Prevail: The Healing Journey Continues: Volume Two

By Janette Sams Gleaton

Victims of abuse face many difficult issues. Many, longing to be free, will search and long for healing and peace. Healing from the emotional and mental pain of abuse involves a journey.

To emerge from victim to survivor and on to prevailing, a greater spiritual issue must be addressed--a personal relationship with a sovereign, loving God. Survivors, like many Christians, must come to a defining moment where they face the decision to live out authentic Christianity in the midst of a fallen, broken world.

Prevail: The Healing Journey Continues, rather than a study course, involves a continuing guide leading victims of abuse to the end of self-sufficiency into a deeper, more meaningful walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. Participants will have the experience of diving deep into God's Word as each lesson addresses some of the most difficult issues of abuse.

I believe each group and each session will be a divine appointment filled with the excitement of seeing God at work in His children. As you work through Prevail: The Healing Journey Continues, whether in a group or for personal study, I pray you will be blessed as you seize and hold firmly onto God's truth.

For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

--Romans 15:4, 13

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781639030101

Book preview

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Prevail

The Healing Journey Continues

Volume Two

Janette Sams Gleaton

ISBN 978-1-63903-009-5 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63903-010-1 (digital)

Copyright © 2022 by Janette Sams Gleaton

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from: NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE® Copyright (C) 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org

Other Scripture quotations used and duly noted are: Amplified® Bible, Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org

Scripture quotations marked (GNT) are from the Good News Translation in Today’s English Version—Second Edition Copyright © 1992 American Bible Society. Used by Permission.

NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission.

Revised Edition Copyright 2014

All Rights Reserved

Author’s Note: Prevail offers an instructional workbook for survivors of abuse. Testimonies or illustrations used in this book that are true to life are included with the permission of the persons involved. Other resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, events, locations, and resemblances to any other such work are entirely coincidental.

Printed in the United States of America

For my heavenly Father

To my late husband—Robert A. Gleaton

*****

Ruth Bell Graham, wife of Evangelist Billy Graham, is buried in North Carolina on the grounds of the Billy Graham Library.

Her headstone has the following inscription, which expresses my feelings as I come to the end of this project,Prevail: The Healing Journey Continues, Volume 2:

End of construction—

Thank you for your patience.

Letter from the Author

Dear friends,

Abuse violates how God says we are to treat and interact with other humans. However, people mistreat people. Even before adulthood, many experience the pain of this trauma.

Abuse is wrong! Abuse can be defined as cruel or inhumane treatment; rude behavior or speech intended to offend, degrade, and hurt; or the use of foul or abusive language. What would a world without abuse look like? Well, that would be heaven, and we are not there yet! So as long as we live here on planet earth, we continue to face the horrors of abuse and abusers.

A victim of abuse became the target of another person or persons who overpowered, controlled, and used him or her for their own personal satisfaction. A survivor of abuse has lived through affliction, injury, and/or suffering. The survivor lived through the ordeal but still bears the painful emotional scars. The survivor who chooses to prevail will be the one who overcomes. Prevailing people gain mastery, are victorious, and live triumphantly in spite of past or present difficulties.

Prevailing persons have succeeded in learning and grasping truths, which free them from the ties to their abuser. They did not forget their experience but have gained valuable tools to help them move out of the victim-survivor role into the prevailing role. They now have peace and live in the hope and joys of a bright future.

This healing journey offers fresh insight which can help the prevailing person travel through awareness, acceptance, and action into God’s perfect rest.

Victims of abuse develop emotional wounds from their trauma. God’s Word offers the help survivors need to put their feet on the path to peace and healing. As you have probably seen and even experienced, avoidance does not heal. Avoidance ignores God’s truth! Now you must determine to refocus and ask the God of hope to root out whatever might be left of pride and bitterness. Only then will you be able to go through the healing process and prevail!

God uses the painful events of our lives to draw us to Him. He takes us, even as a potter takes the clay, and molds us into a vessel of beauty.

