Hello everyone! It has been a busy week! I will have only two blogs for this week. I will start back next week with blogs on abuse. I will be highlighting deception during abuse and the concept of “getting yourself back” while healing from abuse. I hope you will find those both informative as well a continuation of your own healing journey. God shows me new things and works new miracles in my heart as He continues to heal me and show me exactly what was happening to me during that time.
Today I want to talk to you about fighting for someone – whether that be a friendship, marriage, working relationship, a child, the list goes on. I specifically want to discuss the issue of when you can no longer fight for them because they will not fight for themselves.
Let me begin my saying it is never easy to fight for someone who is going through a hard time – whether that be a financial, personal, spiritual, mental or emotional hard time. Fighting for someone requires you to meet them where they are at and walk with them through a healing or recovery process. This can be long, full of ups and downs, tedious, and trying but movement is usually forward towards a positive goal or better condition for that person or that couple. I have successfully fought for people and I have unsuccessfully fought for people. What exactly do I mean? The person you are fighting for has to join you in the process. If they don’t, there is no forward momentum and they stay right where they are, whether that be in financial ruin, addiction, emotional upheaval or mental or spiritual distress. I have learned I can’t fight for someone alone. I have also learned there are some who will not come along beside you and fight for themselves – they will take no responsibility for their pain.
What do we do with those we love who will not fight for themselves? We must step aside and give them to Jesus. This will require separation, counseling for yourself, much prayer and open communication. Allow me to give you a personal story.
I spent three years in a marriage that was headed for a train wreck. My late husband, Jeff, had never dealt with long standing emotional and mental health issues from an abusive past. He brought those into our marriage and he also brought abuse that he learned as a young man. For three years, I tried in vain to make him happy, to fight for him and with him to no avail. First, let me say you can never make anyone happy by marrying them per say, they have to come to marriage happy and content with who they are – he had not. Jeff would never take any responsibility for his abusive actions nor his reactions to the general stressors of life. He wanted you to fight for him but everything was going to be your fault or your doing – he did not want to meet me halfway or even join me in fighting for our marriage. He chose instead to hide behind excuses and never pick up his armor and fight. In hindsight, I don’t think he knew how beyond empty promises of change and going through the motions. He continued to emotionally, verbally, mentally and finally physically abuse me. He continued to take no responsibility. He continued to perpetuate evil in our home.
Three years to the date of our wedding anniversary date, I decided not only could I know longer fight for him or with him, I could no longer live with him. I have never written in depth about this decision nor did I have the words to adequately describe it beyond separation before, but I do now. My separation from him was me finally deciding I could no longer fight with or for the man I loved. He simply was not interested in his own responsibility in our marriage much less in fighting for it. I did not know it then, but I gave him to Jesus. I know Jesus too tried to reach him for the weeks we were apart until his untimely death a month later. Jeff committed suicide after he could no longer fight with himself much less for himself. This broke my heart, the heart of the Father and Jesus’ heart. Yet, I can tell you that going back into abuse and “sticking it out” so to speak would not have solved the problem. In fact, I would not be here with you penning this blog had I done so. There is a happy ending to this story, there are two actually. One is that Jeff is with Jesus – free of having to fight with his other self and free of all pain. The second is that I know what I know now about mental illness and abuse. I can tell others about it so they do not have to endure what I had to endure. I too have done much healing – Jesus is still working on me and it is very good.
What do I want you to take away from this blog today? First and foremost, you can’t fight with or for anyone who will not fight for themselves. You can’t carry them. You can’t be responsible for their recovery, their healing or their change. You can’t change them. You can’t fix them. They have to want to do all of those things – change, recover, heal. They have to meet you and do the work of healing with you. Second, they have to meet Jesus and let Him do the work that only He can do. If they will not, then complete and total healing will not take place. And finally, you can’t allow yourself, your children, other friends or family to be subjected to evil, perpetuated evil at that. Abuse begets abuse. Evil begets evil. There is no middle ground and there is no excuse. Jesus is the only One who can set a person free from this type of evil and they have to want Him to as well.
I will close today by saying do not abandon your fight for someone without good cause. People can change while they still live. Also know there are some battles you can’t win and they don’t want to. Don’t be afraid to step away and give people to Jesus, He can work in their lives if they will let him. Do not be ashamed for leaving a situation you were powerless to fix – some people simply do not know how to love nor do they know how much they are loved. Some do not want to learn. Some do not know how to ask for help. Some do not want help – they simply wish to continue to play the victim. Somewhere along the line they learned how to make that work for them – or so it seems. All things come to light, all things.
There is a time to fight and there is a time to let go.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 AMP; There is a season (a time appointed) for everything and a time for every delight and event or purpose under heaven— A time to be born and a time to die; A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal; A time to tear down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh; A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to throw away stones and a time to gather stones; A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to search and a time to give up as lost; A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to [a]tear apart and a time to sew together; A time to keep silent and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate; A time for war and a time for peace
With much love,
Elizabeth