HEALING FROM WITHIN
Pain is something that we will all experience in life; it’s inevitable. You will experience some sort of pain rather it is physical pain or if it is emotional pain. Physical pain is how the body alerts you that something is wrong on the physical level and needs your attention. It doesn’t matter how small your injury is, you tend to care for the wound inflicted.
You may go to the local drug store and buy over the counter medication as a way to treat the pain, perhaps you make an appointment to your doctor or a specialist or depending on the severity, or you may rush to the emergency room to receive immediate care. Have you ever wondered why we lack a sense of urgency concerning our emotional pain? When we experience emotional and psychological pain, we tend to silence how we feel and take the edge off by pacifying it.
Take a moment and reflect back to your first heartbreak. I assume that your feelings were hurt, you were crying and replaying in your head what you could have done differently. To make matters worse, we call our girlfriends to console us with a gallon of ice cream and a chick flick, a girl’s night out or the best one RETAIL Therapy! How many of us can honestly say that we have been a victim of retail therapy? Credit card bills through the roof because your feelings are hurt. Instead of us directly dealing with the problem we pacify it by replacing it with something temporarily. Though we are suffering we do not treat the trauma because we do not view emotional pain as life-threatening. Just as any wound untreated, a sore develops and festers. The pain becomes unbearable and impedes itself on how you function. Eventually, you have to deal so you can heal!
You can’t rewind time and undo the damage but you can heal the wounds the damage has left. The past has to be dealt with before your present can begin to heal. You are responsible for how long you let what hurt you haunt you. Healing takes courage and we all have courage even if we have to dig a little to find it. There are 4 steps in the healing process; I want to let you know that this is not easy and you have to be intentional in your healing, but you can accomplish it. There are two reasons how I know that you can do it.
- Scripture states in Philippians 4:13 I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me.
- I have worked the steps and done it! If I can do it you can too!
Let’s take a look at the 4 steps to the healing process.
- Reveal: Take off your mask and stop hiding so God can heal.
As long as you’re walking around pretending to be whole you will remain broken. You have to get real enough to reveal your wounds so God could heal them. It is a lot easier to walk around angry than admit you are hurt. It is your responsibility to heal past what you have endured.
- Deal: Trust what God has allowed and take the time to process.
We are so focused on what happened to us and how we feel that we forget what happened was allowed by God to happen. When you change your thinking, you change your destiny. Perspective changes everything; shift your perspective of the trauma you endured. The trauma you endured isn’t something that happened to you; it is something that has happened for you.
Roman 8:28 states and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Trust what God has allowed and heal past it. This step is painful. This requires you to pick the scab off of a wound. This is painful but necessary for healing. Grab your iPad, a notebook, journal whatever you use and write down what you are feeling. Don’t think about what you are writing, just write. Allow yourself the time and space necessary to process everything that has happened to you.
- Heal: Forgiveness is necessary.
Before you begin to make any real progress, forgiveness has to take place. Healing can’t truly take place if you are battling yourself. I read a quote by Rick Warren that stated, “We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it.” Don’t be hindered by the hurt of your pain. Bind everything that hurt you and comes against it. Forgiving doesn’t mean forgetting, nor does forgiveness mean that you’ve given the message that what someone did was okay. Forgiveness means that you have released the anger or guilt towards someone, or towards yourself.
- Live: After the pain
What is ahead of you is what is best for you!! Thank God for what is new and don’t look in the past. You no longer have anything to defend, hide or be embarrassed about. You have endured the pain, survived the pain and can now live after the pain! Go out and live the life God has intended for you to live! It was never about you; you experienced what you did to bless someone else. Share your story. Write a book, start a ministry, or a business and help someone heal and live after their pain.
