Written by Joseph Hobbs. Published by Jordan Stafford.

 

I was raised in a rural farming community in south Georgia called Pleasant Hill.  It was about 10 miles from the smallest town and 25 to 30 miles to the bigger town.

I spent my childhood on a farm where we were the only family with children—in a place where segregation was alive, and in your face. There were many Churches in the community and neighbors who claimed to be Christian, but it didn’t always seem like they knew God personally or lived by His standard to love your neighbors as yourself.

As a young adult, while I was struggling to forgive my neighbors, I moved to Minot, ND. I began to see, learn and experience love, value, acceptance, connection, and security with my new neighbors. I began to meet with people, have conversations and read the Bible. These were all new experiences for me and showed me something different.  Sometime later I began to look at how Jesus related to his disciples.I was the fifth child of 11 children. I had parents who did not know how to interact with children, so they left me alone with no answers to my questions. I wondered why our neighbors treated us if as we were aliens and why we were labeled as slow, unintelligent, lazy and not human.  I was ashamed of not knowing who I really was and by my father not knowing how to interact with me as a child, to explain what was going on. As children we learned how to stay in our place and not bring trouble to the family or community.

My journey with Restoring Your Heart began back in Georgia in the mid 80’s when I joined a small church called Grace Free Church. This is where I met Jack Larson who was the Pastor.  I was going through a hard time at work where my co-workers did not want to work with me because I was the only African-American in the department.  They devalued me as a person and tried to find ways to assassinate my character and name to make me leave. Going through this situation brought back many memories of what I went through as a child.

In the RYH interactive group and through RYH workbooks, I started learning how to deal with my wrong thinking, losses and hurts.  I was hurt and I wept. I needed to have a fierce reckoning with what had happened to my community and me, how I felt about it and how it was still affecting my life. I learned that I had to grieve my losses before I could fully forgive those who hurt me as a child.  Those who had stolen my life and the life of my community.

In 2002 when I lost my oldest son in a car accident, it pushed me deep into grief and the pain was very great.  Restoring Your Heart stepped in again to help me to deal with my grief, to heal, and walk through the pain.  I also attended a Compassionate Friends group (group that helps parents and siblings to deal with the loss of a child or sibling.)  While in the group I saw how some people really deal with their pain and others do not. This was another great breakthrough where God and the Holy Spirit worked in my life with healing!  I now understand why grief is the hardest experience to recover from.God took me on a journey to show me how to love my neighbor like He (Jesus) had loved me. I began to see how I had been impacted greatly over the years from those negative messages and was still being impacted during my situation at work. I learned who I was as a person and how to get my needs met in healthy ways. Some years passed and I realized that I could not really mourn my childhood losses or issues without figuring out how to feel the deep pain from my neighbors.  I was taught that forgiveness is at the heart of Christianity. I used to think I understood forgiveness and believing in Jesus made forgiveness easy. Restoring Your Heart helped me to heal, love myself, forgive others, and truly love my neighbor.

As I was healing, God began to show me many people who were hurting, in pain and needed help. He has given me a passion for helping hurting people and Restoring Your Heart is the vehicle which I use to do this. RYH is a process that helps people become aware of how the hurts from the past have affected their present. We learn how to process our pain, grieve over the hurts, to heal, and to come to a place of full forgiveness.

It is still helping me to work through the process every time I facilitate a group.  I continue to heal from past pain and experience greater freedom.  So, I want YOU to join me in this ministry and learn how to help people through their healing process! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About The Author

Joseph Hobbs is part of the Worldwide Discipleship Association staff team and is a member of the Restoring Your Heart team. He facilitates RYH groups and helps write RYH materials.

 

 

 

 

“He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness for the prisoners.” 
                                                                                                                                                                                                   – Isaiah 51:1

In 2007, I was on the brink of ending my life.

I experienced sexual abuse and I was suffering from depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, and sex addiction. But God called me for a mission. He showed me a vision where I was standing in front of hundreds of young people sharing my testimony of God’s faithfulness and how He took me out of my dire situation. The culmination of this vision happened in 2017 – a decade after my suicide attempt.

It was a year of breakthroughs as I started giving talks in different schools around Metro Manila in the Philippines. It was also the same year that God led me to Worldwide Discipleship Association. After one event, I met Rich Smith, a WDA missionary to the Philippines. We talked about our ministries and he introduced me to Restoring Your Heart. That was when the Lord gave me another vision – reaching the brokenhearted, lost, and captive women in society, not only in the Philippines but around the world. 

