Relationship Wounds

By Dr. Botiwa (Bo) Jackson

What if you had at your disposal vital information to help you transform the most important relationships in your life?  How valuable would that information be?

Relationships are an important part of the life of a believer, yet many Christians struggle to have healthy, long lasting and beneficial relationships.  Oft times, we fail to receive the most out of the relationships based on past hurt and pain.

In this book, we discuss "ships."

Relationships

Friendships

Kinships

Partnerships

The tools and strategies given will aid in the process of repairing and healing the wounds inflicted upon us by broken "ships." It will also lead to ways of establishing authentic, long lasting, and meaningful relationships that will help us move forward in our quest of living an authentic life in Christ.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dr. Botiwa Jackson
• Release date: Feb 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393799641

Book preview

Introduction

There are 4 objectives for this book:

1.  Learn to manifest and maintain authentic relationships

2.  Determine whether relationships are seasonal or long-lasting.

3.  Make the most out of the relationships that you have

4.  Overcome and heal from past trauma

Let me begin by saying that I am NOT a relationship expert. This is not a book that should be used to solve your relationship issues.  If you are having relationship, family, friendship, or marital problems, go talk to Jesus and/or a counselor. This book is simply a guide that enlightens and joins us in experiences of both relational triumph and heartbreak.  It has also been written to bring the conversation to the forefront to those of us who are in the Kingdom. Relationships are the apex of ministry and if we are not careful, we will have the tendency to represent the Kingdom negatively due to the ignorant handling of relationships.

Transparency is key to building true and authentic relationships so, I probably owe some of you an apology in advance, because this book will be as transparent as needed to provide truth and healing based on my relational experiences. I will definitely use fake names to protect the innocent, but I will be transparently truthful, nonetheless.

One of the many lessons I have learned is that some relationships have been ordained by God.  These relationships inspire, encourage, motivate, and hold us to the highest level of accountability.  These relationships must be valued and handled with extreme care. However, there are some relationships that have been assigned by Satan.  These relationships infect, distract, discourage, and hold us to little or no accountability. These relationships inflict the deepest, most heart-wrenching wounds.  Be careful!

For the sake of this book, we will refer to a common definition of what I will refer to as ships. A relationship is an association between persons amounting to mutual familiarity, mutual awareness of one another’s identity and mutual understanding of their association with one another.  This equates to similar interests, transparency in your identity, and partnership.  There should be some form of commonality and compatibility.  This covers all types of relationships, such as kinships (family), partnerships, (business), romantic relationships, and friendships. Relationships are very important in the lives of every human being. To ensure we make the most of our relationships, we must learn to be transparent. Normally, in its initial stages, people reveal only one dimension of who they are, therefore many of our most trusted relationships are based on a false reality.  We must sift through these false foundations and truly inspect the direction each relationship in our lives is headed.  Due to relationship classes not being a part of most church education programs, many Christians do not handle relationships well. How well we navigate through the ships of our lives, will also aid in the effectiveness of our witness and testimony with those around us.

Relationships have power. The right relationship will propel you. The wrong relationship will weaken you.

Chapter 1

True Relationships

True relationships require complete authenticity. It does not demand a false representation of who we are or who we are not. Within the confines of true relationships, we do not have to hide or conceal our authentic selves. These ships value and embrace the real, genuine, and authentic person.  As previously stated, these types of associations propel us and extract the greatness hidden on the inside.  The wrong relationships will constrict, suffocate, distress, prevent us from moving upward or forward and ultimately creates relational trauma.  Relational trauma provides justification to build walls in an effort to avoid future destructive associations. We use these walls as a protective mechanism, and we hide behind them to avoid being hurt.  Although these barriers seem like a defensive strategy to be extremely cautious, it is often linked to painful past experiences inflicted by trusted individuals. Although the fortress is designed to keep people out, it also restricts us from allowing people to come in... the right people!

Transparent vs. Translucent

In all honesty, we have a tendency to be "transparent with people that we should be translucent" with.  I realize that many of us have this take me as I am mentality, but everyone should not have full access to the real you. We have allowed unverified people to take residence in our hearts and it has caused distractions, worry, heartache, and stress.  Let’s compare being transparent and being translucent to living in a house. Everyone should not be invited or welcomed in your house. Listen, if I don’t know you personally, you cannot enter my domain. And... if you show up unannounced, you will be standing outside knocking while I’m looking through the peephole!  I don’t play that! (shrugs shoulders) Anyway, one of the greatest advantages of having your own place is the ability to control your atmosphere. Your home should be a place where you create an environment of peace and serenity. Those who we allow in such a sacred space should add or submit to the atmosphere that we have established. Our guests, whether family or friends should be able to be trusted with our transparency. The people we allow in our house are able to intimately see what we have inside; our valuables, it’s cleanliness, the trash that we have accumulated, the unwashed dishes, the ring around the toilet, the dust on the ceiling fan, our interior decorating skills or lack thereof... and quite frankly things that we may or may not want the general public to see. 

We should be the most comfortable at home.

We should be the most authentic at home.

We should be the most vulnerable at home.

We should be the most transparent at home.

Those who enter should count it a privilege, not a right to enter, such an intimate and truthful space.  Transparency speaks to access to intimately see things that others may not have the privilege to behold.

In contrast, whereas transparency is not hiding and being totally open, those who have not earned your trust, you should remain translucent and they should not have access inside the doors of your home.  Translucent is equivalent to looking through the window of a house and only seeing things from the outside.  While standing on the outside of the house, we can plainly see the foundation and structure, but we are unable to see the secrets that are held inside the house. Those things that are sacred and valuable can only be seen by those who are privileged to make it inside.

One of the biggest mistakes we make in relationships is that we are transparent with people that we have no history with. We freely open the door and let people in before we get to fully know the REAL them.  We make the mistake of not studying the nature of a person before we fully become transparent. We join in relationships by looking at the outside appearance and not taking the time to examine the heart.  The Bible declares: "out of the abundance of the heart does man speak" (Luke 6:45).  To truly know the heart of a person, LISTEN TO THEM.  We have to spend less time talking and more time listening.  The more we listen the more we learn because what’s in a person’s heart is going to come out of their mouth... eventually.  I know this is the first chapter and I should be nice... but those that know me understand that is not my personality... so... here