If you have been victimized, you don’t believe you are worthy of respect. You probably don’t even respect yourself.

This leads to a fairy tale mindset where you imagine scenarios where someone comes and rescues you. Living in your imagination feels good. The drawback is it impacts your ability to make wise choices or even be able to discern the true from the false.

Today, I want to tell you it is possible to learn to break the cycle of abuse!

Your identity as a victim had a starting point.  That victimization was written in your DNA and in your brain, shaping who you are today. The cycle of abuse that sets you up to be repeatedly victimized can be broken. It begins with the decision to step out of the victim identity and mindset by not living in your imagination.

You may be thinking predators seem to be drawn to you like a magnet. That is true.

When your trust was betrayed, it set you up to be suspicious of people offering true friendship. The main reason you don’t trust is they don’t look like the rescurer of your imagination.

The flip-side is you quickly trust predators who masquerade as rescuers. You see that person through rose colored glasses and blindly enter a relationship because you “feel safe”.

Feelings feel true. If you grew up in a home where feelings or emotions ruled, you trust your feelings. But feelings lie, they do not determine reality.

Living by your feelings makes you vulnerable and exposes you to danger. Feelings allow you to ignore gut instinct that warns you of danger.

Feelings in turn permit disrespect because the predator knows how to make you “feel special” after they have been abusive. As long as you allow your imagination to determine what is true, you will not be able to break the cycle of abuse.

The seeds of abuse began in the womb. Abuse is like a generational illness that overshadows one’s life. It is written into your DNA! Your DNA programs more than the color of your eyes or hair. It also programs how you face life.

God’s Word says the sins of the fathers are visited upon the 3rd and 4th generations. Science states what happened in your mother’s womb impacts and shapes who you are today.

Victimization is written in the DNA. And DNA sets us up to respond in a prescribed way.

The wonderful thing about DNA and about your brain is both are constantly changing. You have the ability to change your DNA and the way you think. If you change your DNA and your mindset, you begin to break the cycle of abuse. You are not forever locked into one way of being, into depression, fear, failure, or victimization.

You may currently be locked into a limiting belief that prescribes how you think, or behave, or feel. But there is a key to set you free and break the cycle of abuse – if you choose to use it.

Let me share something amazing. Some people get angry when they read verses about the sins of the father being visited on the children. Though you have become a new creature in Christ, God works inside created order. Order involves process. He created your spirit, mind, and body to work in unity to bring healing to your DNA and to set your brain free from reactivity, so you think with clarity.

The major way to rewrite your DNA is forgiveness. Forgiveness breaks the cycle of abuse.

You are right. That person doesn’t deserve to be forgiven but Jesus commands you to forgive.

On Calvary, Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” My immediate reaction is they knew exactly what they were doing. They maliciously chose not only to reject Jesus but to kill Him. Ahh! But they had no clue they crucified the very Son of God.

You know, predators like to prey on others. But they don’t know as they strike out and wound the innocent they are setting themselves up for God’s righteous judgment to fall upon them. 

The Lord gave an important rule for healthy DNA. He said, “forgive before the sun sets” (Ephesians 4:26).  Unforgiveness negatively impacts your DNA.

It also opens the door for the enemy to control you by tying you to your abuser. When you don’t forgive, you give the person who hurt you power to harass you all the days of your life.

The greatest gift you can give yourself is to take that person off your hook of judgment and place them on God’s hook. Let Him deal with them because no matter what your imagination pictures, until you forgive, you remain chained to them.