A Sister's Love

Join me today as I navigate through the loss of my baby sister, facing hard truths and processing the darkness in His marvelous Light. It's been a week and a day since the phone call came; fortunately, when a family has been fragmented and torn apart by childhood trauma, Lord Jesus can restore the lost time. Creating a masterpiece out of the splinters of brokenness. 

My sister and I had closure before she passed away. God had brought us back together a few years ago and allowed us to grieve the loss of our childhood, our family, and our expectations of how things should have been. Opening lines of communication that only the love of Jesus could restore. 

We let go and in the process, freed ourselves of sibling guilt, regret, and the pain experienced in the aftermath of childhood rape, sex trafficking, parental abandonment, and generational trauma. 

Many who experienced incest, child rape, abandonment, or the death of a parent (spiritual or physical) can relate to this episode. Join in and shed layers, all while being built back up by the love of Christ. 

Warning: This episode will be live, raw, real, and can be triggering. Viewer and listener discretion is advised. 

Hotline information: https://www.reflectivespacesministry.com/contactandhotlinesupport

Please check out my (His) Grief Series: When the Call Comes, The Unfairness of it All, and Finish Your Race on the Reflective Spaces Ministry, Corp Podcast, and YouTube channel.  Podcast on Buzzsprout, Apple, and more. 

Let's walk together to wholeness. Healing is our portion. 

