Spiritual Wounding – and how to find healing - Part 3
Part 3 of a 4 part series – I recommend you read parts 1 & 2 of this series before reading this article. You can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
In the last article, we started looking at how to find healing from spiritually abusive wounding. This article continues to look at how we can find a place of healing and learn to feel safe again after being spiritually wounded.
Don’t place time constraints around your healing
Healing will probably take time, and it will probably take more time than you initially think it will. You can’t set a time limit and expect it to be finished within a certain time frame. You mean too much to God for Him to rush you, or push you, through something as important as this. Give yourself permission to take as long as you need to take, in order to come to a true place of healing and not just do a surface-level job.
During that time extend to yourself compassion and grace – especially to the parts of you that feel confused, angry, sceptical, fearful, or guarded. They are not your enemy, they are wanting to help you.
God can heal you by Himself and He can heal your pain instantly, miraculously! But often, in the case of emotional pain and spiritual abuse, He doesn’t; He takes us through a journey of progressive healing, as the things we learn in that process, and the growth that happens in us, are invaluable. I can remember many years ago, when I was asking the Lord why He didn’t do an instant healing in regard to the abuse I had suffered in my childhood, He took me in Scripture to some verses I had never read before in Ex 23:30, where He is talking to the children of Israel as He leads them into their promised land. “I will not drive them out before you in a single year; otherwise the land would become desolate and wild animals would multiply against you. Little by little I will drive them out ahead of you, until you become fruitful and possess the land. And I will establish your borders…” These verses gave me hope and understanding that has enabled me to be patient in a healing process that, in my thinking, has taken way longer than I would have liked.
Sometimes God wants us to receive help from others, using the gifts He has given them, in order to help restore us. If you need help in that healing process then get professional help, or someone you trust to pray it through with you. Understand that one prayer ministry session or counselling session may not be enough to process it all through, and that it’s okay to be going to counselling for a while. Keep going until you no longer need to. There are many good, trustworthy, healing ministries attached to different churches, as well as professional counsellors who are Christians that can help. Or maybe you’d prefer to go to someone outside the church entirely; that choice is yours. Just ask for recommendations from your doctor or friends.
Be willing to forgive
To find full healing, forgiveness is a necessary part of that process. I’ve found the following understanding a huge help to me in my healing over the years.
What is unforgiveness? It is a manifestation of our inner judgement, anger, and our desire to hold a person accountable for their behaviour, with ourself sitting as prosecutor, jury, and judge.
Unforgiveness sets up a judicial process in the spiritual realm that we operate within and come under. In the spiritual - in that judgement process, we place ourselves above God as judge and justice-bringer, and in doing so we set in play spiritual activity that goes to work against others, but also against ourself. One of the things that happens is we set ourselves up to be judged with the same measure we judge by. Scripture tells us that when it says, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” Matt 7:1,2. That judicial process has both spiritual and natural components to it. In the natural - making harsh, unfair or unrighteous judgements creates within us, inner conflict, and anger, that puts us in bondage in our hearts and minds to the incident and any injustice, and to the person who wounded us.
This is why forgiveness is so important.
The forgiveness journey starts with making a choice to be willing to forgive. Forgiveness is a choice, but it’s also a journey, a process, and in the case of deep or long-term wounding, forgiveness is not usually a ‘one moment in time’ event. A shallow or one-time wounding may be quicker and more easily forgiven than a long term wounding, as the effects often don’t go as deep as long term abusive wounding does.
Forgiveness comes easiest when hurts are healed. Simply saying the words “I forgive” doesn’t always fix things, and it certainly doesn’t deal with the hurt. In the case of long-term, or severe, abuse one blanket “I forgive” statement or choice usually doesn’t do a lot. You may need to make that choice to walk in forgiveness over and over during the healing process as more and more hurt comes up, and you recall and process through different hurtful situations.
It is possible to say “I forgive” prematurely, because we feel that it’s expected of us by God or others, or because we’re coerced into saying it. Or we may try to use it as a religious ‘band-aid’ or medicine, expecting those words to somehow heal us. Those words will not bring the healing you need. They can’t; it is God who is, and will be, your healer. Saying the words “I forgive’ too early can be detrimental. Why? Because we think that if we’ve forgiven we should then be able to put it all behind us and forget, and the memory, or pain, of what we went through will never bother us again. That’s not how forgiveness works. Forgiveness doesn’t remove the memories or deal with the pain. However it does break the spiritual and natural judgment, it removes the legal access the enemy has to torment us, and it helps break any soul-ties that formed and that put us into bondage to the hurt and the person who caused it.
If we try to forgive without being healed we are leaving a door open for the enemy to work in our lives and for unforgiveness toward that person to return time and time again to torment us. When that happens it can lead to possible bitterness, cynicism, ongoing trust issues, and more. Heal the hurt and there is no place for the enemy of your soul to torment you or cause bondage, and forgiveness is much more easily extended.
