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Trauma Thoughts

 

My husband’s cancer, diagnosed in 2009 and treated over the next two years, did not traumatize me.

“What do you mean by that,” you might ask. “Wasn’t it intense and scary and didn’t you cry?”

Yes, yes, and yes. But genuine trauma overwhelms our coping abilities and leaves unprocessed feelings stuffed away. We walk away from trauma with anger and pain and fear that are tucked away in the closet of the back bedroom, split off from the physical memory of the event. If we want to live an emotionally healthy life, we must eventually clean out that closet. The memories and the feelings need to be reintegrated into a whole experience. Lies need to be identified and disavowed. God’s truth needs to be experienced. Until the healing happens, the memory of the difficult event feels like it happened yesterday.

No memory-from getting Jerry’s diagnosis to the last PSA test-feels that fresh. It was intense and I was scared and I cried a fair amount. When the first surgery had to be stopped because Jerry would have died from a life-threatening reaction to the anesthesia, I trembled for an hour as my friend Judy and I prayed. I lost some sleep and I ate too much. But on the whole, I stayed in touch with my emotions through it all. No memory brings up any pain.

That’s how we know we need healing–when a memory throws us back into an emotional fire. When stuffed-down memories do flash through our minds, we feel like we are right there again.

If that’s your experience, perhaps it is time to ask Jesus, “How do I heal this memory? What do you want to do with this fragmented piece of my heart?” Take the time to ask him to go with you to the old memories and show you where he was. Ask him what his perspective is on that trauma. Find a safe person to process the pain with.

Though the cancer process was not traumatic, childhood abuse had left my heart fragmented for years, so I know what those intrusive memories and feelings are like. Perhaps you are one of the many who walk around with a traumatized heart. May I pray for you?

Father, you know the fresh pain that comes every time that memory comes up. Please show me how to heal. What people, what resources, what kinds of interactions with you do I need? Give me grace to face what must be faced. If it was easy, I’d have done it before. I need your help. For your glory, Amen.  

 

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God’s Context

 

Sold by his jealous brothers into Egyptian slavery, jailed on false rape charges, and forgotten by one who could help, Joseph, favored son of Isaac, absorbed the suffering. He let that suffering humble his heart. In humility, he accepted that his story is a small part of a God-sized story.

After years in jail, God placed him second in power to the Pharaoh. When his brothers came to him to buy grain in a long famine, he could have refused. But humility allowed grace: “And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.” Genesis 45:5

Two Angels and God Pictures, Images and Photos Rather than assert his rights to liberty and a pursuit of happiness, Joseph was willing to step outside his own story and see himself from a God’s-eye-view. In that view, his pain furthered God’s purpose.

In a culture addicted to complaining (I’m guilty), we need a Joseph kind of humble wisdom. A wisdom that looks at the largest possible context, the eternal context, before making a final judgement about our own injustices.

Our pain is important and must be taken seriously. It must also be put in the context of the eternal story, lest it overwhelm us. Only then will we be able to give the grace Joseph gave to his brothers.

What part of your story do you need to put into God’s context?

Wisdom, objectivity, humility. Father, we need you to grow these fruits in our hearts. For your glory. Amen. 

 

 

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A Courageous Father

 

Last week, I wrote, “I wanted a father’s love.” Even at sixty years old, there is part of me that misses a good father and depictions of good fathering touch me. So I was touched by the stories of the men of the Courageous movie. Four cops and one laborer show how five fathers’ characters are changed or exposed after a tragedy. Sherwood Baptist’s fourth film follows an abandoning father, a distracted father, a crooked father, and two heroic, courageous fathers.

Courageous Poster Most of us had one of those kinds of fathers.  Many children rarely or never see their fathers. Some have criminal fathers. Others grew up with fathers whose attention was elsewhere even when they were home. Few of us have heroic fathers, fathers who reliably protected, provided, confronted and comforted us.

And yet, Father-God is a heroic father who wants to father each one of us. Do we believe that?  Our experiences with our first authorities shape our expectations of Father-God, the ultimate authority.  If you want to attach to God as a father, start with identifying what kind of father you had. Was he there? What kind of eye contact did he give you? Did he give you hugs? Were those hugs safe? How was his integrity? Did he do what he said he would do? Did he keep his promises?

