Gap Repairs

1. Gap Repairs Accepting the Healing Process that Repairs the Gap in Your Heart.

2. “God does not wait until we are perfect before He enjoys us. In fact, He loves the weak the immature, and those who feel incomplete.” The Sacred Journey Jesus has no rival or equal when it comes to loving others. You can take His love to the heart bank and cash it in for real life value. Your Gap is not between you and someone else. The gap is between you and God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit and that gap effects all other relationships, especially in marriage. Going to the Epic Healing Rooms, attending Divorce Care, Therapy and Cindy K., Ignite Faith has made it possible for me to finally accept the fact that I had blown my marriage, hurt my first wife, kids and friends who knew us because I would not look, into my own Gap. Accepting the pain in my own heart was the first step in finding healing for my gap between God and myself. • Here are my Lessons Learned from a 30-year Marriage.

3. One. Marry a Woman of Deep Waters • Proverbs 20.5 says, “The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out.” The Holy Spirit had to make my pain clear to me. Then woo me to Himself so I would partner with Him to do the right thing. The Lord knew what fuel (Grace) I needed in my tank to see me through the difficult times of disorientation and failure. Learning how to allow God and His people help bring healing to my “Soul Pain” has been a challenge. What I did not do when married was to demonstrate total acceptance of my mate (1 John 4:18). I also did not show an attitude of constant forgiveness (Eph. 4:31-32). I was not emotionally mature enough (trauma talking) to make a commitment to verbalize my emotions without pulling back or quitting. This was the power of rejection at work in my broken heart. I really want a wife who partners with God’s heart to help draw out the healing in my heart so we can serve Him unbound in prayer and worship.

4. Most of my female friends have no idea what God is doing in my heart to rebuild my belief in women. And I don’t know what God is doing in their heart either. What He is asking me to do is love my sisters without asking for anything in return. • That is how Jesus operates. He loves you and me without asking for anything in return. This is a huge step in healing for me. The old Bryan was do something to get something, now it’s, learn to do something out of love. PERIOD. • “Jesus chose you and me in love.” He does not reject us because we all messed up. He called you and me to be His love first so we would have everything we need to love each other while we walk out of our pain and into healing as family.” Ron G. • I want to be the kind of man who can talk about anything with “HER”, whether we are living through some brokenness or healing that day. • Two. We Can Talk About Anything.

5. Three – Part One. Trust in Her Person. “If Loving Was Easy, There Wouldn’t Be Any Breakups!” Accepting the fact that relationships do come to an end, and it is time to move forward into a deep healing that can transform you and me into relationship building friends. Because Divorce is like unplugging the emotional life support from the soul. Ripping feelings and emotions apart. Oh, how that must hurt the Fathers heart! Steve – New Beginnings. Your past does not define you. Is 43.18-19 Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. 19 See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. How can I be a man who can trust in female friends? He is not an option! Jesus is the way!

6. Three – Part Two. Not All Dogs Bite Mike D. “Not all women are un-trustworthy.” • If a person is not aware of the pain they have caused, they won’t be able to apologize for it. • From Jim Smoke and Growing Through Divorce • If you and I are not working away from the emotional pain of the first relationship, then “it” gets carried forward into any future relationship. • What happened needs to be looked at as more of recounting personal history, and that is where it stays. • Jim also says, “You will know you are gaining in your own growth and post-divorce adjustment when you talk less about your former marriage, spouse and divorce.” • She is Trustworthy and I am Willing to Accept Her as she is.

7. Four. A Change of Heart. • Jesus is becoming the love of my life. “To not operate in love is to be outside of our design. The Holy Spirit does only real stuff.” Sid W. Being Impacted by the Love of Jesus for Yourself. If you really want to leave a Loving Impact, get impacted, wrecked, rebuilt by the love of Jesus. I went to church most of my life and did not experience being loved until July 31st 2019 came into my life. Sometimes we need a life-altering event to get our ship pointed into the right wind (Holy Spirit). • If persevering through all these life events is required to find the love of my life, and become the love of someone else’s, then living in the Fathers Heart is the order of the day.

8. Five. I want to be part of a woman’s life who is aware of what is going on in the atmosphere around her – Discernment.  To hear the wisdom (discernment) of the Holy Spirit through “HER” would be the most awesome experience in life. “Her teachings are filled with wisdom and kindness as loving instruction pours from her lips.” Proverbs 31:26

9. Six - Part One. Where am I with my past? • “Until I was ready to ask Jesus for healing, not much could happen.” • What has caused your gap? • Can you talk to the Holy Spirit about it? • Can you forgive the intruders that helped create your gap? • Are you willing to allow the Holy Spirit to change your heart? • What would your future ability to love look like?

10. Six - Part Two. Where am I with my past? • “Jesus spoke into his environment (quiet, be still) and the environment changed with what He said. Speak scriptures into the environment around you to change it.” Nick “You might want revenge, but no matter how much the offender may suffer, it still won’t remove your pain. The only way to be emotionally free from them is to let go and turn the offender over to Jesus.” The difficult part about turning “them (my family)” over to Jesus for me was I could no longer punish “them” with hatred or revenge.

