Transcript

 

0:00

Hey guys, this is Linda and Zack McConnell with the Christian point. Join us today as we’re discussing how God can heal the brokenhearted. And because there’s things that come at sack and the holiday season, they don’t come up in any other time of the year. And for a lot of people, it’s either like the best of time or it’s the worst of time. And it’s really a time that tribesmen souls. And I know that some people, it’s their favorite time of year, and they have nothing but happy memories, and it’s just all good times. But other people, it’s a real trigger to a lot of pain that they have. And these traditions, they just kind of glaze over them. And they glaze over a lot of parts of their life. And so we want to talk about that. And you know, there’s a lot of people, they see the holidays a little bit different. And there’s a lot of people that maybe they’ve lost a job or they’ve lost stability, they’ve lost a loved one, or they’re walking through somebody, their family has addiction, and, gosh, this pandemic, it just doesn’t quit, we keep on getting these other COVID varieties. And that’s definitely touched everyone’s life in different ways. And no one has walked away unscathed by this. And so we want to talk about the healing of the brokenhearted and I think it’s just really important. We can look at Psalms 34, verse 18, and it says, The Lord is close to those who are brokenhearted, and he’s not mad at them. He’s not like, oh, gosh, why don’t you just put on a brave face on this, and he’s actually close to the brokenhearted and he’s closer to the brokenhearted than to others. So what does that say to you? Join us today for this discussion on how God heals the brokenhearted on the Christian point.

 

01:41

Welcome to the Christian point podcast, where we’re all about growing your relationship with God. As lifelong Christian believers, your host, Zack and Linden McConnell explore topics that affect your world. Together, they are relearning and redirecting our path as we walk through struggles hangups, sins and purpose. The Christian point is a lively discussion that will help equip you with tools provide focus and encouragement from a biblical perspective. Always remember, Christ is the point. Now here are your hosts, Zack and Belinda.

 

02:17

Today, we’re here in Texas, and we’ve had gray skies outside with all the leaves, I fallen off the trees. I hate that part, that we’re prepping for Christmas decorating. The lights are up, we’ve been shopping, going to parties, and we’re wrapping gifts. And before you know it, our family is going to arrive. So stay with us as we have this discussion on God walking with the brokenhearted on the Christian point. Hey, everybody,

 

02:43

Merry Christmas. Merry

 

02:44

Christmas, guys.

 

02:45

We’re approaching December 25. And Linda, the day that we celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I’d love this season, I absolutely do. It’s family time, it’s time to be thankful for all that God has done for us. You know, Thanksgiving and Christmas are just the best holidays. But I know, it’s a very sad time for some people. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today. Right. So I just want to say that we appreciate all of you guys in our listening family. And I want to encourage you, if you do get ministered to by this podcast, to please rate, review and subscribe by you subscribing. This will help us to reach more people and get this program out to others. And that’s a blessing to share the Word of God anytime we can. And may we help others by you sharing and us sharing and grow God’s kingdom. Now, today’s topic reminds me of Philippians four, six through seven. Do not be anxious about anything but in every situation by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your heart and in the minds of Jesus Christ.

 

04:04

Absolutely. And I’m really thinking about that Thanksgiving part. And I’m glad that we’re diving into this topic. And I’m thinking about Joshua one, verse nine. It says, Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid and do not be discouraged. For the Lord, your God will be with you wherever you go. If you worry, well that comes from fear, and you’ll train your mind to focus instead on price and blessings. You will instead feel his peace. And God doesn’t want us to worry. He doesn’t want us to be in fear. And that all comes from the evil one. God wants us to rejoice and he wants us to give price even in the darkest valley. I know that so hard, but you will reap the benefits if you do that. So I’m really happy that we’re discussing how gret how God can really heal the brokenhearted

 

