Category Archives: TOPICAL POSTS by SERIES

Posted on

Pain in the Hidden Places (The Deep Healing, Part 3)

Why I Needed a Deep Healing

The Past

SPIRITUAL ROOTS INFLUENCE:  I was raised in a conservative Christian home. We were brethren and later became baptists. Evangelical in our religious views, our family life revolved around church. For the most part I would say we were happy with our way of life to varying degrees according to the person and personality.

I attended a conservative baptist college. There, each student completed 30 units of bible/christian related coursework and passed a doctrinal exam before graduating. I have always appreciated those requirements. I learned a ton that is not taught in church all that much.

My life as a follower of Christ is marked by a progression of steps. I have always been serious about my faith and have grown in my love for God over the years. My spiritual life started with being saved at age seven and then baptized, dedicating my life to God at age 16, teaching in the church all my adult years, surrendering to God and on my new path at age 46, and fulfilling the calling to help others in recent years.

How My Adult Years Played Out

Brief about the Past

Adult History:  A Summation in bits and pieces: In college I pursued a B. S. degree in education. College graduate. Returned to my home town. Started teaching in a private Christian school. Spent a year in Southern California at CSU Fullerton in the credentials program. Came home. Returned to teaching. Got married. Started a family. Became a homemaker. Family eventually increases to five children. At church I was active in children’s ministries, and later as women’s ministry director.  I also participated in music. Attended CSU, Chico in graduate studies for Multicultural Certification and for a Reading Specialist credential. Employed as a public school teacher, reading specialist, and leadership venues. Family splits. Divorce. Recovery. Retire. Writing and speaking.

Troubles Abound

Adult Struggles: Life becomes messy. 1985 – abandoned by husband. No information. He returns. We get back together. He receives christian counseling. We move. 1987- abandoned again. He’s gone. No note. Move family. I teach preschool. Husband returns to area. Deal with his unfaithfulness. Huge problem. Living separate, then get back together. Weird things happen. I have a break down. We move. Struggle, struggle, struggle. Instability in work situations. We move again. Family functions fairly well. My sister commits suicide. My husband’s uncle commits suicide. Another ‘hidden’ marital episode. Marriage counseling. We move. Yada, yada, yada.

Then I’m Facing It: I go to graduate school, want to get marketable, worried the marriage is toast. I’m forty. Another marriage episode. Christian counseling. Husband begins graduate school, then leaves marriage to pursue a new relationship and a new life. Children wounded. My teaching position ends. I’m destroyed but keep most of it to myself. God is my stalwart. I can’t do it anymore, but God can. Healing begins. Custody battle. Lose custody of youngest child. 18 months later, custody reverses. I begin speaking out.

Dealing With It

In protective mode: The decades of suffering was borne in silence, mainly to protect my family. I was strong but sad inside. The abandonments and adulteries caused a deep wound in me. I forgave but the inner pain remains. I became self-contained to maintain my fragile presence. God became very dear to me. Losing my sister was absolutely  devastating. This was a deeper hurt, almost more than I could bear. I was confused about God, but not angry with Him. The problem was I didn’t know what to do with my inner pain. After the divorce, I knew I was at a crossroad.

I chose a new direction and a better way. (My spiritual transformation will be in the next post.)

One doesn’t always know how to handle the things that rock your world. But handle them you must. I faced it head on because I wanted to be strong, able, and spiritual. I gave it my all. At the time it was helpful and necessary to spend lots of quiet time with the Lord. I came up with my own spiritual exercises. These actually are very similar to Lectio Divina, which I later discovered about ten years down the road.

Spiritual Exercises

1. Enter God’s presence. Thank Him for what He is doing in you and for what He is teaching you. Thank Him for being who He is. Ask Him to show you what He has for you during this time of spiritual contemplation.
2. Ask God to reveal specific lies you have believed. You have believed lies about yourself, about others, and about God. Exposing these lies may take much prayer. Write these lies down. Ask Him to show you how they affect you. Write this down. Acknowledge these lies to Him. Submit yourself to God. Ask Him to show you what is true from what is false. This may be done in increments. God may reveal these lies over several days. Each piece builds on the next piece.
3. Read a passage with Jesus in it (in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John). What is Jesus doing, saying, teaching? Take note of your thoughts as you ponder its truth. What speaks to you? How does it apply to you? Write this down. Absorb truth deep in your being. Ask God for it. Praise Jesus.

