Category Archives: TOPICAL POSTS by SERIES

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Woundings Be Gone: You Can Get Free of It: Life Journey no. 10

A True Story

We sat at the round table listening to the student’s mother speak. The school’s Student Study Team was intent on helping this mother with her teenage son. A standard question about his history, including his birth, was asked. He’d been a premie taken to a city eighty miles from where she lived. She’d not visited him much during his first six months of life. As she talked I thought of the lack of bonding between her and him from the get-go.

I’d had him as a student in my first grade reading class. He would refuse to cooperate at times and would stand at a rigid, soldier-like stance and would not sit down when I asked him. I’d seen that pose before in children where their life is unsure and even dangerous. They are expecting to be punished. His quiet defiance was almost like an honor to himself, owning his right to defy me. When this would happen, I never forced him and never called the principal. I just let him stand and then went on with the reading lesson. He made no noise, just stood there. Then he would sit down within a few minutes.

The boy wore ill fitting clothing, and I’d wondered about him. His nose was snotty most of the time, like nasty nasal congestion, and his face was unclean. I kept up my sights for signs of abuse. Teachers are mandatory reporters to Child Protective Services. Now, word had it that he was being courted by a local gang. One of the faculty had reached out to him and his sibling but the deficits were too many. The siblings didn’t respond to the help they were offered. I feared for his future.

The Problem

A few of you were like that student. It was you against the world. For the rest of us, we have our own stuff that trips us up and causes holes in our hearts. Most of us carry baggage of some kind. Unmet needs are usually not obvious on the outside, but they are there on the inside. It may be an unhealed hurt caused by injurious words or ridicule of some sort, maybe by a public scolding or someone’s rude label. These leave lasting impressions on the psyche and inner being. Another source comes in the form of unresolved issues. Problems that won’t go away, like the person who refuses to acknowledge us no matter how many pleas and sorrys. Family rifts can be devastating and a source of lasting pain for decades.

Soul wounding is caused by word curses, rejection, physical abuse, and other unkind and mean ways people treat us. “You’ll never amount to anything” will either cause injury and defeat or it will cause anger and defiance and may activate the will to defy the curse and prove it wrong. My phenomenal music teacher in high school was told by a teacher he wouldn’t amount to anything (his family was from Mexico). He decided he was going to prove her wrong. He ended up being an amazing, award winning, composer and conductor.

The wounds that trouble us the most are those that injure our inner self. That is why PTSD is a very real part of the traumatized person. The mind remembers, nerves are sensitized, anger is internalized, and panic inflames when a trigger event takes us there. Even the smallest word, sound, view, or smell can bring back the pain, the moment of fear and the hurtful memory.

Wounding of the Emotions

Emotional wounds rarely heal on their own. Instead, they simmer, hide, morph, and are denied. Some are covered up through alcohol use, drug use, sexual escapes, violent acts or other. A person can forgive and let go, but they cannot completely remove the pain. Hurt remains and colors all their movements though they may not realize its effects. When your innocence is violated, the body remembers, even in the very young. Triggers take you back to that moment. There it is relived and then, with a great deal of effort, it is pushed from view.

To be free of its hold and to be healed of its effects will require an act of God, and you being willing to go there with him. This happens when you are ready to take it on, to embrace your own healing, to partner with God and own the pain (acknowledge it). The thing in you that shouts out in pain against the wounding is the very area you must tap into with God’s help. This is in order to give voice to the wrong that was done to you and the unfairness and deep wounding it caused to you.. Healing is from Father God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. They minister together to your deep-seated, emotional pain and suffering.

What if you’re angry at God? That’s a good question. God can help you have a new perspective; you can go from blaming him, to trusting him. God will come along side and renew you. I’m unable to explain how he does that, at the risk of sounding preachy, for I don’t know your situation, but I do know he heals that part of us when we are willing to risk it. God replaces the hurt with a form of release and then his word of truth. Tears of truth, your truth, are replaced with healing and hope directly from God. See Life Journey 1. Theophostic Ministry explains this concept well and better than I can.