Blessings and peace,

Tammy Toney-Butler

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Transcript

Welcome to today's episode of Reflective Hour with Tammy Toney-Butler. I'm your host, but we all know who the real host of this show is, and that's Christ. Holy Spirit, come. Have your way in this time that we have together. May they see you and not me. May they glean from you and draw from your wellspring of living water. May they draw from your strength, O God, that carries us through every storm, every trial, everything that we face. We get through it in his strength and not our own. Holy Spirit, help me today to deliver your truth in this difficult subject. There is a reason that you wanted me to come on and a reason why. of the timing because I tried to do this a little bit earlier and could not do the episode due to a coughing spasm and many other things to where I realized it wasn't the right time. I've followed Christ a long time now and I've learned that difficulties that we face or delays, things that would typically have aggravated me in the past, I now realize are little ways that he protects us. And so this is the time that I'm coming on. This is now. It's his show. And even if the ninety-nine are safe, he goes after the one. And someone needs to hear this message that he has for you today. So Holy Spirit, let them see you and not me. Guide us into all truth. In the name of your precious son, Lord Jesus, we pray. Abba, Father. Amen. This episode is called A Sister's Love. Many of you know I lost my baby sister a week ago now, yesterday. We had been... through a difficult time. We had a difficult path as children. Our mother opened us up to victimization over and over again. There were many times I experienced profound guilt because I couldn't protect my little sister from what was happening. There were other times that I was grateful that he passed my door, my bed, and went to hers. Mind you, I was a child, a little girl, and so was she. We endured so much, but in the end, She knew Jesus and drew from his strength and God reconciled our relationship even. And so for the past five years, I was able to bond with my little sister in a way that we never could as children. We were able to get past the darkness and see the light and through the love of Christ, through the lens of faith, we were able to communicate and let go. Let go of things that no longer served us. Let go of the past so we could move forward into our future. Little did I know, I was only going to have about five years with her. But I'm so grateful for that time that we had. And the closure that it brought to us as sisters, as individuals who had been victimized horribly, as children, at no fault of our own. I don't blame my mother. My mother had her own trauma she never dealt with, and she parented in survival mode, which opened us up to victimization over and over again. forgave her. She did the best she could and she loved us in the only way that she could. I let the bitterness and the unforgiveness go a long time ago because I knew that I couldn't stay there and dwell there or I would never be set free and move into all that God had for me to help deliver his sheep out of bondage because you can get out of Egypt but does Egypt get out of you? Those of us who face trauma as children, who have siblings, it's exponentially harder to grieve when something happens to us, to one of us. It brings up the past all over again. But you can refuse to go back there. You can refuse to partner with what once broke you. You're stronger than that. You're rooted in Christ. He will see you through no matter what storm you face. He's with you in the boat. This has been a challenging week, but I draw from the communication that my sister and I had, things that we were able to overcome and her perspective on things that helped me be a better minister, a better evangelist. person who wants to walk the others through and bring light where there was darkness. And through me and my sister opening up very tough lines of communication, we learned little truths that helped us. I told her the things that I just told you. She said too, she had some of those same thoughts. Why couldn't she protect me? Why wouldn't he come to her bed instead of mine and leave me alone? She was so strong. We both were. Again, we were children. We had no control over what happened to us. You don't either. You don't either. You couldn't control what happened to your brothers and sisters. You couldn't control the outcome of the situation you faced. We try to protect, we try to hang on, we try to control, but there is no control. It's a farce. We don't have it. We live in a fallen world, but what we can do is we can draw strength in Lord Jesus and our faith will see us through no matter what storm we faced. He brought my sister and I back together and gave us closure, gave us restoration. Maybe it looked differently than I wanted to, but he did. I wanted my sister to have many more years. I wanted to take away the darkness she faced. I wanted to give her a better life. But the life that she had in Jesus was enough for her. We often can put unrealistic expectations on ourselves and others. We can want outcomes, but maybe that's our flesh. We have to seek God's will for our life. We have to keep going despite the storm. My sister's not suffering anymore. She's in a better place. Trauma destroyed. my sister and she coped in the only way she knew how. She had her own trials, her own struggles. She was one of the strongest women I'd ever met because she was able to move past her past and seek a relationship with God and help others. She helped me. She helped me. She was my biggest cheerleader. She would pray for me when I'd go out to minister to others. And it's funny, even though she was in Texas, she always knew when I needed her. She would text me, say she was praying for me. Prayer is the greatest weapon we have. And although she was wheelchair bound in sickness, She was able to focus on the healer. The healer. Trauma took my father. He died by suicide. When I was a teenager, we buried him on Father's Day. He survived Vietnam, but it was still in him when he left. He turned to alcoholism to cope, worked himself. He was a police officer. But he sadly lost his battle. My mom, trauma destroyed my mother. She died also from complications, health problems, brought on from various addictions and things that we use to try to cope with the icky, the shame, the guilt, the fear, the regret, the self-loathing, self-condemnation. The guilt, the sibling guilt, the things that we feel. Maybe you left your home and you left your brothers and sisters in darkness. But what choice did you have? You were a child too. You ran away or turned eighteen and got out. Don't feel guilty over that. You did what you had to do to survive. But what we can do now is refuse to let one more brother or sister, man or woman, little girl or little boy be destroyed by trauma. We can rise up and we can say no more. No more will be victimized on my watch. No more families will be destroyed like mine was. God is with us. He is in charge. We can paint the world we want to see one family, one community at a time. I choose the light. I choose to remember my sister. I choose to remember my mother and my father. I love them and they loved me. And so we fight. We fight so that no other family faces what we face. And it's destroyed by trauma, by questions of why that destroy you because you'll never get answers for the why. Stop asking. Don't put your foot back in the past. Move past the grief. Walk towards your purposeful path that God has for you. You'll use those storms that you walk through. It's experiential knowledge. You'll draw strength from it. You'll remember that God carried you through. No matter what's coming your way, he'll carry you through that. Because you're rooted so deeply in him, you're abiding in the vine of truth. And nothing or no one will separate you from the love of Jesus. He will never leave you nor forsake you. He's your redeemer. So you stand firm. Forgive yourself. I want you to forgive yourself. I want you to forgive your parents. I want you to forgive your siblings. I want you to focus on a reunion. a rekindling, a restoration of a broken relationship, recognizing that when we're wounded, we can wound others. But when we look through the lens of Christ, through the lens of faith, and we go in a different perspective, we realize we're all shattered, broken pieces of glass, fragmented by the storms that we've endured, And the only one that can mend us, put us back together and make us whole is Lord Jesus Christ. Draw from him today. Draw from his strength. Draw from his strength. Move past the grief and the loss and trust him with what's coming next. He will guide you. He will strengthen you. This is a year of hope. This is a year of joy. This is a year of peace. This is a year of love. I choose to focus on what I've gained and not what I've lost. And the richest woman in the world, he's given me so much. I sleep at night. I have someone in my boat, no matter what storm I face. There are some storms that you have to walk through. And there are some storms that you can pray away. Sometimes you have to walk through the fiery furnace. And other times you can avoid it. But like with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, Jesus is in the furnace with you. is with you. You do it in his strength, his power, his mind, not your own. And that's huge. Don't be shaken by the darkness in the world. Choose the light. Focus on the light. God is in charge. God is in charge. Lord Jesus is with you. Let his spirit guide you the Holy Spirit into all truth. You'll know your next steps. He'll give you the strength to endure, to get out of bed, to maybe make that phone call to a loved one that you've been avoiding. Step out in faith. It's time for a restoration of families. It's time to get back what all the locusts stole. The canker and the pommel one. This is the year of abundance. This is the year we get it all back. Everything that was taken from us. This is the year you move into complete wholeness and abundant life. This is your year. Step in to who God's called you to be. He alone will bring you out. He alone. Thank you, Jesus, Holy Spirit. I don't know who this is for, but I want you to listen to it and draw strength from it. I want you to check out the grief series that he had me do this past week. I wanted to run from the pain. Well, my flesh did. But I'm victorious in Christ Jesus. So I use the pain for purpose. And we did a grief series, me and the Holy Spirit. It's on our Reflective Spaces ministry channel, YouTube channel, podcast formats. I recommend that you watch the first one when the call comes. And then the second one, the unfairness of it all. And then the third one, finish your race. We all have a race to run. Our loved ones get to the finish line. Sometimes before us. And they're waiting for us in heaven when we go through those pearly gates ourselves. Just because my sister was called before me doesn't mean that I can shrivel up, stay in bed, refuse to show up. I don't have that luxury. Children are dying. People are dying. It's time for us to show them the light and love of Jesus Christ. It's time for them to have a relationship with Jesus, not just religion, but a relationship. It's time for you to step into all God's called you to be. This is your year of freedom. This is your year that you get to meet Jesus. The Jesus of the scriptures. It's time for another Jesus revolution. It's time for us to walk in the fullness of life. Evil doesn't control us. We have the power. We are in charge. It's your year. Walk in it. Glory be. That's all he has for you today. That's all he has for you today. That's all I have for you today. Thank you, Father. Thank you, Lord Jesus. May his peace overtake you. May you get rest. May you be replenished and have fresh oil in your lamp. Because he's coming for his bride. we all need to be ready we all need to be ready we all need to be ready god bless you and keep you god bless you and keep you