Candid Conversations 4: Joyce’s Recovery and Setbacks She Faced

If you or anyone you know is in need of emotional healing, this episode of Candid Conversations with Joyce can help you discover what challenges you might face to experience healing in this area. Watch as Joyce gets real with the areas that have been hardest for her to get past in this important episode of Candid Conversations with Joyce.

Joyce Meyer, one of the world’s leading practical Bible teachers and New York Times best-selling author, shares encouragement and advice to help us enjoy our daily lives.

With a heart to share Christ and love people, Joyce’s messages help people in all walks of life to grow in their faith, learn to study the Bible, find healing from the wounds of life, get answers to life’s questions and encounter the love of God in a powerful way.

[Music]

join us today in our candid conversation

where we talk a little bit more

intimately i i know that you are

speaking to many people who are watching

who are going down the path of emotional

healing

that you’ve been down so i would love to

talk about some of those things that you

faced

that were the most difficult challenges

that maybe would encourage other people

that they’re going to make it through

those hard times too

well i think the one of the first things

i would say is that

it’s really hard to face the truth about

your own behavior

you know for so many years i blamed

my bad behavior on the fact that i’d

been abused

and i used that as an excuse

i mean everything from fits of self-pity

to whatever i would just say well if

only i wouldn’t have been

abused and you know as long as you’re

making excuses for something

you can’t get free from it now i want to

say that again

as long as we’re making excuses for

something

we can’t get free from it because we’re

giving ourselves permission

to keep it so excuses like

it’s not my fault it’s not my fault i

deserve to feel this way

it’s because i was abused anybody that’s

been through what i’ve been through

would behave this way yeah and uh i had

a real problem with self-pity

i mean among many other things but i

particularly had a problem with

every time things didn’t go my way or

i didn’t feel like dave was paying

enough attention to me or whatever i

would

sit and feel sorry for myself and

you know god spoke to me you can be

pitiful or powerful but you can’t be

both i was trying to minister already

and

you know i’d be in the pulpit talking

about

being a powerful woman and yet having

these

pity parties and i said well you know

you know how we talk to the lord i mean

i said well i

anybody would feel sorry for themselves

that they’ve been through what i’ve been

right and

he said well you have a reason

but don’t let the reason become an

excuse

to stay that way so how is that

affecting you behind the scenes

you’d be on stage and and you know

you’re teaching and god is using it

but what’s happening at home well that’s

what i’m saying you know at home i would

be

i mean not a totally different person

but i would

the thing that happened with me a lot is

what god was teaching me

is what i would be preaching one lady

said you’re just letting us eat off your

plate

so sometimes i was teaching people but

it wasn’t yet perfected in my own life

and the bible says in john 8 that

if you continue in my word you will know

the truth

and the truth will make you free

but it’s the truth applied

that makes you free so you know just to

those that are

watching today the first thing that you

might want to pay attention to

is am i stuck in a place because i just

keep making excuses for it

are blaming you know blaming everybody

else and so really

no matter what you do or you do or you

do

i’m still responsible for my own

behavior

even if somebody doesn’t treat me right

i’m still responsible for

my attitude toward them yeah and that’s

hard

and that’s true for for everybody yeah

it’s i mean it’s it’s easy to face truth

about somebody else how often do we hear

a message and think well yeah so-and-so

really needs this

when really we’re the one that that

needs it right

some of the things that were the most

challenging for me was

learning how to

be a submissive wife you know

and you know not in a weird way where i

had no

mind of my own or no choices or you know

where dave was trying to control me

because he’s not even the kind of person

to do that

but i just because i’d been mistreated

by men

i didn’t have respect for men it makes a

lot of sense yeah and i didn’t

i didn’t trust like if a decision needed

to be made

i didn’t know how to trust that dave

would make a good decision for

me as well as him because i

men had always used me and so i didn’t

it was very hard for me to believe

that you’ll make a decision that’s in my

best interest

and i remember dave saying to me one

time why do you act like i’m your enemy

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and so that but that was your experience

