How God Helps Me Forgive and Be Reconciled with Others

Summary

Tamara, Bonnie, and Amy share insights from Matthew 5:23-26 on forgiveness and reconciliation. They emphasize the importance of first reconciling with a brother before offering a gift, and the challenges of forgiveness and reconciliation in situations of abuse. Amy and Tamara also discussed how to approach adversaries with faith and compassion, emphasizing the role of following promptings from God and becoming more like Jesus. They share personal experiences and practical tools for finding peace and healing through forgiveness and reconciliation.

Main Takeaways

• From Bonnie, "My biggest takeaway from today is that, while this can be really hard, to level up into, not only forgive, but reconcile with people in our lives, I want to bear my testimony that I know that when we can root out or cast out like Tamara is saying, the motes and the beams in our eyes, and when we can let go of these grudges and these grievances and sometimes it requires professional help. You know, it certainly requires Heavenly Father and Jesus's help.. . . But when we can do it, those prison walls really will come falling down. The disease the emotional anguish, the hard frustrations, the rat race of the cycles that we get into with our family and friends. Those things stop. And healing really can occur."
• From Amy, "If I can have compassion for the person I'm dealing with, then I can see him or her the way the Savior does. And it changes everything. It changes everything. And that's how I can then agree with someone who appears to be my adversary."
• From Tamara, "Follow those ideas, those thoughts that come when when we're trying to uplevel because God will prompt us know what to do. . . it's God that's putting those thoughts in our head and He is the one that will guide us to take, like you said, the next right step to help us become better, to help us become holier, to help us become more like our Savior."

Podcast Hosts

Tamara K. Anderson

Tamara, founder of Women Warriors of Light, is a dynamic speaker, award winning author, and a podcaster. She is driven by her Christian faith to inspire faith in Jesus Christ. Alongside her husband, Justin, she navigates the joys and challenges of parenting four children with autism, ADHD, and mental health hurdles. You can find out more about Tamara on her website: https://www.tamarakanderson.com/

Bonnie Randall

Bonnie Randall is a wife, mother, trainer, speaker, actress, copywriter, heart centered life coach and has also been a business and marketing consultant for over 20 years. Her real passion is to help people grow as individuals and teach them how to resolve limiting beliefs. Bonnie enjoys teaching about mental health, abuse prevention and recovery classes. She runs a trauma recovery support group and YouTube channel called, Come Off Conqueror, which helps survivors of abuse find Christ centered healing. Find out more at: https://www.youtube.com/@comeoffconqueror

Amy Johnson
Amy is a member of our Women Warriors of Light Advisory Board. She is a leader of women, a homemaker, and a licensed cosmetologist. Amy enjoys nurturing women through betrayal trauma to becoming a beacon of support and inspiration.

Transcript

Tamara Anderson 0:00
How does Jesus Christ feel about arguments and us arguing one with another? We're going to discuss this from the Sermon on the Mount today, so stay tuned.

Tamara Anderson 0:14
Welcome to Bible, Women & Bathrobes the podcast where faith meets comfort. Join us Tuesday and Thursday morning. As the gals from Women Warriors of Light and their guests, Don bathrobes and dive into the inspiring stories of women in the Bible, and the teachings of Jesus Christ. From Esther's bravery to the Sermon on the Mount. We explore it all with warmth, laughter, sisterhood, and maybe even a few sleepy eyed moments. Tune in live or at your leisure as we learn lessons from scripture which empower women today.

Tamara Anderson 0:55
Welcome to Bible, Women & Bathrobes. I'm your host Tamara K Anderson. And joining me is my co host, Bonnie Randall and Amy Johnson. Thanks for being here. Ladies. It is so good to have you on this morning.

Tamara Anderson 1:11
And we are excited to tackle these verses. These are verses that were in Matthew chapter five. And we've kind of been talking about how Jesus Christ. Like last week, we talked about how he's kind of up leveling. And he like last week, we talked about how in the olden days, he said, Thou shalt not kill. But now he's saying you shouldn't be angry.

Tamara Anderson 1:41
And so now we're on verse 23. And this is the verse that it says, Therefore, if thou bring a gift to the altar, and therefore remember us that thy brother had bought against the lead there the gift, before the altar, and go thy way, First be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

Tamara Anderson 2:03
And so what's what's interesting about this is when you bring when you bring a gift to the altar, in those days is you are trying to, it was something you are trying to become more sacred, you are trying to do a sacred act, right, you're trying to be better. And what's interesting here, as he says, if you're doing something that's trying to help you become closer to God, and all of a sudden, you remember, Oh, I had this argument or something with my cousin or something like that. That's God prompting you to think, oh, maybe I need to fix that. Maybe that's what I need to do to become a holier person. I don't know what what are you guys's thoughts on those verses right there. Bonnie why don't you start?

