Generational Abuse

In this very tough topic in which none wants to talk about. How abuse travels through family lines including biblical examples. Suggestion to read the book "It didnt start with you." by Mark Wolyn. Helping individuals and families on their path to true healing. Sometime shave to uncover the wounds to heal from the inside out. 

Transcript

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Hi friends, welcome to Untold Silence, where we talk about the things that our heart says, but we are afraid to say it out loud. Um, this week's topic is about generational abuse, and um this is very close to my heart, and this is probably gonna offend a lot of people, but the truth needs to come out. So I encourage you listen to the whole message with a whole heart, and um may it bless you in ways, even though it won't may not bust you right now, it might bust you later. So let's get started. Oh, I also want to say thank you for the prayers. I know last time I did record my podcast, I was sick, so I feel a lot better, still have a residual cough, but on the road to my men for recovery, so thank you. Um let's get started. Some pain doesn't start with us, we just carry it on. It starts before we were born, and the way our parents were spoken to, when our in the way our parents were spoken to, and how our grandparents were punished, and the secrets nobody dared to name. Many of us grew up hearing. The sins of the fathers are visited upon children to the third and fourth generation. For a long time, I heard that like a curse. Like God saying, You're doomed because of what they did. But what if there's also a warning label? A giant flashing sign from heaven that says, What you don't heal, you hand down. What you don't face, your children will feel. This is untold silence. That's why I'm doing this. I'm Chelsea. And today we're stepping into the quiet places of generational abuse, the patterns that feel normal, the wounds we call culture, the harm we disguise as love. Not to condemn our families, but to understand them. Not to stay stuck in the past, but to stop passing it forward. Let's talk, let's start in a very old family. When most people think of Abraham, they think of faith, but there's a thread in his story, fear. Abraham is afraid of a powerful man who will kill him to take his beautiful wife. So what does he do? He lies. He calls his wife his sister, puts her at risk, and saves himself. Later, his son Isaac does almost the exact same thing, same fear, same lie, new generation. Then you get to Jacob, Abraham's grandson. His very name is tied to a deception. He tricks his brother, he tricks his father. He gets tricked himself. The whole family is spinning a web of half-truths, schemes, and favoritism. If that were the modern family, we might hear things like, don't tell your mother. What happens in this house stays in this house. We don't we just don't talk about this. It doesn't look like abuse at first glance. There are many bruises in the story. There may not be many bruises in the story, but there are is emotional and spiritual damage. Children learning that fear is handled with lies, that safety comes from manipulating the truth. That love means covering up instead of opening up. Maybe this sounds a little familiar to you. Smile at church. Don't mention the fighting, don't mention the drinking, don't mention the hands that landed too hard last night. Fear becomes a family language. No one calls it abuse. They call it wisdom, being smart, protecting the family name. If you're listening right now, ask yourself gently. What fears did my family teach me to hide with a smile or a story? Not to attack your parents, not to attack yourself. Just to notice the pattern. Let's move to another famous family in the Bible, David's. David is a man after God's own heart, and also a man with chaos in his home. In David's story, you see power, violence, and then silence, deep heavy silence. In many homes today, the worst thing happens, the worst things that happen aren't shouted. They're buried. Someone explodes, someone is hurt physically or emotionally, and then doors slam, footsteps echo, plates clink in the kitchen, and no one names what happened. The next morning it's as if nothing occurred. Maybe there's an extra nice breakfast, maybe a gift shows up, maybe a joke is made. We're fine. We're always fine. We're a good Christian family. We're a strong family. Don't be dramatic. That silence is not peace. It's just noise turned inward. In some of David's family story, there is an act so terrible it shatters trust in the house. And David doesn't really deal with it. He gets angry. But he doesn't bring full truth and justice to bear. That same pattern shows up in many homes. A parent crosses a line or an older sibling or an uncle, even a spouse. And the response is: we'll just move on. Don't ruin the family. Think of your father's reputation. Think of your spouse's reputation. That mixture of harm and then hush. That's generational abuse. Not just the act, but the system that protects the abuser and sacrifices the wounded. So think about your own upbringing. When conflict happened in your home, what usually followed? Was it yelling? Days of silence, pretending nothing happened, or a real apology and repair. If apology was rare, if repair almost never came, your nervous system learned something. It learned love means tension that never gets resolved. Love means I must swallow my pain to stay connected. That's the script. And scripts get passed down. Let's talk about the kind of abuse that hides in plain sight. The kind we wrap in Bible verses, culture, and jokes. Abuse is not only fists and bruises, it can be constant insults for your own good. Name calling that dismissed with, oh, I'm just teasing. Can't you take a joke? Children being forced to carry adult emotional burdens. A child becoming the therapist to a parent. The one who listens, comforts, calms, the little man of the house, the second mom at age 10. It can be threats. God will be disappointed in you. God will punish you if you don't obey me. It can be shame in spiritual clothing. You're dishonoring your parents just by asking questions. You are