Then came 2020: Pandemic Year. After going through Restoring Your Heart lessons, Lee asked me to be part of WDA as their Associate Staff in the Philippines. When I said yes to WDA, I said yes to God’s calling. In February 2020, I became a part of WDA, then in March 2020, the pandemic spread all over the world. At the moment when we thought our ministries would fail, the Lord surfaced above us. WDA Leadership Institute started its online classes and I participated both as a student and a facilitator. The opportunity to lead RYH online brought me delight. At first, people were hesitant since everyone was adjusting to the situation, but eventually, we were able to form groups online and finish Processing Pain and Understanding Emotions during the pandemic.

Currently, I have four groups and three of them are online. Two groups are currently waiting for their leadership training, while the other two are in Understanding Emotions. God appointed me to lead groups for the women leaders of Open Door Baptist Church, the staff of Fresh Hope for Families, WDA women leaders in India, and college students supported by St. Mark Foundation. The Lord turned this pandemic around for me because of these women.

I ended up choosing Understanding Emotions: Lesson 4 – Feeling, Thinking, and Acting. I have a soft spot for this lesson because I can relate so much to it. We all want to process old pain so that we can have better actions. 

While we were going through Lesson 4, one member shared:

“When I was a child, I let my brothers and their friends sexually abuse me even if I didn’t like it. Now that I have a boyfriend, I easily give in to sexual pleasure because my body is seeking it. I know that it’s wrong to have sexual relationships before marriage, but I justify it by saying that at least I am experiencing from someone that I trust and not from someone who is abusing me. I feel loved when I have sexual contact with my boyfriend. I know it’s wrong, I confessed it to God and I’m ready to face the consequences of my actions. Because of this lesson, I now understand where my actions are coming from, and I will do my best to reframe my thoughts and feelings. I want to be fully committed to God and be busy with the ministries in the church so that I won’t be tempted. I might have been abused by my brothers, but I don’t want my behavior pattern to be based on my childhood pains.”

As I recall this recording, I shed tears for these ladies. The Lord knows where my foot is treading, He is leading me to these women – women with the same experiences as mine. The Lord has orchestrated these ladies to be part of the groups that He appointed me. Exactly as He cast in His vision for me, “reaching the brokenhearted, lost and captive women in the society, not only in the Philippines but around the world.” Every time we have RYH, I know that the room (even online) is filled with the Holy Spirit. I cannot speak and encourage without Him. The Lord has reassured these ladies, that no matter how sinful, dirty or unworthy they think they are, the Lord still sees them as His precious daughters. 

Dear reader, as you browse through this RYH Moment, I want you to hear God’s message for you right now. You are who you are for a reason. No matter what pains, losses, or mistakes you have gone through in this life, God has a purpose for you. You may not like what happened to you, but please know that the Lord is with you all the way. Even during times that you feel so far from Him, never once did he leave you nor forsake you. Now, let Him reign in your life. 

 

 

About The Author

Mabuhay! My name is Reign Astorga Bucsit, a Filipina, residing in Bulacan, the Philippines with my daughter and mother. I am a licensed Social Worker, public speaker, and children’s rights advocate. My scope of work is in Metro Manila and provinces in the northern part of the Philippines. 

 

Fayetteville, GA, July 29, 2021 — Worldwide Discipleship Association (WDA) announced today that it will publish the Spanish edition of its Restoring Your Heart (RYH) workbook, “Procesando El Dolor (Processing Pain),” this summer on Kindle and in print. The workbook is part of WDA’s new “RYH en Español” initiative, which will expand the reach of the Restoring Your Heart ministry and offer emotional restoration to Spanish-speaking communities.

According to Patty Alba-Hughes, the head of RYH en Español, the publication of the “Procesando El Dolor” workbook is only the first step for the new program. Alba-Hughes plans to start offering RYH en Español groups on August 10. Group registration is available online at restoringyourheart.com.

“There are a lot of people who need to walk in the freedom and the promise that God has for them,” said Alba-Hughes. “Now I understand that it was necessary for me to experience healing first so that I can be a part of their emotional healing. I am completing my training as an RYH Group Facilitator so that I can walk alongside other women, helping them find freedom in Christ, and so I can bring RYH en Español around the world.”

Restoring Your Heart en Español is launching this year. If you have a heart for Spanish speakers and want to help RYH with this ministry, or if you want to offer these RYH group experiences in your Spanish-speaking church, community, or ministry, please email Patty at patty.hughes@disciplebuilding.org.

Restoring Your Heart offers a series of safe, small group experiences for those who desire freedom from emotional hurt and unprocessed pain. This ministry is delivered through the church and other organizations via trained leaders who facilitate safe, gender-specific small groups to their congregation and surrounding community. RYH was developed by Jack Larson, an Atlanta-based pastor, and a team of theologians, mental health professionals, and lay leaders who collaborated to produce workbooks and group experiences geared toward helping individuals process past pain, understand emotions, and conquer shame. Over the past 12 years, the Restoring Your Heart ministry has transformed thousands of lives, made the Church a place of healing again, and offered marriages and families an emotional toolkit that has led to greater freedom in Christ. Restoring Your Heart is a ministry of Worldwide Discipleship Association (WDA), Inc.

