God, it’s Your Turn - episode 198
“It’s already done.” This is the moment of surrender when you know you have done all you can and you recognize the best choice is to release the outcome. This week’s guest Sarah Harbut leaves what happens next to God. She looks to him for guidance, and she seeks his voice over her own. Sometimes those are hard to differentiate. And that is another level of surrender.
Sarah was led to write her story because she felt there was at least one someone out there who needed to hear it. She experienced generational domestic abuse. Writing about it was painful, and healing. Sarah knew this was the beginning of surrendering to the right influences. When you use your voice you have peace and are secure with who you are. What comes next? According to Sarah, now it’s God’s turn.
Sarah has been on the podcast before in I’m Going to Write a Book episode 170.
None of it is your fault.
— Sarah Harbut, advice to her 10-year-old-self
Celebrating the release date of her book, Less Fear More Fire
Find Your Fire
Thoughts from God, it’s Your Turn
In the same way Sarah wants to reassure her younger self that none of this was her fault, I want to too. It’s not just Sarah. There are countless people who endure the pain and suffering of abuse. No baby ever born wanted to grow up to be abused or to be an abuser. So what happened? Well, I think that’s where the generational part comes in. When you don’t know better you can’t do better. Just because we want, and even need to be loved, in the healthiest way possible for the best shot at this life, is no guarantee it will happen. I also have no doubt abused children think to themselves, I will never hit my kids. The desire in and of itself is not always enough. Human behavior is complicated and wanting to is only the beginning.
Getting back to Sarah. Her family’s triumph over generational abuse is to be recognized as what is possible. It seems they have dismantled the model they were given, the one they lived out for years, and found a new way forward. It cost though. The price was high: one marriage, one in-tact family, and subsequent poor decisions arrived at through the fresh scars of low self-esteem left from years of trauma. Healing is expensive. It takes time and intention, oh so much time.
It is remarkable to me that Sarah’s mother finally left and took responsibility for not being able to do it sooner. It’s remarkable to me that Sarah’s father eventually took responsibility and came to understand his part in the cycle he perpetuated. They are both changed people. No longer together, but better. And Sarah? She had to experience one more round from the grown up side to say, No more. It stops here.
Less Fear More Fire is for anyone and everyone. It is filled with all the parts of the human experience: the dark underbelly of a chronic lack of resources, the crippling stress of not having enough, of not being enough, and the unspoken code of keeping all the shame, all the details, to yourself. It would be a hard read except for the thread of hope woven throughout, the redemption Sarah finds through love. Love of God, love of child, love of husband, and finally love of self. All the good parts are there. And now Sarah can use it for good so if there is a someone out there who needs to know what is possible they can look no further than her story. It’s all there. Sarah has laid bare her life, offered her hand, and she is waiting, patiently, for you to find your fire.
What good is pain, except that you can help set someone free from theirs.
— RCN
