Healing the Hole in Your Heart: Transform Your Devastation into Empowerment and Create the Life of Your Dre

By Judy Hoff

"Healing the Hole in Your Heart" is a book about women, for women and those who want to understand and love women. Pastor Judy Hoff founder of Queen, It's a New Day, has compiled the stories of eleven women who have participated in the program, asking them to recount their experiences in battling low self-esteem, drug and alcohol addiction, physical and sexual abuse and ultimately, experiencing the healing power of God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781483524832

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Introduction

From the Author’s Heart

This book is dedicated to all the ravaged hearts I have met and all those who are empty, searching for a breath of life and in need of a love that has never been fulfilled. Through years of being on the streets as a community outreach pastor, I have seen many broken women with children who were hungry, cold, and forgotten. My heart has been torn by the ravages of their sad conditions of hopelessness. This experience has led me to write about and share some true stories of women who have experienced darkness, sadness, and devastation in their lives. These women experienced being lifted up, and they overcame these terrible past experiences. They have moved forward in the hope and faith of Jesus Christ, who went through a human experience of abuse, beatings, rejection, and death to set them free and cover them with His healing, hope, and prosperity.

My purpose is clear in this work. It is to bring God’s love to these women so that through Jesus Christ’s spirit, they may have a new life—one that is transformed from the inside-out. Over the many years of giving a hand-up out of the muck and mire, I have learned that with a hand-up, everyone can have life to the full, until it overflows with goodness. My hope is to reach women, encourage them, and to be a vessel of restoration for them.

This book is created by, and through, true life experiences and stories of women who emerged from helplessness to powerful lives—women whose dreams became reality. I give God the glory for His wisdom to make a difference in the lives of everyone who reads this book. Whether you are the helping hand reaching out or the one in need who is reaching up, my prayer is that connection is made and that we all reach out and take another’s hand. Together, we can be the conduit of hope and restoration through and in the powerful anointing of Christ Jesus!

Judy Hoff

Judy Hoff

September 24, 2012

Disclaimer

In this book, I easily could have compiled thousands of stories of women and children who have experienced abuse, neglect, and painful lives. I have selected a sampling of stories from women who wanted to share their experiences and how they were lifted out of their lives of hopelessness in order to help other women find their way out. The names of these women have been changed for their protection and privacy.

We know through research that only one out of three women’s stories of abuse and being trapped in dysfunctional cycles have been reported. Many have not been reported because the women are still stuck in these awful situations. Some have lost memory due to the blocking of childhood memories that are more than the soul (mind, will, emotions) could handle. If you are reading this book and feel stirred-up or uneasy, and you can’t remember years of your life, God may be ready to let you look inside under the scars so He can heal you, restore your homeless heart, and give you the clarity to reach out and help another woman.

Part One

For the Homeless Heart

Chapter One

The Hole in Your Heart

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked, and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.

— Mother Teresa

Truly, homelessness begins in our heart. I refer to it as the homeless vacant heart with a hole because when life overwhelms us, we are left with our hearts empty and homeless. This book and the stories included are not about homelessness in terms of no place to live, but about the void of love and acceptance, the lack of connectedness found when we are broken-hearted. Even the financially prosperous have places of void, holes in their hearts. Life can render the rich homeless inside their beautiful, fancy, glamorous homes. In fact, a friend of mine said in her financially blessed marriage that she felt homeless, lost, and forgotten in her mansion.

In this book, you will read eleven true stories from real women. To protect them and their families, their real names are not being used, but they are telling their stories because they want others to know how lives can be changed and restored. Their lives have a tremendous value not only to themselves and their families, but also to God.

God has breathed life into each of these women—the breath of hope, mercy, and grace. Jeremiah 29:11 says, For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not for evil to give you a future and a hope.

Hope has breathed life for them instead of the hopelessness and homeless hole they have previously known in their hearts. God has filled each woman with a future hope and cleansed the hurt, pain, and shame. He has washed their souls and made them into new creations. Now, they are made in His image. God is love.

Truly, love heals. When we love others, eventually they love themselves. The cycle of abuse is broken and generations are changed into the future. Prepare yourself. Some of the stories you are about to read will stir the hole in your heart. Let yourself be stirred and love will cover all the pain in your past.

Chapter Two

The Heart

Homelessness begins in the heart. The old saying Home is where the heart is states our home is first inside us. A homeless and battered woman, in general, has to leave her heart to tolerate the abuse and mistreatment that began for her often in early childhood. History does repeat itself, and words do sting and leave scars in the heart. The saying, Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me is a lie. Words build your worth or tear down your worth, how you value yourself, and your self-image.

