Brokenness, pain, failure, hurt, frustration, and loss are all parts of life on a fallen planet that has rejected God as King over them. It’s essential to help our kids come to terms with that as a reality of life (Gist: The Essence of Raising Life-Ready Kids). Thinking life on this earth is any different causes misperceptions and more hurt. However, the effects of the brokenness, pain, and frustration of life can cause significant damage and loss in a person’s soul. I used to think that personal loss caused by this pain was permanent and unchangeable. I don’t believe that anymore.
Most of us don’t know what to do with pain. Internalizing and stuffing it isn’t the answer. This is reflected in the spike in anxiety and suicide in our young people and the ever-luring myriad of addictions ravaging people’s lives. If you or those you love are wondering how to experience true healing, read on. If you serve the amazing, vulnerable children and young people who are our future, I believe there is something here for you, too.
Research Sounds both Hopeful and Devastating
Why did I believe the devastation was permanent? Nadine Burke Harris’s research shows that intensely painful things (adverse childhood experiences) change our brains, nervous systems, hormonal systems, immune systems and even our DNA. They triple the lifetime risk of heart disease and cancer and can reduce life expectancy by 20 years. Those intensely painful experiences include things like: physical, emotional, or sexual abuse; physical or emotional neglect; parental mental illness, substance dependence, incarceration; parental separation or divorce; or domestic violence. Looking through her work, I the check marks adding up had me concerned.
You can check out her fascinating TED talk, “How childhood trauma effects health across a lifetime” or her book The Deepest Well. She has spent her life bringing awareness to this global pandemic as well as making a difference to turn things around for children. Foster and adoptive parents especially have a huge opportunity to be a healing home for children and prevent them from becoming a statistic. Resources like these are also extremely helpful for parents, caregivers, pastors, and others who care about children and teens:
- Caring for the Vulnerable Child: Welcoming Children who have Experienced Neglect, Abandonment, and Abuse by Steven and Celestia Tracy
- Wounded Children, Healing Homes: How Traumatized Children Impact Adoptive and Foster Families by Jayne E Schooler
- Discipline that Connects with your Child’s Heart by Jim and Lynne Jackson.
- Gist: The Essence of Raising Life-Ready Kids. by Michael Anderson and Timothy Johanson
- Seen: Healing Despair and Anxiety in Kids and Teens Through the Power of Connection
For young people, if caring adults choose to understand and actively intervene, there is hopeful action that can be taken. For adults, whose nervous systems (among other systems) are badly wired, there seemed little to offer. Her work deeply interested me and simultaneously devastated me.
What Could I Do About Trauma and its Effects on Me?
Looking back on a life loaded with various forms of hurt, victimization, and trauma, I had a choice to make when the bottom fell out of my life a number of years ago. I could settle for broken or try to get to the root of things and find a way to heal and grow. I went wild with research, and that left me wondering if I was just doomed to live a shorter, more stressful and disease-prone existence due to all that I had been through. I seriously hoped there were better options than the research that seemed to stack up against me in the multitude of books I read during that time.
I decided that I wanted to be the healthiest version of myself I could possibly be, so I committed to a number of years of Christian Counseling. Things like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy could help me work at changing the way I look at what I’m facing. EMDR helped to get to deeper down to the trauma and make a quality emotional difference in my life. Dr. Caroline Leaf’s fascinating work on neuroplasticity in Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess: 5 Simple Scientifically Proven Steps to Reduce Anxiety, Stress, and Toxic Thinking showed me practically how to rebuild thoughts over time. This gave hope. Through a long, committed process, I could get closer to the root of false beliefs I had and actively build new thoughts over time. I used her app Neurocycle to work through some of the key stressors and places of hurt in my life. All of these helped.
Yet, all of this only went so far.
Inner Healing Requires Knowlege of the Healer
Hands down, the best was yet to come. I was looking for a way to heal, when Who I truly needed was the Way. I was looking for healing, but what I needed was the Healer.
In the last two years, I received the incredible blessing of an opportunity to get to know God in countless ways I never had before. Through You Are Worthy Ministry’s Reconciliation Ministry Class God revealed to me how He is outside of time, so He can go back to those broken places in my soul and heal them- for good.
He gave me countless tools and opportunities for inner healing through knowing the Healer. And through a Season of Healing, He has blessed me with two amazing women of God who have walked with me through many life-changing hours of healing with the Lord. He taught me what to do with pain. He walked me through an abundance of opportunities to forgive. He helped me break off a plethora of agreements I made with the enemy throughout my life. I know Him better than I ever have in my life. And those broken, hurt places? He wasn’t given the name Wonderful Counselor for no reason. He has been the best Counselor to actually get to the roots and change and heal me for good.