Speaker 1 3:04
You know, I always have an opinion. I had to pull out my trusty New Testament Made Easier Book or these verses, because several of them over the next couple of weeks did not make a whole lot of sense to me. And I like his dumbing this down. He says, First be reconciled or to make peace with his how he put it, with a brother. And then verse 24. And then if you have contention with someone close to you and verse 23. You know, come, be reconciled.

Bonnie Randall 3:48
And I think this is kind of an interesting concept. Because like you said, the higher wall right, like, before we were commanded in another verse, I can't remember where it is where he says, Forgive seven times, like how many times should I forgive right? And says, seven times seven. And a few months ago, we did a podcast episode for our other channel that was about forgiveness versus reconciliation. And the idea of now many of our listeners have been through very traumatic experiences. They're almost all some sort of abuse victim. And so it's kind of an extreme right? Okay, but this idea of forgiving everyone is really, really hard. And it's a hot topic.

Bonnie Randall 4:37
And they say a lot of times like a trauma informed person or trauma trained person would never say to an abuse victim. It will you need to go forgive. Right, like that's not the first thing you talk about when when you've been through something really, really hard. And we teach in our field that there's difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. And forgiveness is for the person who has been sinned against, it's really not for the sinner, it's not for the abuser, it's so that you can have the weight of all that burden and that junk really lifted off of you. Reconciliation is coming back together. It's making amends with the relationship. It's working on it. It's actively committed, being committed to the relationship and seeing it, progress and move further along. So talk about leveling up.

Tamara Anderson 5:41
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 5:44
Holy cow, sometimes it's hard enough just to forgive, let alone come back and make amends and make your relationship stronger. And oof, this is is kind of a tall order. For a lot of people I know a lot of situations, what do you think, Amy?

Amy Johnson 6:04
I actually love this because of, of my, my life experience where I've been married to, I'm married to a recovered gambler, so. And when you talk about the difference between healing, or forgiveness and reconciliation, and you brought up the, the trauma victim, right, because I've thought about that a lot. One of the one of my favorite things to say when you're really trying to reconcile is, it doesn't matter who pulls the pin on the grenade, both parties get injured. So let go of who pulled the pin. That's not what matters here.

Amy Johnson 6:43
And last time, we'll one of the times Tamara and I've talked, she said hurt people hurt people. And my husband was listening. And he said, I've never heard that before. But that is so true. And, and I've heard a lot of things before and thought a lot of things and prayed a lot of things because when you're trying to forgive and be reconciled as the victim, it feels really hard. But when you think about literally, if you think about a, an ambulance, or a paramedic, arriving on the scene of a trauma victim, they have one job. And that's to get the person to the healer. And so, I love that idea that our job when we are in pain. And and here in verse 23, we remember that we have ought against a brother. It we have one job, and that's get ourselves to the healer.

Amy Johnson 7:42
And that's what Jesus Christ is. He's the Master Healer. So get ourselves to the healer. And then when we're the healer, at that point, he's going to say, and then now I want you to know, I want you to take what I've given you, and take it back to this person and say, okay, together, we can make this work. And this is a really sticky subject when you're dealing with trauma, betrayal, trauma, and things like that. Because you're you, you, sorry, wow, you feel like you're walking back into a lion's den. And you think I don't want to do this again. How in the world could possibly trust you not to bite my leg off again.

Amy Johnson 8:29
And that becomes a very personal journey with the Lord, and with the person you're trying to reconcile. So. But I also know from experience that this gift to the altar is really covenantal. Right? It's about going to God and saying, whenever an altar is involved, it's a covenant. It's saying, I want a relationship with you, God, this is what I want. I want to be a part of you. And and I really know that there is no way to fully up the ante on our relationship with God. Until we love the people he loves. The way he loves them. Again, it's a sticky wicket, because for years I worked on being meek, what I understood being make look like and then but through the grace of God heard a talk on meekness and realize that I didn't have to be walked on. And I have to be abused. And so it gets really sticky when you're when you're dealing with humans. Because we have a

Tamara Anderson 9:50
Flawed humans, right?

