Jesus Heals the Brokenhearted: Empowered through Relationship

This newsletter is based on a teaching Dan Hitz presented at New Hope Assembly of God in Taylor, Michigan on March 5, 2023. Dan is the director of Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan, Inc. He is a Licensed Professional Counselor specializing in overcoming unwanted LGBTQ issues, sexual abuse recovery, and trauma. Dan is an ordained minister, EMDR trained, and a Clinically Certified Trauma Professional. He began his journey out of homosexuality in 1984.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

Luke 4:18-19 NKJV

Jesus was reading from the book of Isaiah in Luke 4:18-19 when He proclaimed that He has come to heal the brokenhearted. Those verses are among my favorite in Scripture. In the original language, the term “brokenhearted” means shards of glass as if you broke a mirror. That’s what many of our hearts are like – jagged shards of glass. Jesus came to heal our shattered hearts.

Dan at about five years old

I had a lot of shards of glass in my heart when I came to Christ in 1984. I was born to a paranoid schizophrenic mother who molested me before I entered kindergarten. The abuse started up again in middle school and lasted until early high school. My dad was a nice guy in general, but I shut my heart off to him when he was having a rough day and scolded me for asking too many questions. Since I shut my heart off from him, I couldn’t receive the masculine infilling that fathers are meant to give to their sons. That left me vulnerable to an older boy who abused me when I was about five or six. He made it fun at first. When he wanted me to do things I didn’t want to do, it turned coercive and shaming. I was raised in the church. It was confusing when what was talked about at church didn’t match up with what was going on at home. I knew right from wrong. In middle school, I realized that I liked the boys more than the girls. That was a problem. The abuse from my mother was threatening and aggressive. I wanted to have a normal family, but I was afraid of women. My high school and college years were full of dual attractions. I tried to have a girlfriend, but I wanted a boyfriend more. I desperately wanted a male to fill the huge masculine void I had in my heart. That didn’t work. Eventually I became bulimic. I couldn’t eat enough to fill up the void. Sexual encounters with men couldn’t fill up the void. I was truly empty.

When I got saved in 1984 the bulimia fell away instantly. Jesus began to fill the void. I didn’t need to binge anymore. I was excited and thought that the homosexual attractions that I loved and hated would instantly go away too. I was full of shame and condemnation when they didn’t. Jesus did indeed come to heal my broken heart, but He does things His way not ours. He calmed my fear of women enough to bring me a beautiful wife. She is still my wife today, some 38 years later, but even marriage doesn’t cure same-sex attraction. Only Jesus heals the brokenhearted. After about 15 years of trying to fix myself my way, I finally surrendered to God and asked Him to do whatever it took to heal my heart His way. That was the beginning of a challenging journey of recovery. A journey of learning more and more about God the Father’s heart, Jesus my Savior, and the Holy Spirit who leads me to all truth. The more I open my heart and surrender to the Lord, the more He transforms me into His image. He continues to empower me to stand as the redeemed man of God that He knit together in my mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13). Her mental illness and demonic oppression couldn’t destroy the Lord’s plan for my life.

God could have taken my homosexual attractions away instantly, but He wanted to teach me to be completely dependent upon Him. He wanted to teach me to “ fight the good fight for the true faith.” (1 Timothy 6:12 NLT) This seems to be His way. As revivals are popping up around the world, there will be some who will be instantly delivered from sins that have defeated them for years. There will be many more who will enter into the battle of Judges 3:1-2 NLT, “1 These are the nations that the Lord left in the land to test those Israelites who had not experienced the wars of Canaan. 2 He did this to teach warfare to generations of Israelites who had no experience in battle.” When we’re surrendered to sin, we aren’t fighting. The Lord specifically left some enemies in the Promised Land in order to teach those who had not formerly fought any battles, how to fight. It seems He also leaves enemies in our Promised Land to teach us to fight. The only way to be successful in the battle is to know the heart of the Father. The only way to know the heart of the Father is through relationship.

The idea that homosexuality or transgender identities are sinful isn’t very popular in our culture today. Unfortunately, it isn’t popular in many Christian denominations either. Jesus was pretty clear about God’s design for sexuality. “‘Haven’t you read the Scriptures?’ Jesus replied. ‘They record that from the beginning “God made them male and female.”’ And he said, ‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. ’” (Matthew 19:4-5 NIV) God ordains physical sexual expression to be exercised solely within the marriage covenant between one biologically born male and one biologically born female. He created us as male and female, not non-binary, gender fluid, or transgender. There are some people who have ambiguous genitalia or chromosomal abnormalities; however, these are scientifically verifiable and observable anomalies. They are not subjectively determined through emotional perception.

Many LGBTQ advocates will claim that homosexual attractions and transgender identities are biologically fixed and unchangeable. They claim that if we try to get counseling to change our orientation or to embrace our birth gender, we’ll become suicidal. That isn’t what the research shows. Multiple peer reviewed studies report the opposite. A study conducted by Joseph Nicolosi and others in 2000 found that even those who didn’t experience a significant shift in their sexual attractions reported improvement in their emotional well-being.1 Jay Greene, Ph.D., senior research fellow in the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy, found that transgender affirming treatments actually increase suicide risk. 2 You can read more about what research shows regarding change allowing therapy for unwanted same-sex attraction and gender confusion online at https://recmin.org/s/Research-for-SSA-and-GD-221202.pdf in the article “What Does Research Conclude About Counseling for Unwanted Same-Sex Attraction and Gender Dysphoria?”