O LORD, You are our Father, We are the clay, and You our potter; and all of us are the work of Your hand. (Isaiah 64:8)

As you become more aware of His grace and mercy, He will use your experiences to help other victims of abuse. He may not be able to use your painful memories completely at this time because the emotions are still raw and trust may still be difficult. We often cannot help others until we can clearly see the fruit of our own pain come to life and mature. As you come to this place, you will be able to honestly say, Now I get it! Here you can honestly embrace your pain, give it to God, and thank Him for it. You can give the trauma over to Him without needing to understand everything or having all your questions answered.

As you begin this series of lessons, pray with determination to refocus, fixing your eyes on Jesus. As you submit to God, He will use the pain to grow your faith. God entrusted you with your life’s experiences. Now you must trust Him to use everything you have experienced for your good and His glory!

Think about the widow in Mark 12:42–44 who gave all she had. She gave her two mites. Mites were small coins not worth very much, but it was all she had. When it is all you have, it can seem a lot! When she presented these, she did not simply give all she had at that moment, she gave God her tomorrows. In truth, she gave Him her future!

Will you begin this study by giving God all your tomorrows? If so, this will take pure trust and absolute dependence upon Him. If you make this commitment, make sure you do not dip your hand down into the offering box and try to take them back! Give all your tomorrows to God and leave them with Him.

Let’s get started!

Continue the healing journey and prevail,

Janette Gleaton

Janette Gleaton directs Prevail—Abuse Recovery Ministry for Denton Bible Church, Denton, Texas. The abuse recovery ministry began as Woman to Woman Pregnancy Resource partnered with Denton Bible Church in an effort to address the need to help women regain dignity and healing from abuse. Janette’s ministry has included discipleship, developing and leading women’s programs, and leading Precept Bible Studies. Presently, her focus has been leading recovery groups for victims of emotional, mental, verbal, sexual, physical, and religious abuse. Janette can be contacted through email, [e-mail].

Preface

For many years I had a desire to write a discipleship study for women. After my involvement in the Abuse Recovery Ministry began in 2007, my focus shifted to helping abused surviving women heal. I am grateful to Sallie Culbreth for the training I received that year. God opened a new way of ministry as I sat and listened to her training and life experiences. As I led various groups through her workbook, The Uncaged Project, I witnessed how God can draw survivors into the healing process.

This study created a thirst for a deeper look into God’s Word, for which I am grateful. Women from various groups began to approach me about a follow-up study. They wanted more! Jesus said the Comforter would be my Teacher. This marvelous truth became much broader than I could have imagined. It would be impossible to name all who have contributed to Prevail since it involves the total sum of my ministry spanning over forty-five years. I am humbled and grateful to a vast number of people who have crossed my path and how the Spirit of God has used the best even to the least desirable to teach me and progressively conform me to the image of Jesus Christ, a work still in progress.

Recognition

My appreciation and grateful recognition freely go to the following:

My daughter, Lynda McBurnett, for contributing hours of work as my sounding board and assisting with corrections as we visited and revisited each lesson.

Beverly Akard, Evenly Harman, Sandra Richards, and Sharon Meese for encouraging and assisting with corrections.

Special recognition: Karen Kemp and Ron Rose.

Ron contributed countless hours of reading, correcting, and editing.

I am blessed by many prayer partners and hosts of friends who have entered God’s throne room for the purpose of interceding on my behalf. My appreciation goes to each of you for your consistent, strong, powerful prayer support through the years.

Jesus promises to stretch the boundaries of your life,

bring a new turn in your road…be at your side…and bless all your tomorrows.

—Ann Kiemel

Introduction

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ our Lord.

—Romans 8:38−39

The cocoon and butterfly story has been circulating for many years, and no one seems to know the original source. It seems the butterfly should not be assisted in its struggle to emerge from the cocoon.

Recently I read about a young camper who found a cocoon as he was exploring the forest. He saw how hard the insect inside was struggling, so he used his knife to split the cocoon, thinking he could free it. Instead, the developing butterfly died.

