children of God, most of us spend a considerable amount of our time trying to come to terms with what happened to us in the past. These past experiences have left us feeling the following negative emotions:
- Fearful
- Rejected
- Worthless
- Shameful
- Insecure
- Defiled
- Hopeless
Our prayers and our desires all seem to focus on what life would be like if only “that incident” would not have happened, or if only that enormous emotional wound in our heart could be healed once and for all. But this kind of living must come to an end. If we truly desire a serious and continuous growth in our walk with the Lord, we must realize that dragging around all that stuff from our past eventually becomes too much to bear, too much to keep track of, and definitely too much to fit into God’s plan for our lives.
Trying to survive, we have discovered a hundred ways to cover the pain and ignore the haunting images and feelings that follow us everywhere we try to live. We’ve tried painting them over with religious activity. We’ve tried to deny them by anesthetizing ourselves with new highs of emotion. We’ve tried to rebuke them, cast them out, and pray them away. But when all is over, when the lights are turned off, we find ourselves hurting with the same intensity as before, wondering if there really will be healing for the things that happened so long ago.
I understand. It is not that we try to ignore the pain. Certainly it is often so intense that it consumes us as though it happened just today. It is not as though we try to cover it. The pain has been too hard for too long. We know better. The pain is there even with a cover over it. We have tried that way out. It is not that we try to deny that it exists or deny that the event ever happened. We are totally aware of what we suffer.
For many, this pain and suffering drives people to unhealthy coping mechanisms that lead them away from the Lord. Some try to find relief from this pain in performance, thinking that the pain will somehow go away if they just do a little more or if they work just a little harder. Others attempt to find solace from their pain in habitual destructive behaviors like drugs and alcohol. All this does is complicate the situation and compound the pain.
But when the sense of God’s calling to us is greater than the pain, when the hope of His presence draws us forward stronger than our pain draws us backward, we make the decision that somehow, somewhere, this has got to end.
There is a place of healing in the Spirit of God, in the personal reality of His presence that the Lord yearns for us to experience. God sees our pain, understands our struggle, and wants nothing more than to bring inner wholeness to His people, to you. This is the genuine place of healing.
There is a place of quietness in the heart of God where the “balm of Gilead” is applied to our hurts and our hearts.
There is healing for our hurting hearts in the presence of God!
One Response
Thank you for your great articles. My ministry is to the “Spiritually Wounded Warriors with PTSD.” May I share with you the tracts as they come off the press. My first is about to be printed called “Resolving Guilt”. I am planning more that will distributed to our military heroes.
Thank you for RU.