Healing Our Wounds
I never cease to be amazed at how God works in our lives; how he keeps offering us healing we didn’t realize we needed or didn’t want to address in the moment, because later always seems like a better time. In reality, when he begins to highlight it is always the best time to work on it whether we feel like it or not. I’m just not a fan of his timing if truth be told.
Like most I have my fair share of baggage I carry around from my childhood. I just keep uncovering it layer upon painful layer.My sister and I were discussing our upbringing the other day at lunch which concluded with “how did we survive?” While I have no doubt our parents loved us, they were broken people raised by broken people who were raised by other broken people and the cycle just never ends. There is so much we all have to get over or relearn.
No one can change their past. We can only choose to allow God’s healing to come into it, redeem what the enemy meant for our harm and let him turn it into our good in the present. I’ve seen God do that for me and others who have chosen to embrace the process. But it’s hard, deep emotional work to identify the wound and then clean it out and move forward with different patterns of behavior. It's a part of our spiritual journey which we can choose to embrace or ignore.
From birth to age five our brains learn how to react to situations based on the reactions, emotions, verbal and non-verbal cues from our primary caregivers, our parents. We don’t even realize the patterns of response that were programmed into our brains until later in life when a situation comes up and we wonder why we reacted that way. There is a concept called Emotional Intelligence that is basically “the capability of individuals to recognize their own emotions and those of others, discern between different feelings and label them appropriately, and use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior.”
In other words, we must learn to recognize our emotions in any given situation, establish why we are having them, and how to process them appropriately. We must ask ourselves why we feel that way? What is this emotion telling us? Instead of just letting emotion drive us we should use it to identify the underlying reason behind the feeling; for instance, when we explode in anger, it can be based in fear and we need to be able to see that.
I’m dealing with a plethora of emotions trying to sift out these feelings that want to overtake me. Emotions desire to drive our actions. Life situations have me frustrated, angry, hurt and god only knows what else I’m feeling. Trying to sift that all out is exhausting. As I was discussing this with Jesus this morning, I reminded him that while I am committed to the process, I’m also tired of it. #word
I need a boat load of grace today to face this layer and move through it…please and thank you.
A revelation I’ve learned about myself is I hate feeling cornered, out of control and in need of someone else’s help, anyone else? So, when a situation arises that triggers me, I have choices to make. But I’m a processor so I first have to let the emotions rage, talk to myself and process everything then I can deal.
Growing up I learned the lesson well, that you’re on your own, people can’t be trusted so you need to figure it out. It’s the only way you can assure you are safe. While this is not truth, my feelings and a good deal of experience tell me it is. We all have so much to unlearn.
So, what are we to do? We have choices…we can either roll around in an emotional upheaval blaming others for these feelings or we can develop some emotional intelligence, own our feelings, move forward toward understanding why we feel this way, and work through the emotions to a resolve. I don’t know about you but sometimes I’d rather have a tantrum or take a nap than do the hard work…it’s reality.
After whining for God to please go work on someone else for a while so I can rest, I gathered up my strength and kept going. I’m committed if nothing else. I mean if Jesus died to set me free from every bondage then who am I to not see the process through. He paid a hefty price for my freedom and yours. I want to please him above anything else. I’ll never arrive at perfection or even own the t-shirt, but I know he’s always glorified when I keep trying.
I don’t know what you are facing today as you read this but whatever it is His strength is available and his mercies are new every morning. He will walk with you and give you the grace that you need. Trust me when I say, the journey is tough but when you shed the confines of that bondage and walk in real freedom you will know it was worth all the pain and effort to be free. #selah
Father, I pray for every person reading this Blog today. As they lean into your strength give them the grace to face all of their issues head on. Grace them with determination and resolve to see this process through with you. I stand against every enemy assault that would come their way and I bind it in Jesus name. By your grace and with your power I know they can overcome. Show yourself strong on their behalf in Jesus name.