The Bible gives us hope for transformation in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 NLT:

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 NLT 9 Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, 10 or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God. 11 Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

What does the journey out of sexual brokenness and into sexual wholeness look like? My own journey has led me through several seasons of Living Waters, professional therapy, and countless hours of prayer ministry. It requires us to open our hearts to the Lord and safe others and be honest about our desires, our wounds, our sins. It requires us to deny our flesh, take up our cross, and follow Jesus (Matthew 16:24). Denying ourselves – our fleshly desires – isn’t easy. That is one of the many places where we learn to fight. It is one of the many places where we need to accept the Lord’s invitation in Isaiah 1:18 NKJV, “‘Come now, and let us reason together,’ says the Lord, ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.’” Reasoning implies disagreement, or at least a debate of ideas. When we are tempted, emotionally distraught, or struggling in the battle, the Lord invites us to reason with Him. He wants to hear our heart. He wants relationship. He ties that time of reasoning to our victory in the battle over sin. Relationship with Him transforms hearts that are stained like scarlet into hearts that are purified as new fallen snow.

dan receiving prayer at the leaders’ day during restored hope network’s HOPE 2022 conference.

The battle is won through relationship with the Lord. Sometimes that relationship occurs as we meet with Him one on one. Other times, our relationship with the Lord is developed as He meets us through His body – through other Christian brothers and sisters. The thought of honest, vulnerable relationship can be frightening to those of us who have been abused in relationship. That’s one of the areas where we may need to reason with the Lord and ask Him to help us know who to trust, and how to trust. We are wounded in relationship, and the Lord brings us healing in relationship. That’s Jesus’ heart for those who follow Him. Towards the end of His earthly ministry, He gave us a new commandment, “‘Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.’” (John 13:34-35 NLT) Learning to love and trust others takes work. Often, it’s part of the battle. It takes relationship with the Father to learn to trust, forgive, and love.

The Lord has brought me a lot of healing through my individual prayer times with Him; yet, He has brought me far more healing as He flows through other imperfect people in the Body of Christ. He has brought healing from the father wound through the older men in the church who have spoken into my life. He has brought healing from sexual abuse through safe men and women who have sat with me in the pain of the abuse and walked with me to Jesus. He has healed me from the mother wound through relationships with safe, godly women who prayed for me and spoke words of encouragement. None of these people brought healing through human effort. They were godly vessels who allowed the grace of God to flow through them. None of them were perfect. Neither am I. Sometimes we offend each other. As we learn to rely on God and walk in humility, we learn to work through our differences and forgive one another. That brings further healing and further victory. Victory through relationship.

Through the years, the shards of glass in my heart have become smoother. Many of the broken pieces have been joined back together. This is a lifelong process. Jesus has healed the wounds of abuse from my mother by meeting me in the memories – in the pain – and cleansing me with His blood. In one memory, I could see Him picking me up after the abuse and wrapping me in a white blanket. He held me lovingly and comforted me. In another memory, I felt like I could never be cleansed of the dirtiness of the abuse. The Lord moved in and I could feel the power of the Holy Spirit pushing the shame and dirtiness out of me from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. Years after my father passed away, the Lord helped me to open my heart back up to my dad, at least in my memories of him. He showed me ways that my father did reach out to me and speak truth and empowerment into my heart. The older I get, the more I appreciate my earthly father. The Lord has healed the pain of being abused by the older boy as He brings many safe men into my life that I can be honest and vulnerable with. These are godly men who know me in my strengths as well as my weaknesses. They don’t take advantage of my brokenness, but walk with me to Jesus where I can receive even more healing. The Lord has given me the family that I truly wanted deep down in my heart. My wife is my best friend. Our family has had its challenges through the years. We have had tragedy. We have had blessing. Through it all, my wife and I have walked to Jesus for His help. Rather than being defeated by the challenges of life, He has empowered us to stand strong in the battle and find our strength in Him. He continues to give us beauty for ashes (Isaiah 61:3). He truly does heal the brokenhearted.

Everyone’s healing journey is different. Some challenges may continue in your life that haven’t continued in mine, and vice versa. Whether the Lord calms the storms in your life, or walks with you in the raging storms, He is faithful. He will never give up on you. In the words of Philippians 1:6 NLT, “And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”

If we at Reconciliation Ministries can help you in any way, call us at 586.739.5114. We offer biblically based professional therapy, prayer ministry, mental health coaching, and support groups to help you on your journey.

References:

1 Nicolosi, J., Byrd, A.D., and Potts, R.W. (2000) Retrospective self-reports of changes in homosexual orientation: A consumer survey of conversion therapy clients. Psychological Reports, 86, 1071-1088.

2 Green, Jay. (2022) Puberty Blockers, Cross-Sex Hormones, and Youth Suicide. The Heritage Foundation June 13, 2022. Retrieved from https://www.heritage.org/gender/report/puberty-blockers-cross-sex-hormones-and-youth-suicide on 12/19/2022.

Photo of broken mirror used under license with www.shutterstock.com. Photos of baptism and man in blue shirt courtesy of www.unsplash.com.

© 2023 Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan, Inc. This article may be reproduced and distributed as long as no fee is charged and credit is given.