares more for others than for self-love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have love doesn’t strut Doesn’t have a swelled head, Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,” Doesn’t fly off the handle, Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, Doesn’t revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, Puts up with anything, Trusts God always looks for the best Never looks back but keeps going to the end
Thank you, God, for helping me press past this storm. If it hadn’t been for you who was on my side, where would I be? Certainly not where I am today. You taught me the gift of pain.
How if I press into the pain according to Your model, You will mold me into Your image—a woman free to show her scars so others can heal, a woman who only wants to lean on You to fill every void in her life.
I love our friendship, and You are showing me how to search for love in all the right places instead of the wrong places. I see my value now, God. There is no way I will sell out to any low bidders who try to devalue my worth, including the enemy. Because of Your love, I’m free today to walk as You have created me.
AMEN
One of the best gifts we can give ourselves is to honor our past by releasing others and ourselves from figuring out our healing prescription.
God has a customized solution to heal us. So let’s release what we can’t control or understand to God and allow Him to use our pain to create our beautiful redemptive story.
TRACY HESTER will be one of our special workshop speakers for the May 2022 Arise Esther Evening. Her book Get Up, Girl, Let’s Go, releases in April from Elk Lake Publishers. To get her free Stuck in Life? or Spiritual Hunger downloadable booklets and more go to tracyhester.com