A child sees, hears, and feels her value to life itself, and consequently, she believes and is programmed with that experience, whether it is good or bad. The question always has been whether people’s personalities are shaped through nature or nurture. I believe it’s both, but we can take these and build inside a person a home of self-worth, self-value, self-truth, self-confidence, and self-purpose, which will result in a permanent transformation into a life of self-sufficiency, instead of homelessness, addiction, street living, prostitution, jail, and shelters. Ultimately, a person’s transformation into self-worth and self-sufficiency can break the cycle of self-abuse.

Truthfully, in many homes across the U.S., there live homeless hearts who self-medicate their pain with food, TV, prescription drugs, shopping, gambling, pornography, and being workaholics, and those are just a few of the self-abuse behaviors that indicate homeless-heart syndrome. There are different levels of the homeless heart, but the void is the same. Some women have had such a history of abuse that the abused state of mind and living is their normal way of life.

The heart is the center of the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual life. The heart refers to the physical organ, which is considered to be the center of physical life. The heart has come to symbolize the whole of human life. A woman’s life depends on her heart condition. The Bible says the heart is connected with thinking, As a person thinketh in his heart, so it shall be (Proverbs 23:7). Another way of putting this is that people put their money where their hearts flourish.

The heart is associated with the activity of the mind and the will, but it is also very closely connected to a woman’s emotions, feelings, and affection. We all know that sadness, hopelessness, and discouragement are associated with having a heavy heart. Out of the heart is also where we locate our morals and spiritual life. All moral conditions from the highest to the lowest are said to center in the heart.

With all of this significance understood, we can look to breaking the cycle of self-abuse and homelessness through changing the heart condition. We must end the homeless heart through developing and forming a new heart. God promised that He would give a new spirit within, take away the stony heart, and give a heart of flesh. The heart has been broken for so many women that they have given into despair and hopelessness. They believe they are stuck, but we have an answer for them. When mercy, loving-kindness, and truth have met together, and righteousness and peace have kissed each other, there is hope! And it’s a new day! We can give the family a home, but we must take the homeless heart out and replace it with self-value and purpose. We can make a difference and mentor to the woman’s heart so it becomes healthy.

A true story comes to my mind about a homeless woman whom I so desperately wanted to get into an apartment. With the help of others, we got furniture for the apartment: a bed and dresser for the bedroom, and a kitchen table. We bought towels, sheets, a vacuum, broom, and literally, all the items it takes to make a house a home. We were so excited and pleased with how all of us worked together for the good of this person. We had a dinner for her the first night she was in her new apartment, and we rejoiced on her behalf. She seemed pleased but quiet. We all left feeling like a job well-done had occurred. We checked in a few days later and noticed no food had been cooked, and the bed was without the sheets, pillow, and blankets we had provided. We asked, How are you sleeping here? She said, Good! Then, we saw all the blankets in a nest on the floor. Little did we know that the nest was a pattern of comfort for her, and later, we learned the bed meant bad things to her because of her past experiences.

We left dismayed, but we kept a close watch on our homeless, now placed in a home, friend. The next few days, we took turns stopping by. We thought a kitten might help her feel more love, so we got one and all the fun toys, food, etc. She liked it, she said. We stopped by once again with excitement to see her and her kitten. When we arrived, we noticed bottles of beer and wine, and the house looked torn-up. There was no kitten in sight. We were afraid to ask what had happened. We waited to hear, but she said nothing about the kitten. The blankets were on the floor still, the bed was unmade with nothing on it, and she was drunk, crying, and very upset.

Never in a million years would we have guessed that our loving intentions drove her to such high stress that she went back to drinking after being sober for over a year. We didn’t know the kitten’s needs were more than she could handle, so she had put the kitten outside, walked to the store, and returned to the homeless-heart pattern to find the comfort that was so familiar. The bed was a reminder of a childhood of sexual abuse and the home drove her to drink.

You see, first things first! We learned that you have to heal the homeless heart, the brokenness from within, before a home is a place where the heart can dwell. Home is where the heart is! I learned a very troubling lesson from that experience, and it has helped to shape my understanding about breaking the pattern of homelessness and self-abuse. I learned to help the person change from the inside out, not provide the outside place when the heart is homeless.

My heart for many years has been focused on helping the homeless and battered women of the United States. I have come to know what it takes. It takes loving them until they can love themselves. It takes compassion, communication, mentoring, counseling, and sometimes, medication. When I started housing programs, all these ingredients were provided, plus a lot of encouragement, Bible reading, prayer, and a program that reprogrammed the homeless heart to a place of self-respect.

Chapter Three

The Truth about Homelessness and Women

What does homeless mean?

In our society, people are called homeless who have shelter, beds, and a place to lay their heads at night to sleep, a place to shower,