Then, compare those answers to how you believe God deals with you. Is he walking beside you? Is he looking at you with eyes of compassion? Do you sit on the couch with his arm around you? Do you feel safe with him? Has he done what he promised he would do?

We want to believe God is good, good in every way and at all times. We affirm it intellectually, but do we know his goodness in our experience? Spiritual growth is that continual movement toward merging our heads and our hearts.

While it’s easy to become a Christian, to say the words, it’s not easy to go deep with God. Depth takes a relentless pursuit of our own hearts and of God’s heart. Depth, like fatherhood, takes courage.

Father, give us the courage to know ourselves and to know you.

 

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“I Forgive”

“Okay, God, I forgive my father.” Sexual abuse at a young age had left serious consequences–anxiety, distrust, debilitating fears, and intrusive memories of the abuse. The abuse had also contributed to severe mental illness. At the time I said those words, I’d  just gotten out of the hospital from my second inpatient stay.

Diagnosed manic-depressive, I was more depressed than manic after recovery from the out-of-contact-with-reality delusions that had put me in a locked ward with injections of anti-psychotic medication. I was in my mid-twenties then, thirty-five years ago.

I hated my father. Forgiveness wasn’t on my agenda.

However, I’d read the Matthew 18 parable that Jesus tells of the unforgiving steward who gets thrown into a torturer’s den because he, having been forgiven, did not forgive. I grasped that my emotional turmoil was a torturer’s den. And it was related, not just to genetic susceptibility and the abuse, but also to my own unforgiveness.

So, in faith, with gritted teeth, I said the words, to God: “Yes, I forgive.” Immediately, an ugly flashback, with deep feelings of revulsion. “No! I have forgiven him. Today, this day, from now on, he is forgiven. The debt is canceled. Yes, he owes me immensely. He damaged my life. It is, in one sense, unforgiveable. And yet, by grace, I will forgive. I will no longer seek revenge. I will surrender hatred. I will rely on God’s power to keep that debt canceled.”

No Debt Pictures, Images and PhotosWhen I took the step of canceling my father’s debt, I didn’t know much about the process of forgiveness. I just knew my own heart’s conviction.

For me, this step of cancelling the debt came second, right after identifying the sin. It was only later that I began to identify and feel my feelings and develop empathy for my father.

That process of emotional forgiveness took ten years.

But the decision to forgive was recorded in God’s books the day I said the words.

Whether you cancel the debt you are owed at the beginning or in the middle of the process, saying the words “I forgive X, for doing Y” is the center of the challenge of forgiving those who have sinned against us. And, I am convinced, my current mental health (no medications for past thirty-three years) and my ability to be a psychotherapist began with those simple, yet powerful words. “I will forgive.”

Has God brought someone to mind whose debt you need to cancel? Are you willing to say the words, “God, I forgive ______ for ________” ?

Jesus, we are desperately in need to grace to cancel the debts others owe us. So many sins against us feel unforgivable.  Only you, who forgave your abusers from the cross, can understand and help. We need you. For your glory, Amen.

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Honest Anger

“I could not believe you didn’t call. You were three hours late last night.” My client, “Ann,” (name and other details changed) shook her fist at her husband, “Allen.”

Sitting at the other end of the couch, Allen narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t call because I wasn’t sure I even wanted to come home.”

“Well, maybe I don’t even want you there, either.” She glared at him.

I’d been seeing this married couple for several weeks. This was a typical impasse. Both in the grip of marriage-threatening anger, they needed to get more honest about their underlying, more painful feelings.  ”Ann, what are you feeling, right now? I want you to quiet yourself for two minutes and listen to your body. Are your shoulders tense, how does your stomach feel–take an inventory. ” Turning to Allen, I repeated my instructions.

As I quieted myself, I prayed inwardly, “Lord Jesus, help them be vulnerable to each other. Help them be honest about the deeper feelings. The sadness, the fears, the disappointments, the lost hopes. Help them find each other again.”

heart? Pictures, Images and PhotosEmotions are expressed in subjective feelings, in outward behavior, and in our bodies. Helping this couple access their body experience, I hoped, would help them access their more hidden feelings.