that was that was my experience and i

think that

something that we all have to learn and

this this was a challenge for me

you have to learn how to act on the word

of god rather than

reacting to whatever is bringing that

emotional upset to you right you know

like

if

if dave would be or anybody else would

be the least bit stern with me because

my dad was so

mean i would immediately get

you know like you’re not you’re not

going to treat me that way yeah and you

know some people just have stronger

personalities they don’t

they’re not trying to be mean or but i

was i was very

overly sensitive and so i’d like

for people that are listening today to

remember that

if you’ve been hurt a lot you probably

are going to be

overly sensitive to certain

things that you need to be careful about

and to take responsibility for your own

behavior

and this was big to be patient

because when you have the kind of mess

in your life that i had in mind

no matter how much you want it to it’s

not all going to change

overnight it’s going to take time and

you’re going to have setbacks

you’re going to have times where you

know you feel like

you’ve gotten free in an area and then

all of a sudden

it comes up again and you know like if

you’ve ever peeled an onion

which i know you have it’s comes off in

little tiny

layers and sometimes you think am i ever

going to get to the good part of this

and that’s kind of the way emotional

healing can be sometimes because your

emotions

are they’re a hidden part of you

and so it’s a great way to explain it

yeah it’s on the

inside of you and so we can pretend

that everything is okay but still

just be having really bad thoughts about

people and

bad attitudes behind the scene and

god really wants us to face truth the

psalmist david said

god desires truth in the inner being

so he wants he wants us to be authentic

and genuine and real and

it just takes time philippians 1 6 says

that he

hath begun a good work in us is well

able to complete it and bring it to

its finish deuteronomy 7 says that god

delivers us from our enemies

little by little

and that onion is a great example right

because as you peel off those layers and

deal with different things and get

deeper

they’re going to be a lot of tears yeah

it’s going to stink a little bit now and

then

so that’s really a very good way to look

at it and when you say to have patience

you’re talking about having patience

with yourself yeah and

and others too i’m sure as you walk

through this but

did did you have those times that you’re

like

god when am i going to get there oh my

gosh yeah

ginger i had i probably gave up 1 000

times

you know and sometimes i’d even try to

get god to feel sorry for me well

that’s it i just i can’t i can’t go

through this anymore

i just give up it’s almost like funny

because

you’re not going to give up you know

once you really fall in love with jesus

no matter how hard your days are you’re

always going to come back around to

knowing that you need god let’s talk

about this

reaction are acting

on the word you see i had to find out

that i could feel wrong and still behave

right

and that was a pretty major thing for me

when i

realized that and i’ve written a couple

of books on managing your emotions and

one called living beyond your feelings

and that’s that’s even to forgive

somebody you know when you forgive

somebody

you don’t necessarily feel like doing it

nor do you feel like it’s fair

or but you do it because you love god

and that’s what he’s asked you to do

and we need to be smart enough to

realize that

god is always right whatever he tells us

to do is for our

benefit and you know so i would have a

lot of these pouting spells where maybe

i mean in the very beginning of our

marriage if dave made me mad ginger i

could not speak a word to him for three

weeks

three weeks three weeks now that there

weren’t

too many three weekers but i would

i was very bad at pouting and staying

mad and the reason why i did that was

because

i had always seen my dad get his way

through anger yeah and so i would i

would react

the way i had seen him behave sure

and i learned i had to learn enough of

the word

to learn how to act on the word

rather than reacting and so

what happens is at first you don’t do it

at all and then

after a while you start you’ll recognize

it and so

maybe you’ll act bad for a little while

and then you’ll say no that’s not right

you change your mind until all the way

up to now

i would say the biggest majority of the

time

and i’m not saying never because i still

do sometimes but

instead of reacting to the

devil’s stimulus that he’s trying to use

against me

i can say i recognize it’s the enemy and

i recognize that i don’t have to be that

way

but if i were to talk about the thing