Another aspect that we often don’t think about is the physical consequences of both forgiveness and unforgiveness. Karen Swartz, M.D., director of the Mood Disorders Adult Consultation Clinic at The Johns Hopkins Hospital reports – “There is an enormous physical burden to being hurt and disappointed. Chronic anger puts you into a fight-or-flight mode, which results in numerous changes in heart rate, blood pressure and immune response. Those changes, then, increase the risk of depression, heart disease and diabetes, among other conditions. Forgiveness, however, calms stress levels, leading to improved health. The good news: Studies have found that the act of forgiveness can reap huge rewards for your health, lowering the risk of heart attack; improving cholesterol levels and sleep; and reducing pain, blood pressure, and levels of anxiety, depression, and stress. And research points to an increase in the forgiveness-health connection as you age.”
Walk forward with the support of God and friends
God is our healer, so ask Him to heal you of any ongoing effects of the abuse you’ve suffered. That healing will probably need to happen in all areas – emotional, mental, spiritual, and possibly physically. It will involve healing your emotional pain, renewing your mind, as well as releasing the trauma trapped in your cells physically, and releasing you from spiritual consequences.
Also God will place people in your life who can help you move through, process, and recover from, the spiritual wounding you’ve suffered. Friends, pastoral staff, counsellors, inner healing ministries, and even random strangers, can all play a part in your healing.
Allow others to help you. While we would often like God to completely heal us in a miraculous way, on His own, without human interaction, He doesn’t usually work that way with internal, emotional, wounds. Humans hurts us, and trust in humanity is damaged in that moment. Our ability to trust needs to be restored as part of the healing process, and that takes interaction with caring, trustworthy people who can minister to us the love of God. Graham Cooke often says, “God heals us 80% of the way, and gives us friends for the last 20%.”
We know that Jesus drew aside at times to spend time with Father God, to be refreshed, receive revelation, and be freshly empowered. While Scripture seems to indicate that this was part of His devotional life, I’m pretty sure that because He was not just God, but was fully human, He would have also taken much-needed time alone with the Father and Holy Spirit to process through some of the hurtful things that were said and done to Him.
You may be able to stay in church, or your small group, during the whole process, and if you can that’s great, as the support of others is vital during this time of healing. Or you may need a short time where you draw aside and create a safe space in which to heal and to re-establish yourself so that you can interact with your church family again in a healthy way. It can be scary and painful to step away from church or small group attendance, and you may feel bad about having to do so. If you need to withdraw for a time please don’t just disappear, or ignore those who genuinely care for you; that’s not a wise, or healthy, response, and in the end it will play into the devil’s plans to isolate you and make you feel more misunderstood, abused and ashamed. The point of any withdrawal is simply to create a place for healing to happen, so that you can re-join the church community again, feeling safe.
Rebuild your sense of safety
As you heal from spiritual wounding, you need to re-establish a sense of safety within yourself. Sometimes that process can be supported, or re-established, fairly easily; other times it can take time. It often includes us needing to set helpful and safe boundaries in our lives, in how we interact with others, and in who we trust. No one else can tell you how, and when, you should feel safe again; that is something you and God will establish between yourselves, as you work through the hurts. As you re-establish a feeling of safety within yourself, you can begin to re-engage with your church family again. Don’t let hurt keep you away from being part of the family of God, or from being in committed, authentic relationship with other Christians.
An important part of building safe boundaries around your life is found in not idealising other Christians. Realise that they are on a journey of growth and becoming Christ-like, just as you are. Give them grace, but also don’t allow people’s religiosity or wrong beliefs to put unrealistic and ungodly restrictive boundaries around your life. Learn how to set healthy boundaries that allow others to participate in your life in healthy ways. There’s loads of good info around regarding how to do that – in books and on the internet,.
In closing today
I know a short series like this can never do justice to a topic like this one, especially if you’ve been hurt spiritual wounding. I know the very real effects that spiritually abusive wounding has on people’s lives, but I hope and pray these articles have been helpful, and a starting place for healing to happen for those who have suffered from this.
The reality is that life will never be without the possibility of people doing hurtful things to us; the Bible drives that point home several times. As we know, “the devil comes to steal, kill and destroy” (John 10:10.), but the Lord’s promise is that He will make all our troubles and trials work for good in our life, that He will give us life in all its fullness, and He will grow us in faith, trust, and endurance (Rom 8:28; Jam 1:2-6). And we can be sure that God will never leave us to navigate through our troubles alone. He has promised to be there, to bring us to a place of knowing His healing, and He has reassured us over and over that nothing can separate us from His love and care.
“Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture. . .I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us” Rom 8:38-39 MSG.
Because of his knowledge of this the apostle Paul was able to write, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” 2 Cor 4:8,9. We, too, can be thankful and rejoice that because of Christ, we are not left abandoned to be crushed, despairing, forsaken, or destroyed.
God longs to see you living free, unhindered by hurt and woundedness. And while we can’t stop others from saying, or doing, things that might hurt us, if we know how to turn to God and work through those hurts with Him, then we can live free, with inner security and peace that carries us through life’s storms.
I pray that if you’ve endured spiritually abusive wounding, the Lord will bring you to a place of peace and healing, as you trust and walk with Him through that healing process.
In the next and last article in this series we’ll be looking at how you can help people you know who have been spiritually wounded.
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