Anger is a secondary emotion. We get angry because we are sad or fearful. Disappointed, despairing, feeling rejected, and many other kinds of vulnerable feelings can be covered up with anger.

And, anger in an intimate relationship usually does not get us what we want. Anger creates distance. If we want closeness, we need to access and share the more honest fears and sadnesses that have built up in the relationship.

Lord Jesus, reveal our hearts to ourselves. 

 

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What Sin is This?

“But we were a classic American family. That’s what my father said. We’d gather at the dinner table and he’d say, ‘What a great American family!’”

“And what was dinner like?” I leaned towards the young woman in the other chair. I’d been seeing her in therapy every week for a few months.

“Dinner was okay, I guess. Sometimes my oldest brother would tell me to close my mouth.” She shrugged.

“Close your mouth when you were eating?” I smiled.

“No, I knew that. I mean when I was just listening or taking my plate to the dishwasher or something.” She narrowed her eyes.

“How did that feel?” This wasn’t the first time I’d heard of nitpicking details this family had imposed on each other. Her mother took a white glove to my client’s dresser top every Saturday at noon and she was grounded all day if any dirt showed.

She raised her eyebrows. “It felt like I couldn’t even choose what expression to display on my own face. Like I had to do every detail the way somebody else wanted. Who cares if my mouth is open or closed? What earthly difference can it make?”

“Yes.” It was the first time I’d heard her anger. Previously, she’d been resigned or defensive if I questioned any of her family’s behavior. We went on to discuss more instances of overcontrol and perfectionism that had felt invalidating.

She’d come to me because she was depressed, to the point of overeating, oversleeping, and poor work performance. She had taken on her family’s perfectionism and criticism and used it toward herself. It took longer than she expected to learn to be easier on herself, but eventually, with much prayer and therapy, she did.

If the first step of forgiveness is to name the sin, where is the sin against my client (whose details have been changed to protect confidentiality)? Western culture has become so psychologized, we’ve lost the language for sin. But isn’t it sin to try to control every detail of someone else’s life? Where is the love in that? Love accepts non-sinful individual variation.

Isn’t it sin for a mother to expect an 8 year old to clean to a white-glove standard? Isn’t it a sin of hypocrisy for a father to proclaim greatness and ignore the unease in the family? Some of the most difficult clients I’ve worked with have come from families whose “family mythology” about themselves was, “We’re a great family,” when, in fact, they were not.

Did your family look anything like this? Were the sins subtle or hidden? If we want to find peace through forgiveness, we need to name the sin, first.

Father, show us the sin against us. Help us to see what you see. 

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Relationship or Contract

“What does all this mean? Even though the Gentiles were not trying to follow God’s standards, they were made right with God. And it was by faith that this took place.  But the people of Israel, who tried so hard to get right with God by keeping the law, never succeeded. Why not? Because they were trying to get right with God by keeping the law instead of by trusting in him.” Romans 9:30-32

Reading these words Tuesday, I was struck, once again, that God wants a personal relationship. Many of us, even after we believe Jesus is Messiah, still try to be accepted by him through doing right, thinking right, and feeling right. Yes, singing songs, listening to a sermon, meditating on scripture, and exercising courage in spite of fear are all good. But God accepts us into his family because we trust him, not because we do it all right.

Seeking acceptance by performance is a business contract. If we operate as if the foundation of our relationship  is contractual, we’ve missed God’s best. A contract lays out the goals and duties of the parties to the agreement. Love isn’t essential to a contract. Respect is not crucial. Obedience is all that matters and disobedience, not meeting the contract terms, will terminate the agreement.

mom & her family Pictures, Images and PhotosGod is after more than that. He wants a family. He wants obedience, yes. But he wants obedience not because he’ll disown us if we disobey, but because obedience is what we’re made for. We’re made to be part of Papa-God’s family. That’s where life is. There’s no hope, no future, and no forgiveness outside the family of God. Inside the family, faith, hope, and love reign and life extends forever.

Good families don’t disown disobedient children. Boundaries may be set, fellowship may be broken, but a light burns in the front window for us.

Are you trusting Jesus’ love sacrifice? Or are you attempting to do everything right?

Father, strengthen our trust.

 

 

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Yes!

