Candid Conversations: Deep Hurts Handling Criticism and Judgement | Joyce Meyer

Joyce and Ginger share a Candid Conversation—Joyce Meyer Ministries’ new series in which the ladies discuss topics Joyce seldom shares in her conference teachings. In this first program, Joyce shares what has caused her the most pain as an adult – judgment and criticism – and how God showed her ways to win the battle over the pain and hurt of rejection, in this very candid conversation between friends.

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well joyce we are starting something new

today and this was your idea

you wanted to be able to share some

things that you don’t normally

talk about at conferences and you’re

always

so open you talk about everything but

we’re calling this candid conversations

because it’s the opportunity to talk

about some things that

maybe you just talk about with a friend

that you wouldn’t always share at a

conference

it’s going to be hard because i share a

lot of stuff you do

there are certain subjects today’s

subject is not one of them but there are

certain subjects that i don’t

talk about a lot in conferences because

they don’t necessarily fit the whole

crowd

sure and so uh we’ll get around to

to some of those but the subject matter

for today i think is going to be helpful

to a lot of people

i do too and i i think it’s one of those

great friend-to-friend conversations

one of the things that that i had asked

you at one point was

what is one of the most hurtful things

that you ever had to face

as an adult and you said

it’s been criticism and judgment right

tell me about how that happened and what

it’s felt like and how you’ve dealt with

it

well there’s been several different

instances i mean there was a situation

where i was judged unfairly by

a group of women that i was really close

to and

i’ve actually discovered i believe the

devil uses the pain of rejection

to keep people from going forward

because if i look back and have the time

to tell my whole story which i don’t

i mean every time when god was calling

me into ministry

i was rejected by family and friends at

that time and i mean

rejected like if you’re going to do that

then we can’t have anything else to do

with you

wow because they really didn’t feel like

that a woman being in ministry was

correct and i didn’t have the right

education and who did i

who do you think you are and you know it

was

that has to hurt people that you love

most because our life was really

involved with all these people you know

and and it was a group of church friends

which

makes it even harder and it can it can

confuse you too because you think well

am i right am i hearing from god or

am i really making a big mistake and so

i think the enemy really

came against me at that time because he

did not want me

to step out and do this but then also

you know god usually promotes us in

degrees

you’ll like i taught a home bible study

of about 25 people for five years well

then god told me it was time to lay that

down and

and to do something new you know

i didn’t know what the new thing was

going to be yet but then i experienced

rejection

on that level because you know a lot of

times when you feel like you’re supposed

to do something

everybody else didn’t hear from god what

you did and so

we all tend to be a little selfish and

there was a certain amount of people

that didn’t want that bible study to

stop

they wanted me to keep doing what i had

been doing

and then again at another level and then

again at another

and so i finally realized you know

this is really the enemy just he’s using

the pain of rejection

you know i probably had what

what i call a root of rejection in my

life

from the rejection i experienced in my

childhood

from my dad you know he

not maybe the normal kind of rejection

but he was sexually abusing me so i was

rejected as a normal daughter and used

for something else and it made my

personality pretty strange and i wasn’t

allowed to have

friends and just a lot of different

things and so

i think when you have that root of

rejection in your life you get to the

point where you’re so afraid of that

pain

that things will cause you to feel

rejected that

might not bother most people and then on

top of that god creates us for

acceptance

and so getting rejected or being judged

and criticized which is the same

thing you know when somebody criticizes

you you feel rejected

when they judge you it’s very hurtful i

think when people judge you because

a lot of times people judging they don’t

even know you

especially when you’re in the public

like i am right

so one of the other times that was

really really hard for me was

a media thing where newspapers had asked

to come and do a

big piece on our ministry and they made

it sound like it was going to be

really great and really helpful to us

and they especially wanted to

you know talk about our missions and we

hadn’t had that much experience with

the media and

i mean what they did was just horrendous

i mean they were just outright lies and

the thing is is people have a tendency

to believe what they read

yeah or what they’re told especially if

it seems kind of

juicy and naughty right they want right

and you had a situation i have similar

to that

and it hurts like crazy it really does

it took me a long time

long time to get over that i mean i

would

i remember going into a coffee shop to

get a coffee and

there my face was on the front page of

the paper and

it wasn’t a very pretty face you know

they managed to pick the

ugliest face they could find while i was

preaching which you know when you’re

teaching and preaching

yeah catch somebody in the yeah you know

so i looked

like i was really mad and angry and um

did you just want to hide i mean when

it’s so public like that i was so

i was embarrassed and then pretty much

everywhere i went for a couple of months

if i went to a restaurant

even the waiters or the waitresses would

say oh you’re that lady that’s been in

the newspapers

and then for a while i tried to justify

myself and

one of my kids told me just don’t even

try that because to be honest when you

do

it just almost makes it sound like

you’re making excuses and it’s even

harder what about your situation

i i had the same thing it was just a

shock and it was very public because i

was in the public eye

at that time as well and you feel

so rejected like you said you you feel

so like someone just kind of

