It Was Good That I Had Been Afflicted

As a PK, believe me when I say I have had my share of hurt as a child growing up. It still baffles me as to why "the saints" always targeted the pastors' children. I can remember having to stand before my father on many occasions and try to defend myself against something one of the church members said against me. My father would make the statement, "So you're calling them a liar?" Even when I was right, I was wrong. How many pastors' children refuse to go to any church today because of how they were treated as children growing up in church? This is not limited to PKs only but any leader in ministry who had children growing up in church. However, out of all that I experienced as a child growing up in church, you would have to wrap all the past pains up in a nice bundle, and they still did not compare to what I was faced with in my most recent experienced. It affected not only me but also my family, and that made it all the more worse! Even though it rocked me as it did, I had to make a decision. Do I allow it to make me another casualty and ministerial statistic, or do I find a way to rise above it and overcome? Do I allow it to destroy me emotionally and physically, or do I seek healing and become victorious?

In this time of sharing, I will endeavor to share with you things that I have learned in my effort to seek healing from the pains and lessons learned in my short life. How do you recover from the tragedy of a painful experience? How long is the process? Does it get worse before it gets better? There was a one-week period between the initial shock and painful experience and the final blow that caused me to reevaluate my position in life and how I was going to move forward. I found out very fast that if I wanted to experience healing, I had to forgive. If I wanted to experience restoration, I had to forgive. How do you respond to the pain of being wounded? What do you do when you have been betrayed by someone you trusted implicitly? What do you do when you know that you've been wronged but cannot speak because it will damage others that you love? What do you do when those who paint a portrait that says, "We are ride-or-die leaders," are found to be people who are there only for the ride? Will the power of forgiveness prevail? Prayerfully, this book will provide you with some insight on how a believer can and will get over the hurt and pain inflicted by those who claimed to love you.