“On the other hand, all the images and thoughts we’ve been given are positive.” It was last Tuesday morning. Jerry and I were out for a drive in the country before his noon oncology appointment. It’s been six months since treatment for his “moderately aggressive” prostate cancer ended. The prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test results we’d hear would define our future.

I’d been fearful that morning, my characterological anxiety leading to primitive emotions. “I know it’s not true, intellectually, but if God doesn’t heal, it feels like it means he doesn’t love me.” “If this is spiritual warfare and God ‘loses,’ what does that mean?”

In one sense, I was okay with whatever happened. I’ve been through so much, I know God can carry me through anything. Even if God ‘lost’ this battle, he’s already won the war. Jesus’ sacrifice defines God’s love, not whether Jerry lives or dies.

It helped my struggle, that morning, to remind myself of Jerry’s image during recent prayer at the International Healing Rooms in Spokane: “I saw God strangling the cancer cells.” I remembered the sentence, during worship, a few months ago: “He has twenty-five more years.”

But it was a challenge, that morning. Some mornings are irremediably challenging. We’re anxious, scared, full of fearful images. I’d have loved it if I could have just leaned my head on Jesus’ chest, resting. I couldn’t. His perfect love has not yet cast out all my fear. (1 John 4:18)

Celebrate Life! Pictures, Images and Photos

And yet, God had hold of me. He’s committed to each one of us who walk with him. Our sinful anxieties do not change his commitment to us. Glory to God.

And, glory to God, PSA is undetectable. No cancer cells left. Yes.

Father, we are grateful. And beyond this particular grace, we are grateful for your unchanging, eternal commitment. Thank you.

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Studying Anger

Last week, I talked about reading emotions, particularly anger. In fact, we need to do more than read our anger. We need to study.

To study is to understand, to fit into an organized structure of information, to read and think and do experiments until we make sense of a subject.

Libraries are written on anger. A search yields 79 million results. We don’t need to read more than a few of those entries, a couple of books, and the Bible to study our own emotion of anger. Among other information, we’ll learn that everybody gets angry, though some of us deny that.  We’ll understand that most cultures teach their boys and girls differently about anger. We’ll get an overview of the kinds of situations that typically provoke anger. We’ll learn some wisdom sayings about anger. “A soft answer turns away wrath” the Bible says. (Proverbs 15:1)

The real challenge is examining our own anger thoroughly enough to deeply understand ourselves. Some of us feel we don’t need to understand. What’s the point? “I’m angry, I’m right, and life, the institution, or the other person needs to change.”

wisdom Pictures, Images and Photos

Others of us are too afraid or ashamed of our anger to study it. We just want to get rid of it any way we can. Some of us don’t even let ourselves feel it to start with.

My father was an angry man. If he had been a client, I’d have said he was a rageaholic, based on reports of his use of anger to control his family, including occasional episodes of out-of-control rages. The fear of what he might do in that anger led me to suppress my anger, for years. And fear of making others angry often alters my behavior.

Anger, like any emotion, is a complicated and deep subject. But the more we study our own responses, the more self-control and wisdom we can enjoy in our relationships with ourselves and others.

Jesus, You are the source of all wisdom. More wisdom, please, about our anger.

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Emotions give us information about what we really believe.

Anger, for instance. If we get angry when someone hurts us, we believe we are worth being treated well. A store manager refuses to refund a thousand dollars for a defective laptop. “It’s not working because you dropped it. That’s not covered.” We know we did not drop it. We are angry. We believe in justice and the manager’s behavior offends justice.

If we are treated without justice and don’t get angry, we believe we deserve how we were treated. Or we have given up expecting justice. Or we are not acknowledging our anger. Sometimes we don’t even acknowledge our anger to ourselves. For whatever reason, anger feels dangerous or wrong.

What we do with our anger is a different story. What I’m saying here is that an accurate reading of our emotions helps us understand ourselves. The next time we feel angry, we can ask, “What’s this about?” “What is going on here?” “Underneath this anger, do I feel sad or fearful?” “If so, what’s that about?”

A crucial piece of reading our emotions: What memories flash through my mind right now? Is what I’m feeling familiar? When have I felt this way before?

If these questions don’t yield helpful answers, ask Jesus. Even when we can’t read what we’re feeling, he can. And that self-knowledge leads to wisdom.