The butterfly’s struggle within the cocoon was not the obstacle it appeared to be but the process necessary for a healthy beautiful life. This struggle gives strength for life and enables the butterfly’s wings to grow and mature. Only then can the butterfly emerge and go free. Interrupting the struggling process will not allow the butterfly to safely emerge—it will either die or be crippled for life, never able to fly!

What does your cocoon look like? You will not be as strong as you can be if you never struggle. Think of your past abuse as your cocoon. Regardless of the struggle, God allowed it. You are in the process of emerging. Where are you in this struggling process? No matter what, you can come through the struggles of your past into a healthy, joy-filled life.

Christians come to realize the sufficiency of God’s grace as they learn perseverance. Through the struggle, God’s generous love becomes the one constant in what can appear to be insurmountable obstacles. Not one thing can separate you from the love of God, which you will only find in Christ Jesus.

Life can be full of various kinds of struggles. Most people struggle with questions such as: Why was I born? Do I really matter? and How can I make a difference? God, the heavenly Father, was with you in the past, is with you today, and has already been in all your tomorrows. Either God will shield you from suffering or He will give you the strength to go through it. Going through the struggles of life in His strength can give you the assurance of emerging stronger.

It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:13)

What a relief! The Christian does not have to strive for improvement. There is no DIY (do it yourself) Network in God’s economy. Self-improvement in the inner spiritual life only ends in pride, anxiety, fear, frustration, and ultimately failure. So rejoice, Christian! God, never idle nor forgetful, has given you His Holy Spirit to live out the life of Christ in you and bring Him honor and glory. God, through His Spirit, constantly works in you for His purpose and good pleasure. He can and will accomplish what concerns you and bring peace to your soul.

Many today are dealing with the serious issues concerning life’s struggles, such as death, incest, rape, and harsh and inhumane physical and mental treatment. However, I find it interesting how others seem to stress over trivial events as if there were major crises in their lives. Such trivial stresses may include what to cook for dinner, sitting in stalled traffic, money issues, clothes, friendships, or tight schedules, just to name a few.

Now, I know our heavenly Father cares about every area of our lives and the everyday happenings of life are as important to Him as the hard, serious issues. Yet there must be a balance. The problem lies in our belief system or values, which affect the emotions—our feeler.

In your belief system, you have developed preconceived ideas, which cause you to think, feel, and respond in certain ways to life’s situations. If you allow your emotions to control your will, you will live in constant defeat. Bill Gillham says, Your emotions are not God’s barometer of truth; His Word is.¹

To borrow another phrase from Dr. Gillham, Rain on your feelings! Keep Scripture before you. Stand strong on God’s unchanging truth. Have a plan in place which will help you handle your emotions. Are you open to truth which can set your feet on a different path—a path of freedom from negative or harmful emotions which rob you of peace?

Self-defeating emotions can include fear, hate, anger, pride, sadness, inferiority, frustration, jealousy, bitterness, hopelessness, shame, anxiety, and worry. Over time, these negative emotions become habits and a normal way of living.

There are ways which seem right in our limited understanding. We must come to the place in our thinking where we can accept the fact of being wrong. When we reach this conclusion, we can look for healthy alternatives. Some abuse survivors have been in the victim/survival role for many years and have accepted it as a way of life. It might seem any other way of living life will be foreign, leaving survivors with a sense of dread or fear of failure.

Abuse survivors should not settle for second best and should not be satisfied with remaining in a victim/survivor role. To prevail, survivors must become dissatisfied with living in their past abuse. They must see themselves as objects of God’s unfailing love and become desperate for Him!

Jesus promises to stretch the boundaries of your life, bring a new turn in your road…be at your side…and bless all your tomorrows. (Ann Kiemel)

As you yield to God, the Holy Spirit will renew your way of thinking through Scripture. In addition, God has given you a free will so you can choose to resist the temptation to follow your emotions, past belief systems, and old behavior patterns. Constant peace comes from choosing to believe God’s work in you will always be for your ultimate good—even when sitting at a red light in heavy traffic or facing the hardest struggles of life.