11. Six - Part Three. Where am I with my past? • Just walk with me for a few minutes into the uncomfortable world of rejection and porn and how they are connected. • Now think about the enticement of porn, a sexy woman or man saying to you without words, look at me and enjoy yourself. • That is what porn does. It grabs the heart and shifts it away from the beauty of emotional connection into the ugliness of emotional disconnection. • Forgiveness for self is the ticket. Therapy can help, but the forgiveness of great emotional and physical trauma can heal the brokenhearted and restore what was lost. • Emotional Purity helps to push the rejection out of the soul that created the porn vacuum to begin with. Without forgiveness we just do what? Try to forget and move on? Yah like that works!

12. It is important for you to deal with the issues that are cropping up as they come, waiting just makes them get larger! Stop and ask Jesus for the empowering grace and wisdom to deal with these issues, and He is faithful to supply all of your needs according to His riches in glory!” Valerie M. • After a conversation with Debbie this thought came to me. Women are not the man’s problem and men are not the woman’s problem. • The problem is our own internal issues with our self, but we aim our pain at the opposite sex. Six - Part Four. Where am I with my past? • They do not deserve our pain aimed at them. • Our pain hurts them too.

13. Six - Part Five. Where am I with my past? “Forgiveness is pulling the power cord and leaving it behind.” Valerie M. • I have learned that feelings can be unreasonable to the point of willing to end my life to pay “them back”. That is called revenge, which in truth is God’s business alone. • Regardless of all the reasons you might not want to forgive, the bottom line is that forgiveness is the best way to bring you and me into freedom and out of the bondage that has wrapped itself around our throats. “You may feel like they still need to be punished.” Rodney H.

14. Seven. Having short-terms affairs is emotionally safer than having a long-term relationship. • Until that gap is healed up in our lives, to where we have learned to love ourself and then someone else “unconditionally like Jesus did, asking for nothing in return”, you and I would both still be tuned into having short-term affairs (anything outside of the Holy Spirit heart). • Keep moving forward on days you don’t see any hope. • Maybe your gap like mine, is the grief releasing itself, creating more space for what • is true. Truth winning our hearts is always better than anything outside of the Holy Spirit.

15. Eight. I Want to be the Right Guy for the Right Gal. One of my female friends said, “she would just fall into my lap.” With that said all I can do for right now is allow the Holy Spirit to work on my sore spots. Since we are all a work in process, speeding things up can sometimes be a setback. Ask the Holy Spirit and your friends what would be best for Her or Him? • Jesus is about being healed, whole, complete, tenderhearted, not lacking anything. • How does God bridge the gap between our broken heart and His healing heart? The Holy Spirit holds our hearts in one hand and Jesus in the other and connects us together for His purposes. His Purposes. His Purposes.

16. Nine. Can I do this Again? • “These consequences are not permanent definers of what I can be.” Dr. Crawford Loritts • Phil 4:14 says. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” That being the case then we can live Gap Free by the daily strength of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit.

17. Ten – Part One. Leave a Loving Impact! A Rocket spends more energy (love) just to get off the ground than it does to maintain its direction. The launch preparation starts with self-love. I am learning that self-love is a key ingredient in loving others (i.e.“love your wife as Christ loves the church” or love your friends as Christ loves the church. To get started all over again in a relationship will require more energy to leave past pains behind, learn how to like someone, date someone, love someone and for the long haul to be willing to sacrifice for someone. I did not get the “love someone” for the long haul or “sacrifice portion” the first time around. My heart says yes to both – NOW.

18. Ten - Part Two. Leave a Loving Impact! • Be Great Friends. 1. Small talk and maybe share a life moment. 2. Feel safe enough to share more life moments and maybe a hug. 3. Word of encouragement or pray with them and maybe a stronger or longer hug. 4. Have coffee or do something else together with a stronger closer longer hug. 5. Where are you on the like scale? Remember to make being a friend easy for the other person. 6. Is there a “what’s next”?

19. Eleven. In Closing. • When you are ready to love again. What can two broken people achieve together in the Holy Spirit? • I want a female freind I can pray and worship with and minister to others.

20. Special Thanks to – The Holy Spirit, Jesus, and Dad Joel Olsteen, Blessed the Darkness Brian and Candice Simmons, The Sacred Journey Dr. Crawford Loritts Retired Chaplain Mike D. Dr. Linda Mintle Jim Smoke, Growing Through Divorce Divorce Care at Westside Church Dr. Barry Gridley Epic Church Cindy K. - Debbie B. - Ron G. – Sid W. – Nick G. Valerie M. and Epic Healing Rooms Ignite Faith Linda W., Ray, Steve, Terry, Jim D. Steve C. Copyrighted 2021 Bryan K. Long – Gap Repairs In Closing. Going through a divorce is like watching your home burn to the ground. Let go of the Aftermath.