Amy Johnson 9:52
We're messy. We're really messy. Yeah. If we want to covenantal and I really believe what 23, 24 saying is it We want a covenantal relationship with God, then we cannot continue to contend with another person. And I think that's what it's all about. Yeah,

Tamara Anderson 10:12
I agree. I agree. Let's move on to these next few verses, I think it just flows right into them. 25 and 26. He says, agree with thine adversary quickly, Wiles thou art in the way with them, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and basically says, and you'll be cast into prison, and I was reading this, and I'm like, What does that even mean? I don't even know.

Tamara Anderson 10:38
And as I was looking at some commentary on it, I think in today's lingo, what Jesus is trying to say is work out your disagreements early, before they spiral out of control. So tackle it, especially in families, because that's where most of our disagreements usually happens is with those we're close to. So take care of those disagreements before they become way, way, way worse. And that also, oh my gosh, you guys, these are tricky verses I'm sorry that these are such hard verses to discuss this morning. But any thoughts on this on working out disagreements? Oh, my goodness, Amy, we'll start with you and then we'll move to Bonnie.

Amy Johnson 11:30
A lot of thoughts about that, because that word agree. Again, that gets really sticky. I'm a I'm a people pleaser by nature. And that gets really sticky. Because I and you, you can look at a Greek translation of this and realize that it says quickly have kind thoughts for a person that is very, very different than agreeing with behavior. Hmm. That's very different. And, and it I, I see this a lot. And when I've seen it in myself, I've seen it in other women and people, but I work with women a lot. And so and when you have been hurt as we all have, then what happens is, our thoughts get into this pattern. And and I'm really grateful, because there's a lot of podcasts. And there's a lot of information about how our thoughts really do have so much power in our lives.

Amy Johnson 12:41
So I like that, that this really talks about that Greek translation says, you have kind of thoughts first, because I have literally watched a husband or wife together, where he comes in and does something that triggers the past. And then bam, there's just this explosive contention. Everybody else in the room cannot figure out why in the world. She reacted the way she reacted, because they don't live behind closed doors. But But I started keeping my thoughts and putting my thoughts toward God, just like in Moses time when they had the brass serpent to heal them, that they had to look to the brass serpent, I had to learn to as soon as I got angry or frustrated or felt trapped, which was a common is a common feeling I have to deal with. I had to alter my thoughts and look to God. And that allowed me to not contend, not battle, not fight back not be the hurt person hurting the person. So I think that's, I think that's really important. And then I think anytime we talked about the judge, I think it's got to be about Christ, right? But I think everything's about Christ. So

Tamara Anderson 14:09
The scriptures do point, to Him, it's pretty great. All right Bonnie. Thoughts on those verses?

Speaker 1 14:17
Oh, gosh, I could talk an entire hour just these four verses because of how much they mean to me in terms of him saying, if you don't do this, you might be cast into prison. And I really like this guy's commentary. He says if you don't try to make peace, it does a lot of damage to you and then you go on to 26. The prison is what you put yourself into. And then he says you pay dearly for holding grudges, etc, in terms of lack of peace for yourself.

Bonnie Randall 14:52
And when I read that, obviously all of this love of all the things that I've been teaching and taught back into our community about how detrimental holding on to bitterness can be. And while we don't so gosh, where do we even start? The the idea of a grudge taking hold and creating a prison is the best vision whatsoever, like your metaphor for what happens to trauma victims or to anyone who can't let it go. And while it's explainable, right, like the stuff that you've been through is horrendous, and no one would ever say, Hey, I'd like to go get slapped, or whatever it is, right? Like we don't want whatever, right. So it's not good, right? We're not saying that it's excusable, to act this way. But like she's saying, hurt people hurt people. So it's explainable, it's not excusable behavior.

Bonnie Randall 16:00
But when we can't let it go, and we haven't learned to use the atonement, to heal our broken hearts and to heal those wounded, scars and all the baggage that we carry around. It literally creates disease. And it creates mental illness, and it creates physical illness and spiritual illness, it creates so much illness. And like she said, going to Christ, who was the master physician, and the only way to heal, I remember being after the stuff that went, that happened to me in my 20s, right, and you guys know, from previous episodes, a little bit of my story, and I ran away from him, I ran away from Jesus, and found that he was really the only thing that could heal my broken heart and start putting those pieces together, the prison walls really did come falling down, as soon as I fell at his feet, and asked for help.

Bonnie Randall 17:12
But what's interesting is he wasn't the only one who helped me, right. He sent people to help break down those prison walls. He sent different therapists, he sent different friends and family members and different people to help be the hands. So these scriptures also make me think about what am I doing to create prison walls for other people? And what am I doing to help bring them down? Personally? Am I a Master Mason building? Or am I being Christ hands to help save and help lift?