Media Contacts
Worldwide Discipleship Association
Jordan Stafford (Marketing Coordinator)
770-460-1337
www.disciplebuilding.org/
Or contact Jennifer McClin (Director of Generosity)

Fayetteville, GA, April 13, 2021 –(PR.com)– Worldwide Discipleship Association (WDA) will present “An Intro to the Restoring Your Heart Ministry” webinar on April 29 at 7:00 p.m. The event will be hosted on Zoom and feature guest speakers Mel Turner and Linda Dukes.

At the “Intro to the Restoring Your Heart Ministry” webinar, participants will learn how the Restoring Your Heart (RYH) ministry model works, how to join an RYH Safe Group, how to become trained as an RYH Group Leader, and how to offer RYH groups at their church.

Registration is free and tickets may be purchased online at Eventbrite.com or on the Restoring Your Heart Facebook page.

“Restoring Your Heart has provided a safe and comfortable environment where I was able to share my feelings and analyze my past,” said Matthew Ong, a staff member at Ikthus church in Bacolod, Philippines and an RYH men’s group participant. “My group has helped me grow as a disciple by being available and attentive to listen and grieve with me and providing knowledge that is essential for emotional and spiritual growth.”

Worldwide Discipleship Association (WDA) is an interdenominational Christian ministry whose mission is to serve the church worldwide by developing Christ-like character in people and equipping them to disciple others like Jesus. WDA has been serving the metro-Atlanta area since 1974.

Media Contacts
Worldwide Discipleship Association
Jordan Stafford (Marketing Coordinator)
770-460-1337
www.disciplebuilding.org/
Or contact Jennifer McClin (Director of Generosity)

Grief at a Wedding by Sarah Johnson

Just a couple of Saturdays ago, I was a bridesmaid in a dear friend’s wedding. Of course, we had the wedding rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner the night before so the whole weekend was wedding centric. In all the prep and celebration, my mind lingered on the many tender father daughter moments I witnessed: the bride’s father tearing up while practicing giving her away, his gently teasing speech at the rehearsal dinner, him walking her down the aisle during the ceremony, the two of them dancing at the reception. My mind focused on these moments in particular because they filled my heart with both joy and pain and a longing for something I will never experience.

My friend’s wedding made me remember my sister’s wedding almost two decades earlier, when my own daddy’s eyes filled with unspoken emotions from giving his daughter away. It’s an expected rite of passage for many fathers and daughters. After my sister’s wedding, I would often imagine my daddy’s reaction to my wedding day and what he would have to say about his baby girl getting married. I had the song for our father daughter dance picked out by the time I was twelve years old. But, these things will never come to pass. 

The cancer took my daddy fifteen days before my twentieth birthday. I didn’t even know who I was at that age and my daddy would never get to know the woman I would become. During the months that followed his death, the weight of all the moments that we would never share crushed me. No proud daddy at my college graduation. No concerned father to check in with during my solo trip overseas. No sage advice as I purchased my first car. No wedding dance. Any children I have will enter the world down one grandfather. I have long since healed from feeling crushed by my daddy’s absence but I still grieve these lost moments whenever I’m reminded of all the nevers. 

 

“The guilt and shame slid away when I realized that my pain didn’t fail Jesus. Grief becomes a blessing, as sadness and joy intertwine to remind me how passionately I am loved.”

In the years I spent processing and healing from the loss of my daddy, I encountered some churches and ministries that reacted to my grief as though my feelings were sinful. They told me that my grief failed to show the Savior’s redemptive work in my life. My sadness made Jesus-the-giver-of-unconditional-joy appear to be a liar. I should just choose to be happy. All this well-meaning advice only served to heap guilt and shame on top of my grief.
My need for healing brought me to a Restoring Your Heart group, which helped to undo the good intentioned but terrible advice about grief I had received. Through RYH, I learned that my feelings of grief weren’t sinful because God created all emotions, including the so-called negative ones, for our good and His glory. The guilt and shame slid away when I realized that my pain didn’t fail Jesus. Grief becomes a blessing, as sadness and joy intertwine to remind me how passionately I am loved. 
As I recently celebrated my friend’s wedding with all the father-daughter moments, I didn’t just mourn the loss of what I’ll never have; I also rejoiced that I am a precious daughter of the King of the universe. I may never have a father-daughter wedding dance or someone to walk me down the aisle but I do have a Heavenly Father who knows me intimately and loves me deeply. While father-daughter moments remind me of what I’ll never experience in this lifetime, they also reflect how my God loves me, which is a comfort that reaches to the foundation of my identity.