It wasn’t that the other approaches I took weren’t helpful- they were. It’s just that going directly to the Healer and knowing Him better goes deeper and continues taking me further in healing than I ever dreamed possible.
Healing and What We Believe about God
Just as no one is exempt from difficulty and hurt, no one is exempt from God’s offer of His presence through it. The gift of God Himself in the midst of the challenges of life is the incredible gift of Truth, Life, Wisdom, Light, Hope, and Love Himself. Though He doesn’t cause the pain that results from sin, every hurt, loss, and failure is an invitation to know Him better.
Each difficulty is an invitation to know Him in ways that we don’t yet. I don’t mean head knowledge. I mean the deep-down knowledge we have in our gut that we live our lives from.
For example, a servant-hearted follower of Jesus might believe in their heads that God is cares about had helps His people. But, they faced a lot of rejection early in life and truly believe that they are not very valuable. They have internalized a deep-down lie that God does not truly value them or have time to help them (others of course- but not them). They may help others to reflect the God they believe in their heads cares about them and helps them- but they live their lives from a deeper belief that God really doesn’t. Maybe they work hard to prove they are valuable to God or carry a lot of responsibility that isn’t theirs to carry because they are trying to be worthy through work or achievement. Maybe they escape through addiction. Maybe they ask God to help others- but not themselves (and they can’t receive help from others either).
It’s easy to believe in our head that God is all He promises He is- but deep down believe and live our lives from lies about Him. These lies can start very young.
Truth verses the enemy
At every moment in our lives- every joy, every sorrow- God is present. And He is speaking Truth. The enemy is also present and speaking lies. When we choose to believe the enemy, we can begin to live our lives out of a foundation of lies we don’t recognize we are believing deep down.
God delights to restore choice to us. He delights to take us back to memories and show us the lies we chose and the Truth He was offering. Then we can essentially- rechoose. He gives us a revelation of Who He is, reveals the false god we were believing in instead- and we are freed to choose Him (or not). In the choosing Him, He offers incredible, true healing and lasting change.
How Can I Heal and Help Others Heal?
As the Great Physician, God Himself longs to help us and others heal. He is the best one to help get to the root of the issues causing despair- and heal them. You are Worthy Ministries has exceptional resources for this:
Season of Healing
If you (or someone you care about) would like support in a season of inner healing, this is for you. Two trained volunteers meet with you approximately every other week for 2-3 hours for a minimum of 6 months. This is commitment and love, folks. Through all the ways God has revealed Himself to me through my season of healing, I am more myself and more whole and alive than I ever knew was possible. Read this and schedule a First Connection Informational Meeting to find out more.
Classes On Healing
If you would like more healing and wholeness yourself, or if you would like to help others walk into more of that, these are for you:
Reconciliation Ministry Class: If you see others around you hurting and you want to help them be able to overcome their struggles in Biblical ways, coming out more whole on the other side, check out the Reconciliation Ministry Class. This is an intensive inner healing and deliverance training for those who want to help others. Here is the direct link for this amazing, live online Reconciliation Ministry Class for 2023, starting Aug 14 and meeting on Monday nights for 14 weeks. The tools assigned for homework revolutionized my relationship with the Lord. This is great for pastors, teachers, counselors, caregivers, friends- anyone who would like to walk with others towards healing and wholeness and a deeper knowledge of the Lord. I cannot recommend this class more.
Self-Paced Inner Healing Course Focused on Personal Emotional and Spiritual Healing. If you would like a kickstart in your own inner healing, this self-paced video-based course is tailored for you.
Knowing God Classes If you want to get right to the heart of the issue and better know God- the Way, the Healer, these free, pre-recorded video classes have the potential to rock your world in an amazing way. I had asked God for years who He is as Father. The first recorded class was God as Father, so He led me to listen to that first and I have never been the same.
Forgiveness Classes If you or someone you care about is struggling with hearing from the Lord, one of the primary things that block our ability to hear Him is unforgiveness. I wondered most of my life how to actually walk through forgiveness. These videos opened the floodgates of heaven for me to hear from Holy Spirit and begin healing.
- Going Deeper With Forgiveness: How To (Part 1)
- Going Deeper With Forgiveness: Walking You Through (Part 2)
If you have been given the incredible honor of being able to walk alongside another person through life, I pray that you continue to know God more intimately and allow Him to keep lifting you up into who He created you to be- receiving all the healing and restoration He has for the devastation your own hurt has wrought in your life. And I pray that you will be able to gently follow Holy Spirit’s leading to do your part in pointing others to more of Him and more of all He has for them, too. Inner healing is about a genuine, lasting relationship with God.
Inner healing is possible, because He is Healer and invites you to Himself.
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