Amy Johnson 17:58
That prison that we get in I often don't call them the emotional hamster wheel. Right? Because when they're explaining, and by they, I mean me, because I've been there 1000 times, when they're explaining the trauma, and the abuse and the awfulness of life, then that's, that's that non stop, and it becomes its own animal, in case you that you really do need help. And, and honestly, I feel like you do need an almost an emotional paramedic, to take you somewhere else. Because that that emotional hamster will get some momentum like you cannot believe and it will just keep going and going and going. I have people in my life that every time I see them, we're talking about the exact same thing. Because they cannot get off the emotional hamster wheel. But we can get off the emotional hamster wheel. If we take it to Jesus, because when I am in that state, and I get down on my knees, and I tell him he is so good. He I do not know how he does it. But he has a way of stopping the momentum in my head. And, and and bringing in the peace. But I have to get down on my knees and tell him the mess that I meant. Yeah.

Speaker 1 19:36
Amy, you just made me think of one of the tools that we teach our clients about when you're in that hamster wheel when your brain is spiraling and you're starting to go to dark places and you just can't turn it off because you're just stewing on it and it's just all you can think about. And when you get into those trigger moments, it can spiral out of control and go dark really, really fast.

Bonnie Randall 20:01
We teach this tool about an SOS or calm down kit different people call it different things. And my friend taught me this and this tool and it's basically you have this like box of different things to help calm you down. So could be like an essential oil, a blanket, some sour candies, because sour things are really good at triggering, bracing, tricking the brain, right? Maybe a card that has deep breathing techniques on it different things. And when she was teaching me this thing, she said, So what do you do when you get triggered and you're in like a panic attack. And I thought for a minute, and I was like, I go to my closet, in my room, I cry. And I turn on this one particular conference talk and a shield to me. And she's like, You're the first person who's ever said that.

Bonnie Randall 21:04
Really, that's, that's my go to. Jesus is like, the one person who can shut off the spiral. If I turn on a gospel song, like, I'm obsessed with Bethel Music's, "Goodness of God," or Raise a Hallelujah, or No Longer Slaves. Like there's several like that if I turn that on, or turn on a conference talk, be before I go to pray, because there's something about and that's like a passive way to invite in the Spirit, to bring in truth without me having to like process yet, because when you're in a trigger moment, and you're in a panic attack, you can't process your animal brains turn on your executive functioning is turned off. You can't think, right. But the quickest way to get to that moment is to bring in the spirit. Like you said, the paramedic, right? We need. And I feel like sometimes we, our go tos can be like deep breathing, and yoga and all these other things. And those are all wonderful, wonderful tools. And they're amazing to help with panic attacks and all that I'm not saying stop deep breathing, not at all.

Amy Johnson 22:22
Don't teach us that.

Speaker 1 22:24
But my, my go to really is to stop and turn on something that invites in the Spirit because then the Spirit will tell me what is my next step.

Amy Johnson 22:37
Always

Bonnie Randall 22:38
What I need right now to heal.

Amy Johnson 22:42
Always

Bonnie Randall 22:43
Right, and sometimes it's deep breathing. Sometimes it's read this talk, sometimes it's Hey, Bonnie, you need to pray with me right now. And we need to talk about what just happened. Sometimes it's go give my kid a hug or go give my husband a hug, even though I really don't want to because he's a bear right now. Right? when you said the lions den, I understand what that's like. And yet Jesus knows exactly what we need to heal. So when we include him in on the equation, in our healing process, in the forgiveness in the reconciliation, he will tell us how to do it, and the timeline in which to do it.

Bonnie Randall 23:27
Because Luckily, he didn't say, do it right now. Like he has to be immediate, he did not say that it means versus, and I kind of cling to that. But it doesn't have to be immediate, it can take some time, hopefully not too much time. But if you're actively working on it, and I think that's the key here is actively working on coming to him forgiving, reconciling, making our hearts here, when we're actively working on things. That's when the mountains will start to move. Yeah.

Tamara Anderson 24:05
I love that. It makes me think several years ago, I can't remember who taught me this principle, but that, that if you have an emotion, that you don't want-- anger inside of you that you can turn to the Lord and and cast out that spirit of anger. Dear God, I don't want to feel this anger helped me to cast it out and bring in the spirit of peace. And we do that in the name of Jesus Christ. You know. And because we see we see Jesus casting out evil spirits. Well, these are these are emotions that are a part of us. But that doesn't mean that they have to stay a part of us. And so I've tried to employ that and it's there are layers to that right, especially When someone hurts us, or triggers something in us or something.