took you and threw you aside because

it’s such a surprise and such a shock

and it hurts to your core

it’s not true so like you said

immediately you just want to shout from

the root tops

what the truth is but the sad fact is

most people don’t care about the truth

yeah that’s that you know finally

the paper did print a retraction on some

of the things because they just

absolutely were not

true but that wasn’t on the front page

right like the other stuff

right but that that was painful

and very hurtful to me because it was so

public

but i think when you have a close friend

people that you really

trust do that to you like in some of

these other situations

i just think you you know you’re dealing

with abandonment

you it affects your life because you’ve

been involved with these people

and your social life has revolved

around them and it

it it’s just very painful and so you

know i’m sure that there’s people

watching today that

probably are going through the same

thing right now and

one of the things that really oh it did

really help me when i realized that it

was really

satan that was

arranging it because it really it is so

painful

that actually they say i was doing some

study recently that

an mri if you do an mri when someone

has recently been rejected that

the way things show on your on your

brain the lights that light up or

whatever

it shows the same way as it does if

you’re in physical pain

and so and i personally think that

emotional pain

if it’s really severe is even harder

than physical pain i mean you at least

can take an aspirin or

right two or three or whatever that can

go away

and you know might help that pain but

that emotional pain

i mean it’s it’s a loss

that actually you have to grieve over

in your life so when you began to

realize

that it was an attack of satan did

did that help you place your your anger

in the right

place i guess instead of wanting revenge

or being so angry at those people who

obviously did the wrong thing did it

shift your focus

well i think that helped me to realize

it was the enemy but i think the

the big thing that really helped me

was to learn and realize

that god is our justifier

he’s the one that if we let it go if we

um release it to god

then he’s the one that will bring

justice in our lives

if we trust him and so it was a

combination of

realizing that jesus had been rejected

and he was rejected by family he was

rejected by

his disciples in the garden of

gethsemane when he needed them the most

and so in some ways it’s a test it’s a

and you know we are tested in life you

know our our faith is tested and our

trust in god is tested and

and uh i think it also there there is a

good outcome

because it does help you learn not to

put too much trust in people

that’s so true and there’s a scripture i

think it’s john 2 24 and john 3

1 that said jesus for his part

did not trust himself to his disciples

because he knew

human nature that’s in the amplified

bible and

it didn’t say he didn’t trust his

disciples

he said he didn’t trust himself to his

disciples

and so like those deepest innermost

parts of him

yeah and so even like when you’ve got a

good friend to be honest

there’s some things you really just need

to keep between you and god

you know it’s almost like

i mean the bible does say that god is a

jealous god and i think there’s

a part of us that belongs to him that he

really doesn’t want us giving

to anyone else and so

those things you know learning that it

was the enemy

learning to trust god to justify me

and there’s a scripture in first peter 2

23 that said

you know when jesus was

attacked or when he was hurt he didn’t

he didn’t give back the same thing in

return that he got

but i love the way the amplified bible

says that he trusted himself and

everything to the one who judges fairly

so you know i would say for anybody

today that’s going through that

that they really need to believe

that god if they’re being mistreated

that god will bring justice in their

life

and this this one group of people

that hurt me um

i mean they just they started imagining

things i guess you know

it’s amazing what one person gossiping

can do

and they started thinking things that

just absolutely

weren’t true i mean these were people i

was really close to

and uh god was

in the process the same time of moving

me out of that

place that i was at at the time to

actually

start the ministry the way it is now i

mean it was much smaller and we had a

lot still to go through

but i had been working at a church and

he

wanted me to start traveling and doing

other things

and so boy did the devil want to stop

that oh my god

he tries to stop the birth of things

and he tries to stop the finish of

things the enemy will really try to get

you not to finish what you start

and also when you’re trying to birth

something new

you know just like giving birth to a

baby is painful right

giving birth to something new in your

life can also can hurt painful and to be

honest sometimes you just have to let it

hurt

yeah and trust god and it it took about

three years with this situation

with these friends at the church and

i finally did get an apology but it was

10

years wow well joyce thank you i think

that’s

great advice because we do all go

through

times like that where we feel criticized

judged rejected and it hurts so much we

have all been there or we will be

so do you let me ask you first before we

close do you ever have times in your

life

where you get a check from god about

maybe being maybe you need to just not

be quite so open with somebody

i do i do and it’s rare because

i’m one of those people who is very

trusting

and you know i i i like all people

yeah and so when i get that check i

really

pay attention to it because i’ve had it

a few times yeah that it didn’t seem to

make any sense

right like i i’m not sure why i feel

this way there’s no reason for it

but i just know i’m not supposed to get

real close to this person

and i’m grateful when it happens you

don’t always know why but you want to

follow the leading the holy spirit

well i would imagine that there’s

somebody watching today that

needed to hear that yeah right now and

it may keep them from some deeper pain

later on but hey the big thing is

forgive

forgive forgive and forgive as quick as

you possibly can

because that’s what opens the door for

god to get involved

and bring justice

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