Reread these reflections the next day. Do the spiritual exercises every day of the week. Read a new passage of scripture each day unless you feel God would have you revisit a past contemplation.

An add-on highlights the traditional aspects of historical Christianity.  Addendum to Part 3.

RESOURCES

–Part 4 of The Deep Healing can be found here.

–Read my previous posts about ‘The Deep Healing, Part 1’ here, and Part 2 here.

–Listen to my testimony about pain and healing here.

Posted on

Accessing What You Need (The Deep Healing, Part 2)

The Deep Healing

Introduction

After last week’s post, you may wonder what I’m talking about when I say ‘the deep healing’ or what the deep healing really is, and why you might (or should) want it. That is fair enough. The topic is rather vague for those new to it, and I’m applying my own terminology to describe its expression.

In answer, I can only share what the deep healing is to me and what it has done for me. God completely transformed me, and in doing so, my spiritual walk dramatically altered. It was an inside-to-outward sort of thing. Through a process, God renewed every part of me. The tag line, the deep healing, is an expression to describe what happened to me and is what I want for other Christ followers.

As I thought about the many parts that make up the whole in my spiritual life, I realized that the most electrifying, life-changing, life-altering, spiritually rich event in my life is the single most impactful thing that has ever happened to me in my spiritual life (and is my motivation for writing spiritual material).

This event came via the result of an initial experience in which I had asked God to help me know Him, to help me deal with my stuff, and to heal me if it was at all possible and a right thing to ask (according to His will). You see, even in the asking, I was fearful, hesitant, and unsure of its biblical merits. I didn’t know if what I was asking God to do was, in fact, off limits in the human-to-God experience.

I was locked in a soft-padded cage, a place of rules, safety, righteous living, and spiritual truth, but I longed for more, something lively with newness and fullness. I’d sustained some major hurts and was going right along, coping without complaining. Severe losses hit again, and I was down for the count, trying to stay afloat without crashing and burning.

I was hoping there was a way to become happy again, that the long-suffering could end some way, somehow, and that God would some day meet my inner need and set me free from all that submerged pain. I’d not read much in the way of accessing spiritual freedom. So seeking God for truth and for His healing were unknown entities. They were new undertakings for me, spoken in honesty to God from my damaged, devout, heart of hearts.

An Internal Awakening

God phenomenally answered my request (more on this in next week’s post). This new beginning was just a starting point. God has been continually enriching my life from then to now. While thinking on this a couple of weeks ago, my mind immediately leapt to form a mental conclusion about the matter. ‘The deep healing’ entered my thinking and came out of my mouth. I grabbed a pen to write the phrase down before I would forget it. Last week that slip of paper lay crumpled on my writing desk. I knew it was time to jump in.

The deep healing aptly states the unchained reality I have been living for fifteen years. My world is lived outside the cage. Even though it was not an overly restrictive cage, I am glad to be free of it. Any answers I have shared come from out of this God-focused, God-enriched reality. At the instant I wrote “The Deep Healing” that morning, I knew I wanted to share more on this key concept with you.

I know you may have recognized this topic from my ‘Going Deeper with God’ series. This series is different in its trajectory. I hope it offers life to you.

Healing’s inward penetration along with its effective change in the whole self comes through the sublime utterance of the Holy Spirt, the active seeking of the mind of Christ, and the will of God at work in us.  Spiritual elements are sourced and encapsulated in an ongoing, alive, renewing of the mind, body, and soul, when spiritual life is lived in close, intimate relationship with Christ.

You Have to Want It

The deep healing separates the genuine from the wannabes, the rote learners and rigid followers from the open pursuers and genuine seekers and finders. I don’t mean to be harsh, but much of religious practice is circumspect but lacking in life, practiced but not enlivening to the soul. Like the hardcore faith that it is, the deep healing sets itself apart from doing the religious thing because of its internal enlivening of the soul that seeks God, and through being, God-actualized awareness deep in the core of the individual.

Micah 6:8 (ESV)

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

A gap is soon to widen out from the other variant religious structures such as the performance-based bents and the grace-with-liberty practices. Though different in its essence, it is not separate in its beliefs. You could say, it is in “addition to’ and not in “subtraction from’ a person’s personal, spiritual, Christ-based, beliefs and practices.

Those whom have known the deep healing are a group unto themselves. How so? What separates them from other religious devout or not-so-devout Christians is this. They take their spiritual life one step further into an active pursuit of God. Here’s how. They seek to know God with their whole heart and being.

—

Part 3 of  The Deep Healing can be found here.