04:56

God is easily touched with our feelings and in our infirmities. And the Bible actually says that Jesus, because he did take home flesh and blood, that he was tempted in every point, in a see easily touched with our feelings and our infirmities. And I always want to encourage your faith, I think about Isaiah 41, and 10. So do not fear for I am with you, do not be dismayed for I am your God, I will strengthen you and help you, I will uphold you with my righteous, right hand. So, when a friend is hurting, you don’t want to just be empathetic, although we are empathetic, and that’s it, that’s good. We also want to encourage their faith. So when you’re coming into a season, where let’s say, you’ve lost a loved one, and you know, Linda, I know that you lost your dad, many years ago, very close to Christmas, right. And my mom was fighting cancer at Christmas. And I lost her in the early days of January, about a decade ago. And so even though it was a long time ago, this time of year makes us think of our losses, right. And that first Christmas without them, it’s very hard to celebrate, without your family without your dad there. And Christmas was tough, because of the memories. Christmas not having them around the table. It’s it’s difficult. So we’ve got a lot of people that are hurting either because it’s the first Christmas, or because they hate this time of year, because mom died on the day before Christmas, or you lost a loved one or something tragic happen. So this, this is where faith comes in. Right? This is what we should do. When you go through a situation like that, then offer what the Bible I believe calls the sacrifice of praise. And the sacrifice, praise means maybe you don’t feel like praising God. But because you know, he’s God, and He loves us, and he’s near to us. So you praise him, you praise him anyway. And I think that’s what it does, it brings you to this place that’s out of your mental depression. And it brings you into a place of life and have

 

07:07

Oh, absolutely. And I want to insert here that Jesus sits with us in our pain. And I know when we see human pain as humans, it can make us feel uncomfortable. And often we don’t know exactly what to say when our friends lose a family member. But what we can do is we can weep with them. We can sit with them, we can bring them food, we can talk to them. We don’t even have to say a thing, but just be present and show support. And when we sit with them in their pain, well, we really have forgotten all of this commercialism in our world. And that’s actually is the theme of Christmas. So we were lost, and we live in a broken world. And I remember, Oh, holy night. Yes, it’s such a declaration. Long lay the world in sin and error pining until he appeared. And you know, that’s the declaration. It’s not about what we’ve lost, but that we were lost. And God sent His Son, Emmanuel, God with us. And so I love that Jesus is with us. He is with us. He is he’s not disappointed in us. He doesn’t say, Well, I can’t believe you’re sad. Well, he sits with us, and he raises our spirit. And the Bible says that there is a time to grieve. And there’s also a time not to grieve, and there’s a time to rejoice. And so I think sometimes we have to actually understand the ebb and flow of both of these seasons. And the Bible says that Jesus said, The Holy Spirit as our comforter, because he knew we would need to be comforted. He was very clear on that. Sometimes we’re walking through a valley. And that’s what it says in John 1416. Jesus says, I will pray for the Father, and He shall give you another comforter, and that he may be with you forever. So Jesus, He has sent a comforter for each and every one of us. Yes. And so I love this idea that there’s a season when he’s our comfort. And there’s a season when he takes us by the hand and says, It’s time for you to leave this darkness and the tombs, the dark valley, and all of this despair, and I’m going to walk you into a season of resurrection and life and joy. But you can’t have resurrection when there isn’t darkness and death. So you know, I love that every year at Christmas. It’s just a festive time, but it’s also really a rescue time.

 

09:36

That’s really good. I mean, really good. And the thing is, I want to dwell on the fact that he’s near to those that are brokenhearted. You know, I’ve been in situations before where you came to me but get I was so overwhelmed by my frustration, my heart, my despair, my stress, whatever. I was battling at that time, and I wasn’t aware that you were there at Didn’t take advantage of your nearness to

 

10:02

1. Well, no, I can’t be as close to you as the Holy Spirit can

 

