Hope, Healing & Freedom Podcast: Episode 125
TRANSCRIPT
Do you find that getting together with your family or friends for the holidays can be a little stressful? Have you ever noticed that the things you thought you have dealt with from your past seem to not be totally dealt with when you are around family? Not to fear. RTF can help you enjoy your holidays even with all of the family confined to one house for the day. (Please recognize that some of this is tongue in cheek!)
I’m Lee Whitman from Restoring the Foundations and I welcome you into this Hope Healing and Freedom Podcast. The holidays are “the most wonderful time of the year” according to the old song, but they can also cause relational struggles to surface. In this podcast I want to share some tips from the principles of Restoring the Foundations ministry that can help you enjoy your holidays with family.
Kathren loved her family; she just didn’t enjoy being with her family. Being the youngest child, she seemed to be the brunt of the teasing from her older siblings. And she often felt that she was being judged for some of the choices she had made in life by her two older and seemingly more accomplished siblings. So, when she would come to the family gatherings she would often get “sick” and need to go lay down away from family activities. Or she would go to another room and look at her phone while everyone else was together. How could the principles of RTF help Kathren? Let me explain.
We can easily have things from the past get triggered when we are with our families. Let me explain how this might happen from an RTF perspective. Kathren was born with the generational curse of rejection on her life. She inherited it from her father who inherited it from his father. Kathren’s father was the third sibling, making him the baby in his family just like Kathren. Her Dads older siblings would pick on him mercilessly. They would often say things like “You are not our real brother. You were adopted because your real parents didn’t want you” which of course was not true. He also did not do as well as his siblings in school and they would tease him about not being very smart. Basically, he was rejected by his siblings. And to add to that his parents did not stop this unrelenting teasing. So, he felt they must agree with it, which added to his sense of rejection. Then when he went to school, he had to wear glasses so he could see the chalk board and was teased about being a four eyes. This added to his sense of rejection.
He then passed this generational curse down to his daughter Kathren. Even though she is in her thirties now, Kathren still has the pressure that comes from the generational curse of rejection operating in her life. This generational curse puts pressure on her and causes her to see things through the lens of rejection. Every comment is filtered through the lens of rejection making it very difficult for her to feel like part of the family.
People can inherit many other generational curses that cause them to see things through the lens of that curse. Many people have a generational curse of shame that constantly tells them that something is wrong with them. In these family settings the curse puts pressure on them to feel like there is something wrong with them and they don’t fit in. Another common example is the generational curse of unworthiness. Guess what it does. Yes, it causes people to feel unworthy. They operate in a lot of self-accusation or self-condemnation. That drastically affects these family gatherings. Some people inherited the curse of escape. Guess what this curse does? Obviously, it puts pressure on them to escape. We know of a family friend who will come to a family event but then he always has something else that he has to do or someplace else he has to go. It is the pressure from this escape curse causing him to have to escape these gatherings. There are many other generational curses that affect people during these holiday family times.
What can you do about these curses? If you have time, I recommend that you go to an RTF minister and receive RTF ministry to cut off these generational curses. If you don’t have time to get ministry before this next holiday gathering, you can ask God to show you what is going on in you and then choose not to participate with the generational curse. For example, if you recognize the curse of shame at work in your life putting pressure on you to believe that something is wrong with you, you can choose to not participate with that curse. It would go something like this. “Father God, I feel like there is something wrong with me, but I know that you put all of my shame upon Jesus on the cross. I now choose to not give in to the pressure coming from the curse of shame.” You can do that with other curses as well. “I feel like escaping this family event, but I choose right now to stay here and participate to the best of my abilities.” You will then need to get some RTF ministry after the holidays so that the generational curse can be completely broken off your life.
It is also common to be affected by Ungodly Beliefs at a family event. It is very likely that the Ungodly Belief actually started while you were growing up in that family, so when you get together with the family the Ungodly Belief is triggered once again. Tammy’s family would all talk at the same time. At a family dinner it would not be uncommon for each of the siblings, and even Mom and Dad to be talking at the same time. Tammy learned that her thoughts and feelings didn’t matter to anyone. You can see how that could happen in a situation like that. So now when the family gets together, Tammy doesn’t even try to let her family know what is going on in her life. She believes that no one cares what she thinks or feels.
We did ministry with a person who was taught that you only share happy feelings and thoughts. That’s really nice to only share happy things, but it is not real life. People are going to come to these family events, and they will have unhappy things they need to share with family. Or what if you have an Ungodly Belief that the best way to stand up for myself is to get defensive and constantly defend myself. You can see right away how that Ungodly Belief is going to be destructive at a family gathering.