rebellious because you have feelings. If you were mocked, humiliated, controlled, or terrified in the name of God, that was not God's heart. Sometimes our parents and their parents used whatever tools they were given. Maybe they were beaten and called it discipline. Maybe they were shamed and called it respect. Maybe they were silenced and called it strength. So they picked up the same tools and used them on us. Often truly believing this is for our own good. When we can be honest about the harm without hating the people, we can say what you did hurt me. What you went through also hurt you, and the pain is real on both sides. Let's slow down and make it simple. Generational abuse often travels like this pain to belief, to behavior, to atmosphere. First there's the pain. Maybe a parent was neglected, hit, or constantly criticized as a child. From the pain, the form of belief, it might sound like children must fear me to respect me. If I'm not in total control, everything will fall apart. No one will ever take care of me, so I must demand. From that belief becomes behavior, screaming, hitting, name calling, silent treatment, threatening to abandon. That behavior creates an atmosphere. Walking on eggshells, tension at the dinner table, smiles in public, terror in private. Never knowing which version of mom or dad is coming through the door. And that atmosphere shapes the next generation's nervous system and faith. The child learns new beliefs. Love is unstable. I have to be perfect to be safe. My feelings are dangerous, dangerous. God must be like this too. Then the child grows up. Unless something interrupts the pattern, they carry those beliefs into their own parenting, relationships, and spirituality. They hate what was done to them, but under stress, they find the same words spilling out of their mouth, the same tone, the same threats. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and his children, same thread, new fabric. There's a book I really like I really encourage you to explore called It Didn't Start With You by Mark Wallen. He talks about inherited family trauma, the idea that some of what we feel and act out didn't begin in our own lifetime, but in the lives of those who came before us. In a way, he's putting modern language to what scripture has shown us in stories for centuries. Unhealed pain in one generation becomes a pattern in the next. If this episode is stirring something in you, I encourage you to read this book or listen to an audiobook. You may even be able to get this audio version through your local library so you don't have to spend anything to start understanding more about your own story. That's what I had to do. Because if it didn't start with you, it also doesn't have to end with you. So here's a question to sit with. I encourage you to just notice it. Put it to words. Because once we can name a sentence, we can begin to rewrite it. Now let's talk about hope. The Bible doesn't only show generational sin, it also shows God stepping in and inviting people to live differently in the middle of our their messy family lives. You're not just a victim of your own family story, you're also an author of the next chapter. A faith language we talk about, in faith language, we talk about repentance, but repentance is more than feeling bad. Repentance is a new mind, which leads to new choices, which slowly becomes new patterns. Imagine someone in Abraham's lion saying, I am terrified. But instead of lying this time, I tell the truth and trust God. Imagine someone in David's house saying, I will not bury this. I will name what happened, I will seek justice and healing, not silence. In your own life, being a pattern breaker might look like sitting with God and for the first time saying, Lord, what happened to me was not okay. It's okay with anything stuff. You may shake, you may feel guilty for even questioning how we've questioning how we've always done it. We all have needs. Today, we walked through ancient homes to look more honestly at our own. We saw fear and lying in Abraham's line, violence and silence in David's house. We named some of the ways abuse hides and normal. Not to live forever in blame, but to live awake. So here's one big question this week. What did you grow up calling normal that was actually hurt? Just one thing. Write that sentence out, circle it. Then if you're willing, ask God. What would healing look like here? Starting with me. Not how do I fix everyone, but how do you begin to free me? This is Untold Silence, where the stories we never named finally find a voice. I'm Chelsea. Thank you for listening. Now, I'm sure, sure many of you noticed that I've also released some music, music videos out there. Um I do write songs along with my podcast too. I did write a song on this matter. It's called Break Breaking the Walls on Generational Abuse. This song is uploaded on Spotify, um, Pandora, YouTube music, and I believe on other forums as well. I don't I can't remember quite all of them. Um, however, I encourage you to listen to this. Listen to my whole album. Um there is I am releasing a music video next week on this subject. So I hope you guys are encouraged. And I pray that blessings come your way. And let's pray before I go. Lord Heavenly Father, we pray that we recognize any tension, any family generational abuse that could be in the family line. I pray that we awaken the spirit with mercy, grace, honesty with ourselves and others, and that we realize, and it's okay to feel, it's okay to get angry, it's okay to recognize that pattern. And God grant us the ability to wash us clean, to choose the right path in which you lead us to do. Lord, thank you every day for your grace, mercy, and even accountability and convictions. And uh bless uh who bless everyone who's watching this. In your name I pray. Amen. Thank you guys for listening to me. Thank you guys for watching. Feel free to share, comment, good or bad. I can take it. If it's bad, I prefer you message me and then we can have a little debate. But we'll we'll see about that. Um, I do have to guard my heart too, because I'm human. But um I'm just doing God's calling and may it bless you. Um have a great day.