Going down a different path requires several steps: Awareness—the first step to take, leading you to a different path so you can prevail. What you truly believe and embrace determines how you think. You must know or become aware of God’s truth and His principles before you can implement them, commit to them, and use them in your own struggles. Simply becoming aware of truth will not be enough, however.

After awareness, you must take the second step: Acceptance—this second step points to your personal responsibility to accept God’s truth. If you reject God’s revealed truth, it will be out of your own stubbornness, laziness, pride, or preconceived ideas. So now, acceptance becomes your choice. Being aware of truth, it must be embraced and accepted as necessary for change. What you believe and think determines what you do. You will never act contrary to what you truly believe and embrace.

The third step: Action—active involvement in God’s truth will set you free. Now we have seen three As: awareness, acceptance, and active involvement. Once you are aware and accept, you have the responsibility to take the necessary steps to be actively involved in your recovery by living out God’s truth one day at a time. No one can do this for you, not even God! As Christians, we yield our rights to God, but not our responsibility.

Battle Plan

Various tasks are made easier when the proper tools are used. A hammer will be useless until the carpenter deliberately picks it up and uses it. Having received a spiritual tool, you must be proactive regardless of how you feel. Absolutely no personal value will come when ignoring God’s truth.

Behavior or what you do determines your life! If you are not careful, your bias can literally rob you of peace, hope, and joy. Stand firm on truth!

Plan your battles. Be aware and pay close attention to your self-talk—especially what you think about God and yourself. Whatever dominates your thoughts will rule over your emotions and behavior. Jerry Bridges says, Our thoughts are just as important to God as our actions and are known to God as clearly as our actions.²

Abuse taught you how to feel and not feel and what to think about God and yourself. Truth becomes distorted when filtered through the grid of abuse, which then feeds negative emotions, leaving you with distorted images of God and self.

Recognizing and taking all negative, degrading thoughts captive and making them submissive to God’s truth will win the battle. Paul says we are to reject speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God (2 Corinthians 10:5). Godly thinking will produce positive healthy emotions!

Recognizing negative self-dialogue and processing them through Scripture will enable you to exchange lies for truth. Remember, God has given you His Spirit. He can help you think correctly. As you work through the exchange system—exchanging lies for truth—you will learn how much God loves you. You can come to Him just as you are.

A Different Path

Trust can be a difficult issue for survivors. Trust, like truth, has been distorted because it has been filtered through the memories of abuse. Survivors of abuse have learned how trust can be dangerous, so many do not trust people or God. If they do not trust, survivors feel protected and/or in control. This type of thinking keeps survivors chained to their abusers. In fact, survivors will constantly relive their abuse. God and other people are shut out; fear and lies are securely locked in. Survivors will then view God with suspicion, seeing Him as being unpredictable, only a set of rules, and untrustworthy.

When we equate God with people, we grieve His Spirit. Christians can be blinded by their own thinking and attitudes which are offensive to God. Take the example of the Pharisee and his religious pride. The Pharisees’ teachings blinded the eyes of the Jewish people with religion, human logic, and tradition. As a result, many did not recognize or trust Jesus as the Christ and Messiah. The foundation of their religion was built on what they could see and understand.

Jesus spoke directly to the Scribes and Pharisees when He exposed their hypocrisy (Matthew 23:25−27). Among the eight woes of Matthew 23, Jesus accused them of cleaning the outside of the cup and of the dish, but on the inside, they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. They tolerated their own sin while judging the sin of others. Jesus compared them to whitewashed tombs with the outside appearance of beauty but on the inside, filled with filth, decaying, disgusting dead men’s bones.

God looks past what the human eye can see, straight to the heart. Nothing can hide from His sight, which means you are responsible even for what you cannot see within yourself. The psalmist, David, invited God to search his heart and test what was in his mind so all of the invisible offenses would become visible and fully known.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way. (Psalm 139:23−24)

God will expose every detail of the self-life—exposing whatever offends Him. Faith or trust and the self-life are not compatible and are in constant conflict. Once self (flesh or carnality) has been surrendered, faith will