There are too many other possible Ungodly Beliefs to try and mention them in this podcast. So, what do you do if you recognize that you are believing a lie that is hindering your time with your family? Let me give you three easy steps that you can do on your own to help defuse the Ungodly Belief. First forgive those who influenced you to believe that lie. Ask God who you need to forgive for this lie. He knows even better than you do who has had an influence in your life concerning this lie. Then once you have forgiven everyone that God brings to mind, pray this: “I renounce and break my agreement with this Ungodly Belief. I cancel my agreement with the Kingdom of darkness. I break all agreements I have made with demons.” You see we have to break the contract we have made with the kingdom of darkness concerning this lie before we can ask God to show us His truth. Once you have broken agreement with this lie, ask Father God what He wants you to know about this. What is His truth about you and this situation? When you hear what God says I encourage you to write that down so you can meditate on it and go over it for the next 30-60 days. It takes that long for the mind to be renewed to God’s truth. But in the meantime, you can choose to walk in this new Godly Belief while at your family gathering.
Some of these Ungodly Beliefs are about your identity. These are lies that are about you. Things like I am stupid, or I am worthless, or I am less than. To break these lies you can walk through those same steps I just mentioned except when you have broken agreement with the lie, instead of asking God What is your truth, ask Him Who do you say that I am. We want God to speak to you about who you are, about your real identity. These are very powerful truths from God. Don’t censure what God says about you by saying things like “Oh God, that can’t be true it is too good”. Just choose to receive it. His view of us as His children is so extravagant that it is sometimes hard for us to accept. Do the best you can to not set aside something because it is too good. If God said it, receive it.
Another area that often gets triggered at holiday gatherings are wounded places in our hearts. Beth’s father had too much to drink one Christmas Eve and sexually abused Beth. It was the only time he abused her. Beth grew up and blocked that memory from her mind. When Beth had children of her own, she began to have panic attacks around anything to do with Christmas. She came for RTF ministry and God lovingly and gently revealed the abuse to her and met her in the midst of this horrible pain and brought incredible healing. She was able to forgive her father, and Jesus completely healed her broken heart. She now loves to celebrate Christmas with her children.
We call these wounded places in our hearts Emotional Landmines. They are usually placed in our life by a person in our past, and then someone comes along today and triggers the landmine, and it blows up at them. It is a bigger struggle when returning to family gatherings because many of our landmines were placed there by our family. The good news is that Jesus came to heal the broken hearted. If you recognize one of these wounded areas in your life and you are not able to receive RTF ministry before going to the family gathering, you can try doing self-ministry. Get alone with Jesus and allow Him to take you back to the memory of when the wounding happened. Then begin pouring out your hurts and complaints to Jesus. Tell your Friend Jesus how you felt in that memory. Then go one step farther and give Jesus all of those negative emotions. When you have given Him all of the pain and hurt, ask Jesus to come and heal your broken heart. Don’t be in a hurry. Allow Jesus plenty of time to heal your hurt in the way that only He can. While Jesus is healing your broken heart, ask Him what He wants you to know about that memory. What He has to say is often so freeing and brings greater healing.
This process works on things from the past as I have just mentioned, but it also works on something going on right now. Let’s say that your weird Uncle Clarence, the one who loves to talk about aliens and space ships, keeps trying to corner you into a weird conversation. You are feeling very anxious around him. What you can do is sneak off to the bathroom or someplace private and begin to tell your friend Jesus how you feel around Uncle Clarence. Give Jesus all of those negative feelings and ask Him to come and heal your heart. Then ask Jesus what He wants you to know about Uncle Clarence. You will be surprised how the anxiety and weirdness goes away as Jesus brings peace to your heart.
The last way RTF can help you at family gatherings is by understanding that you have authority over the demonic realm. When you sense that the demonic is stirring up trouble within your family, you can take authority over that demonic interference and forbid it to operate in your family. You can do this by speaking it out under your breath. I don’t recommend standing up and shouting at the demons, that might cause the turkey to jump off the table. Your authority works even when you say it as a whisper. Let’s say that your weird uncle Clarence and his younger brother Buford are getting into a heated argument that is making everyone else uncomfortable. Try taking authority over the spirit of anger and conflict operating in Uncle Clarence and his brother Buford. You can’t take authority over their behavior, that would be witchcraft. But you can stop the interference of the demons stirring up the conflict.
Holidays are wonderful, and they can be even better as you walk in the freedom and healing that Jesus has for you.
Prayer
Father God thank you for the tools we have using the principles found in RTF that can help make this holiday season even more wonderful.
I want to let you know of something very exciting. RTF has been given a $50,000 matching gift. So right now, every gift that comes to RTF is doubled, $100 becomes $200, $10,000 becomes $20,000. Would you pray and ask God if He would have you give a gift to RTF. You can donate on the RTF website restoringthefoundations.org and click on the Donate tab at the top. This is an amazing opportunity to invest in the ministry of RTF and right now your gift will be doubled.