Jesus, be our wisdom. Thank you that you are the stability of our times, a wealth of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge. (Isaiah 33:6)

 

 

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“Why can’t God just make my life better? Right now.”  In twenty years of hearing clients talk about their difficult lives, I’ve heard many variations on that sentence.

In the middle of a divorce, a man wonders why God didn’t save his marriage. He’d prayed for five years for his wife to fall in love with him again.  A woman remembers the time an older cousin, at a family reunion at a lake pavilion, took her behind a shrub and took advantage of her four-year-old innocence. As she feels that betrayal, she says, “Why can’t God just take this pain away?” Walking out of the cancer clinic, a patient wonders, “Why doesn’t God just stop these runaway cells?”

Are you there today? Are you wondering why God doesn’t just make it all better?

If that’s the pain you feel today, I’m sad with you. I can’t imagine your doubt, anger, fear, sadness. I know what that desire for God to make it all better was like for me, but I don’t know what it is like for you.

Often, Jesus does not meet our expectations. We want immediate results. Especially where emotional healing is concerned, he works with us over time, in a process. We want a certain kind of resolution, in a certain way, at a particular time. How hard it is to submit to the processes that he has designed for our healing.

Affection Pictures, Images and PhotosOur limited perspective means we need input from others.  Our aloneness means we need an arm around our shoulders. Our weakness means we need God’s strength, endurance, and encouragement, (Romans 15:5) just at the time when we doubt his desire to give them.

Father, you know our hearts and you know our needs. You have made healing a process. Help us submit to that process. In the name and for the glory of Jesus, Amen.

 

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What Do We Expect?

What we expect practically determines what we ask for.

loneliness Pictures, Images and Photos

For example, what do we expect of God? When the diagnosis is cancer, do we expect God to heal directly, immediately? Do we expect God to heal through medicine? Do we expect to die?

What do we expect of our spouse? Of our pastor, our professors, our friends, or our neighbors?

What we expect is shaped by experience. Not just experience with God or the person in question, but experience with others.

If you’re a nurse, how have previous doctors treated you? When we imagine asking a friend for a favor, we take into account not only our history with that friend, but our history with all friends.

When we’re little, parents are emotional stand-ins for God. If Mom hugged us and applied a bandage when we skinned our knees, we likely expect God to give us what we need.

In our broken world, how do we learn to expect compassion, empathy, and help, unless we’ve been given those experiences. If we don’t expect to receive a good answer, we won’t bother to ask.

Father, help us to expect what you want to give us. For your glory.

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Obedient Wrestling

“If I tell Jesus my anger, he’ll throw me out of the room.” The young woman’s tears glistened on her cheeks.

During prayer ministry time, I had just encouraged her to be honest with God about how she felt. Her husband had cheated and she’d been downsized. She was furious with her husband, her boss, and with God for letting it all happen.

“What makes you say he’ll throw you out?”

“I dunno. But that’s what my father would have done.” She wiped her tears with a crumbled tissue.

“But you’ve turned your back, your arms are crossed, and you’re ten feet away from him, right?”

“Well, yes.”

“There’s a world of difference, in our anger, between facing away and facing toward him.”

“Oh.” She looked at me, a half-smile mixing with her tears.

“He knows your anger. But he doesn’t know you in your anger. He wants to know you.”

“He won’t reject me?”

“Did he reject Jacob? I’m not talking about cursing God. I’m talking about a respectful but intense wrestling with him. Like Jacob did in the wilderness when he wrestled with the angel of the Lord. That was where Jacob’s name changed. It was that honest wrestling that changed Jacob’s character so much he needed a new name.”

“Oh. How do I wrestle with a God I can’t see?” She stared at the carpet.
“Write a letter to him.”

A letter allows us to pour out our emotions in words to the God who listens. It also enables us to confess to God our dark desires to hurt others as we’ve been hurt.

The Father of Jesus is unlike any other authority figure most of us know. He invites us into an obedient wrestling.

To wrestle is to learn the contours of your opponent’s very body.  To wrestle with God is to experience him and let him experience us.  Not only will God stay in the room with us, obedient wrestling will teach us the contours of our hearts–and of his.

Jesus, give us grace to wrestle.

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