Tamara Anderson 25:05
Anyway, but just being able to turn to him and cast out those negative emotions and inviting in a positive emotion of how you want to feel, I've found that to be a really good technique. And I one of my go tos when I'm in a panic is music also, and you know, uplifting Christian music, and then sometimes I will do, I will say my Bible verse mantra out loud, which is I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And I will have to say that over and over and over and over and over and over, I can do this, I can do it through Jesus, you know.

Tamara Anderson 25:49
So, bringing in a little bit of Bible verse in there, because the word of God does have power to be able to help us, like you said, kind of stop, slow the hamster wheel down. Take a breath, get back to where we're feeling more grounded and more at peace. But that's really only through Jesus, I really like, like how you we've made that conclusion. All right, we're two final thoughts here. Ladies, what is your biggest takeaway from today, Bonnie.

Speaker 1 26:30
I just want to point out everybody that she just gave a little preview of our next time on when we're going to be continuing and talking about casting out. So do not miss the next episode, because we got a lot to say about that. It's awesome. My biggest takeaway from today is that, while this can be really hard, to level up into, not only forgive, but reconcile with people in our lives, I want to bear my testimony that I know that when we can root out or cast out like Tamara is, saying, The motes and the beams in our eyes, and when we can let go of these grudges and these grievances. And sometimes it requires professional help. You know, it certainly requires Heavenly Father and Jesus's help. It requires coming to them with humility, and pure faith and knowing that they will come to our aid. But when we can do it, and sometimes it takes time, those prison walls really will come falling down. The disease the emotional anguish, the hard frustrations, the rat race of the cycles that we get into with our family and friends. Those things stop. And healing really can occur. I've seen it time and time again, in my own life with my own abusive stories. And I've seen it with countless others. I know that this is possible.

Tamara Anderson 28:32
Thank you, Bonnie. All right, Amy, take away.

Amy Johnson 28:36
For me, I just keep being reminded about what it really truly means to be meek and agree for me, because I disagree with thine adversary quickly. Because if I if I look at it at the wrong angle takes a whole new life that's a problem of its own. And so, for me, it's about dealing with others compassionately, but not rolling over not getting walked on not. And and understanding that when I reached to Jesus key absolutely helps me to know the difference. He is he's masterful at everything, but some of the things but he is really masterful at relationships.

Amy Johnson 29:32
And he and I know I've been married 30 plus years. And I if even this last Friday, I knew that I was not going to make it through the hard conversation I needed to have with my husband without Jesus. Because we were both trying to figure this world out, desperately trying to figure it out. And so me being meek has a lot to do with humility, but it has a ton to do with compassion. If I can have compassion for the person I'm dealing with, then I can see him or her the way the Savior does. And it changes everything. It changes everything. And that's how I can then agree with someone who appears to be my adversary. Because I think that's what really the problem becomes, is that he's not he's not really my adversary any more than the woman, that church that offended me, is the adversary. They're not the adversary, they just appear to be in my mind because of the pain that I'm dealing with.

Tamara Anderson 30:47
Yeah. Oh, you guys have covered some amazing things. I guess what I, one of my biggest takeaways is that to follow those ideas, those thoughts that come when when we're trying to uplevel because God will prompt us know what to do. I like that. And remember us, you know, it's God that's putting those thoughts in our head and he is the one that will guide us to take, like you said, the next right step to help us become better, to help us become holier, to help us become more like our Savior. And so, follow those thoughts or promptings when they come, to take the next right step to become a better person. So, anyway, thanks for joining us on this episode of Bible, Women & Bathrobes. We hope we've been able to dive into these verses a little bit and not only bring up how hard it is, but how doable it is with Jesus. So have a blessed day.

Bonnie Randall 32:00
Bye, everybody.

Tamara Anderson 32:02
Thanks for tuning in to Bible, Women & Bathrobes hosted by Women Warriors of Light. We've loved exploring the stories of remarkable women are the teachings of the Savior today with you. If today's episode brought someone special to mind, be sure to spread the word. And don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a moment of inspiration and sisterhood. Just a friendly reminder, all opinions we share are entirely personal as we are trying to decipher and apply Bible teachings just like you are. Until next time, stay faithful. And may Your journey be blessed and illuminated by God's love.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai