Don’t Label Pray

In this episode of Breaking Soul Ties Ministries, 

Minister Kim Bradford speaks about the pain and the label of “bitterness” often placed on divorced women.

Through  testimony and biblical encouragement, this episode reminds listeners to respond with prayer, compassion, and love instead of judgment and labels.

Galatians 6:2 (NIV)
“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

Minister Kim Bradford speaks of Mordecai not in a literal since in her episode of: It’s Not Bitterness, It’s Pain But to inform others that we reap what we sow. The Bible states: Look! The gallows, fifty cubits high, which Haman made for Mordecai, who spoke good on the king’s behalf, is standing at the house of Haman.”

Then the king said, “Hang him on it!”

10 So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the king’s wrath subsided.

Joseph’s brother’s through him in the pit and needed his help to get them out of a famine land

The list can go on in the Bible 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hi everyone. Let's continue walking this divorce of labeling a woman as bitter and what that does, what it feels like, and how does it help? What do you think? Do you think that it helps that woman to label her as bitter? As opposed to lifting her up, as opposed to sitting down with her and praying over her, praying with her, and letting her know that it is okay to be in that space. You see, I realized through my own journey of divorce what people called bitterness in me was often pain, real pain. It was the kind of pain when a mother wakes up in the morning before sending her kids to school. She now sees her child having to carry the burden of brokenness, abandonment, and the absence of her father, a man not being in the household created by divorce. You see, many people see just one word which is bitter, because the man left the woman, or the woman had to leave the man because of continuous malbehavior. These emotions, tears, the frustration, or the exhaustion, and immediately labeling the woman as bitter. Makes that woman clam up, makes the woman stay into the in a shell, bottled up, not knowing who to trust. You see, some people often fail to see that it is grief behind that bitter label. Grief behind that pain of betrayal and abandonment. How do we get past that? You see, it is a silent battle for that woman to actually walk. She has to go behind closed doors and cry to herself and not shear that pain, and even if she is bitter, she still has to keep that bottled up to herself. How does she lift herself up? And how do we lift her up? You see, people don't see the sleepless nights, the prayers, or the burden of trying to hold everything together while watching your children hurting through the pain that comes from divorce. As time went on, I grew in the word of God. I realized that the world conditioned many women to believe that their pain makes them weak, that their pain keeps them in this anger and this bitter, and it begins to stigmatize them and for putting up a front. You see, the woman begins to put up a front that they're not in pain, that even if they're bitter, they say that they're not bitter, but they are experiencing some bitterness, which is understandable. Your whole life is changing, your children is experiencing some kind of pain and rejection and twisted thoughts of what to do, how to handle themselves without that man being around, how to defend themselves without that man being around. And now just looking at one parent when they're going through their pain of questions of what to do of life, of whatever they may experience in life. You see, this label of bitterness presents that challenge for that woman to open up to God that the pain is there, and it presents a challenge for that woman of God to be able to raise that child and build that child up because she's not only have the burden of dealing with the obstacles that comes from divorce, but now she has these obstacles that comes from the labels that people place on her, as such as bitterness, such as get over it, such as let it go, and it's okay to say those things, but it's how we say it, the timing of when we say it, and not backing it up with prayer, not backing it up with assurance that God will bring her out of it, that God will cover her children, that God will deliver her children. That's when it becomes a problem. That's what makes it challenging for anyone to survive, to get through, and then go in the house and raise her children and tell them that the world is not able to see the pain of what it feels like that they are experiencing, that she is experiencing. Of someone with children who needs that covering. So if you know someone who's going through a divorce, don't judge them with a label that restricts them from expressing their pain. Love on them today. Love on them as you would want someone to express that same love to your daughter, your sister, your niece, your mother, grandmother, and or friend. Most of all, love on them the way God has called us to love our sisters and brothers. You see, Galatians 6, 2 NIV tells us, carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. Until we talk again, I hope that you will respond with love to anyone, but most of all to that woman that is carrying the label of bitterness. In Jesus' name, I pray over you. I ask God to bless you and to build you up with words to say to that woman. And sometimes no words at all, just a space to be in that moment. In Jesus' name, amen.