10:06

well true. But I want you to think about somebody who would physically come to your house and say, Hey, man, I just want to be with you. I want to comfort you, and we can’t ignore them. I think the decision we have to make is, do we want the comfort that comes? Or do we just want to continue in pain? Which one do we really want to do? And I think sometimes the flesh, our fallen nature, our human nature almost says, I want to stay in pain. And I want to live in this pain, and not getting near or not received the one who has come to help me. I just want to encourage everyone. If you just lift up your eyes, if you just lift your eyes to him, Behold the salvation that is near. He will come for you. Absolutely. Jesus said, If you open your eyes to His nearness, he will comfort you. And it’s hard sometimes because you’re like, I just want to be mad. I just want to be angry. I want to be disappointed, because right now, I just need to get this out. Okay. I’m asking you right now to turn your heart to Him. And just praise Him. I want you to share a time that Linda? Well, I’ll tell you a time that Linda and I fought. It was a long time ago. But still we fought and I was just so frustrated that I was so overwhelmed by the fact that how I felt Linda just wasn’t my needing meeting my needs. And I really thought I was right. I remember going outside and thinking she’ll never agree. And you know, this was years ago, and I go to talk to God and I say, God, please help me send me the Holy Spirit. So ready for him to take my side. And God said, I want you to thank me for one thing about Linda. And I remember saying, well, she’s a good mom. She’s a very good mom. Thank you, Lord. She’s a great mom. And then some other things started coming out. And then some other things started coming out. And within minutes, I’m just pouring out all these things I was thankful for in Linda, in Uganda. Now, I know this is a different situation. This was more of a disagreement. But it really happened with those who are really hurting. If you’re in a very tough time period. Just turn and start thinking thanking God for some of the things he’s done for you. He’ll forgive your sins. He gave you a new nature he gave you the other family members that are still with you. He gave you food he started making you think of him and all of a sudden you realize your perspective will come back into why? Why am I upset? I’m going to spend all of eternity with my lost loved ones. In this is tough. But when you’re reminded that you get all of eternity with your family, then you just got to keep reminding yourself, keep reminding yourself and draw nearer and nearer to God.

 

12:55

Oh, absolutely. And we have to give others space to heal. And at the time, you got to grieve and be heard. And you know, when my dad died, he died right before Christmas more than 20 years ago. And I still remember when he first died, working with my sisters and we were all caught up in the busyness of like his will planning the funeral, coordinating all the details and find the things that had been hidden and trying to discover some stuff. And then we came back to Dallas. And we had some office stuff to do and deadlines there. And we had a conference we’re supposed to go on with our recruiting company at the time. And I remember feeling like I just couldn’t function and I looked at you Zack and offset. I’m gonna have to grieve, I just can’t do that. It was so shocking. My dad died very quickly. He had pancreatic cancer within two weeks, he passed away once he was diagnosed. And you know, I understand from Messianic Rabbi friend that it’s supposed to be for seven days. And it’s supposed to be like on the seventh day you get up and you wash your face. But what I did in that season was I started to journal and I wrote out all of my regrets. And I also wrote out all the things I loved about my dad. And I think sometimes we try to push people because we’re uncomfortable with their pain and to go through that process too fast, that we need to stop and we need to listen and hear your pain. And we’re not those who grieve as though there’s no hope. When we look at Romans 15 Verse 13. It says, May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him. Not in the circumstances. He’s not having us deny that the circumstances aren’t painful, but we put our trust in Him so that we may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. So what I hear speaking to the grieving, let others know their grieving was heard and you acknowledge their pain, and then layer hope on top of that. And then you look at Psalm 62, verses five through six, and it says, yes, my soul I’m rests in God, my hope comes from Him. And truly, He’s my rock and my salvation. He’s my fortress, and I will not be shaken. So, you know, God has us put our hope in things that can never be taken, not in our marriage, not in our children, not in our finances, not in what we get in the holidays, or where parties you’re invited to, or whatever it might be. He always invites us to look higher, and to look into the internal realm, and to look at that place where the hope is anchored. And everything else in the world is drifting, that we anchor ourselves to that eternal realm. Correct. And I love that in Isaiah 40, verse 31, it says that those who hope in the Lord will renew their strike, and they will soar on wings like eagles. So we’ve got hope in the Lord. And God is is of hope. And my hope comes from Him. And we got help from him. And we put our hope in Him. And we’re talking earlier this month, about finishing strong in the end of the year, and wrapping set things up. So when we put our hope and people will we lose our strain, that will you put our hope in God, he doesn’t just give us strength, he renews our strike. And then you will soar on wings like angles, and they will run and not grow weary, and they will walk and not be thanked.