that probably was

facing truth was really hard what kind

of truth

well just like i mean i always thought

all the problems in my marriage was dave

if dave would do this if dave would do

that if dave would do this

and one day i was praying for dave to

change

and the holy spirit spoke in my heart

dave’s not the problem

and i really thought i honestly thought

well who is there’s only me and him

i mean he had you know yeah and god

revealed to me

what it was like to live with me and

i cried for like three days i think i

was just so

i don’t know just disappointed in myself

didn’t want it to be my

fault you know when you’ve had a

lifetime of blaming

other people it’s very hard it’s

painful to say i’m hard to get along

with

yeah those are hard words to come to

grips with

i have unforgiveness in my heart you

know i

i make a big deal out of every little

thing i’m i’m not

merciful it’s it’s challenging to admit

all those things

but i want to say again that is the

first step

toward freedom but probably the thing

that took me the

longest to get over

completely was feeling guilty all the

time

because i had always felt guilty about

what my dad was doing to me even though

it wasn’t my fault

you know it’s our secrets that make us

sick and so i had this big nasty secret

that i had to

keep all the time and so i always

always felt guilty always

and it didn’t

it didn’t matter if it was a little

thing or a big thing

and then as i got into a relationship

with god and i started

hearing these things about there’s no

guilt there’s no condemnation

i became a very religious christian

in the beginning to keep the guilt away

well no i was yeah

trying to do everything perfect

so i didn’t have to have that burden of

guilt

and it it it took me a good number

of years it got better that’s the thing

that people need to

you know realize and something i’d like

to say to our viewers today is

please please please celebrate your

progress

and don’t only think about how far you

have to go yeah that’s a great thing

and some things are going to be harder

than others i mean there may be some

things that you’ll get over

much quicker and then there’s yeah other

things i share that one of the things

that i still deal with

is i don’t like any kind of strife

are upset in the family

you know it’s like i mean one of my sons

told me one time he said you can’t

expect

us to all work together and be around

each other as much as we are

and never ever have any kind of a

conflict and but see it doesn’t matter i

mean if it’s two of my kids not getting

along or whatever i can’t

it’s hard for me to settle down and be

peaceful until it’s solved

and it relates directly to the turmoil

that was in my house

all the time and the whole game that

everybody played was let’s keep dad from

getting mad

right you know my mother did it i did it

my brother did it

and if he was mad then we started doing

i guess what i call the dance you know

where we would just

you know try all these different things

to get him back

in a good mood and so it took me a long

time to get to the point where i didn’t

carry some kind of a

burden of guilt or always be

kind of um

vaguely you got to be careful about the

vague

things in their life your life they’re

not the like right in your face

type things but i always had like this

feeling around me that just kind of like

waiting for the next bad thing to happen

and there’s a scripture in proverbs 15

15 that talks about evil forebodings

and so it’s like we’ve been set free

from that

but i was always instead of expecting

something good

which is what hope is i was more

expecting the next problem because

that’s all i’d had you know in my life

yeah but if you want to just boil it

down for our viewers to probably two of

the things that were the hardest i would

say it was his facing truth

and you know i still don’t enjoy it you

know who does

it’s hard who wants to say you know

i didn’t act right in that situation and

it doesn’t really matter what you did

you know we always want to say well i

shouldn’t have acted

i shouldn’t have acted that way but you

know

you shouldn’t have but god wants us to

get to the point where we just take

responsibility for

us and i think if we can stop playing

this blame game

it opens the door for god to deal with

the other person

if they aren’t behaving right so i would

say that that facing the truth and

the guilt thing getting over that were

probably two of the hardest things for

me

yeah well thank you very much i’m sure

it’s

encouraging to people when you talk

about having patience

with yourself and knowing that you can

stand on what god says that he will

continue that good work in you right

so there’s hope out there yes there is

and i hope everybody’s been encouraged

you