 

16:37

You know, Linda, I think this is the story of life at any moment, no matter the joy, or the sorrow that we’re facing, we have a choice, are we going to turn to God, because it’s only him that can satisfies, or we’re not. And as you know, Linda, I remember losing my mom after Christmas, basically saying goodbye. And you know, I cried. But I realized, okay, the grieving times got further and further apart. But the next Christmas, I had a choice to either really be sad about this, in the time that I had lost my mother last year, for I’m going to focus on the other people and family who are here. And I remember saying internally to myself, I’m going to draw nearer to God so that I have the strength to minister to people in my family. And I could actually see the way I was feeling coming into that Christmas, I could try to push through on my own, or I can choose to go with the hope that God has given me and I’m going to spend eternity with my mom, I loved her, and I had a great life with her, then you know what, I’ve got family members here right now that need me, you don’t want to miss that time you have. And so I would just encourage you to take the strength that comes from God and gives you and turn to him and let him comfort you, and then enter into the season with joy.

 

18:01

Absolutely. And guys, we really need to look for people to love and encourage because there’s a lot of people that are hurting right now that when we’re together, that pain gets minimized. And so go to church, Sunday morning, go to small group, go to the church, Christmas party, whatever it might be. And I think too many times people want to be isolated in their pain. And like, if you’ve had a really bad day, it really can change completely. After you go with your spiritual friends, they will lift your Spirit, and God wants us to actually heal in community. So if we can get out beyond ourselves, and begin to actually invite other people into our world, instead of thinking that, well, we’re lost in our world, you know, then there’s other people that have this loss as well. And that you can invite them into your world and actually bring a different experience, it’s not gonna be the same experience. Maybe you had with your husband or your wife, if you’ve lost a child. It’s not ever going to be the same. But it doesn’t mean it can’t be amazing as you move beyond and heal.

 

19:06

Yeah, I just want to encourage you that if you’re experiencing sadness in this time, that you really try to focus on the needs of others, and those around you. I mean, go to church, and help distribute Angel Tree gifts. Go to food pantries, and help distribute food. Go to the families in your church that need help or maybe bring clothes or groceries or sacks of food to people that you know are in need. Do something to reach out to someone else in their point of need. And on the flip side, if you need help, ask for it. Absolutely. Don’t be ashamed. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid to say I’m having a really rough time. And I just need some help. Right?

 

19:49

Absolutely. We are there for each other. And this has really been a sobering topic but a needed conversation and I’m really glad we discussed it. I do realize there’s a lot of people that really need to hear this right now. Maybe they’ve lost a loved one and they’re grieving right now at Christmas time.

 

20:06

Well, maybe you could share this with someone that you know that is struggling. And maybe these words will help them come out of this situation and receive that comfort from the Holy Spirit, and share this message. And I want to thank you guys so much for tuning in. It’s, you know, it’s hard to believe, it seems like we just started 2022, right. But we want to, again, remind you to rate review, and subscribe to our podcast, that way other people will get a chance to hear it, which is what encourage you to continue to get the word of God in your heart, so that you can remain strong in this very troubled season that we’ve been in, in the last three years. And it’s been very interesting for all of us. I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like it. And now more than ever, you need to be grounded in the Word of God. Paul, the Apostle said, that the word of Christ dwell in you richly. And the way it dwells in you richest is when you teach others. So find two friends, six friends, set up a Bible study, putting the word of Christ in you, through them. And so that when if anything crazier happens in 2023. You’re ready for it. You don’t build a house when a hurricane hits, you strengthen your house before the hurricane hits, so that you endure the storm that is

 

21:27

so true. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Christian point. Let us know your thoughts by leaving a review. We’d love to hear from you. You can subscribe and share these episodes through Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And while you’re there, be sure to check out our other podcasts too. You’ll probably find some other topics you really enjoy. And you can also connect with us by visiting our website at the Christian point.com. And until next time, remember, Christ is the point. Merry Christmas to you all.

 

21:57

Merry Christmas, everyone.

 

22:01

Thanks for listening to the Christian point. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and connect with us on Instagram, Facebook, or visit us on the web at the Christian point.com. If you enjoyed the show, please share it with your friends on social media. Until next time, always remember Christ is the point