The Solution

I know healing is possible. My release from internalized pain came about because I asked God for it. I was weary of carrying sorrow and suffering in me. It was asked for by me and then it was given to me by God. The burden lifted and the sadness was removed. I felt different,  and I was different. God gave me love in the internal place where there had been silent suffering. God healed me in my emotions thereby releasing its hold (in my soul).

My friend, Whatever your wounding there is an answer, a solution to its pain. The thing may be hid from your memory, which is often the case when the body absorbs the blow and finds it too jarring to keep in the memory bank. You can know it is there because of the dead, robotic way you feel deep within you–and the way your emotions tug at you during others’ suffering. There may be a cruel streak in you that comes by way of cruelty done to you. You push people away more than you realize. You may have the desire to run when life seems too much. Your soul wounding was bad, wrong, injurious, and unjust, but it need not ruin your future.

Speak the words, ‘Father God, I need your help. I can’t do this. Heal my hurts, remove my pain, repair my emotions and set me free. I accept your love and your gift of grace. Help me, dear God. I need you so much. Amen’

Action Steps

  1. Write down what God gives you
  2. Stay with it until the release comes.
  3. Allow the tears to flow, the anger to be voiced (hurt from when he/she did that to you).
  4. Reach out to God. He will reach out to you.
  5. Praise and thank God when the victory is yours.

May you be free indeed.

Audio Recording 6:21 minutes

P.S. I’m sorry I cannot report what happened to the boy for I don’t know. I’ve lost track of him.

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INSTALLMENT 11

INSTALLMENT 11

LIFE JOURNEY HOME PAGE

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A Much Missed, Beloved Sister

My younger sister was beloved.

I take a moment every September to remember my sister.

Lois Faith Brumbaugh circa 1980

We lost Lois when she was thirty-three. I miss her. There was something special about Lois. God gifted her with a big heart, a clever wit, intelligence to match, and the ability to carry her own. She also had good friends, a group for every stage of life. If you were one of them, you will understand how empty life felt when we lost her in 1993. Lois had much to give. She used her gifts to help make life a little better.

Mother taught us to sew. When Lois was in second or third grade, I sewed a dress for her. I remember the dress had three inch white lace at the neckline. It turned out good enough to wear.  I was five years older than her; that was quite an accomplishment for me. We would play a lot even though I was too old to play house and pretend like that, but I did it to make her happy and because we had fun together. I’m not sure mother always approved.

Singing at our grandparents. Lois and Jerry are in front. I’m in the brown jumper. My cousin Jana and I are holding rag dolls our grandmother made.

Lois was the youngest. She had a way of getting what she wanted more than the rest of us. I guess that’s pretty common for the baby of the family. Sometimes I was surprised at my folks. She and my cousin Jerry, both the babies, had a dynamic between them that was spirited and smart. They could come up with funny ways of looking at life, both intelligent and musical, and a bit funky at times. Lois and Jerry sang a duet at my wedding, “Longer Than.” It was beautiful.

Jerry and Lois on my wedding day, playing the songs I requested and singing “Longer Than.” Two very talented musicians. Circa 1980

Lois had musical talent. She figured it out, though. Years later she confessed that she would get her piano teacher to play a new song on the piano for her because then she could learn it without much trouble. If she could hear it first, she could play it by ear without having to sight read the music so much. None of the rest of us were that talented. Taking piano lessons was not an option in our family, except Paul got lucky. Actually, I’m happy mother was persistent, although I never was talented at the piano. I remember asking to stop piano lessons my senior year in high school. Mom was wasting her money on me. Lois also had perfect pitch and found some vocal artists hard to listen to because they didn’t stay on pitch.

Lois’ death was tragic. In recent years my father has spoken more about Lois’ death in one-on-one conversations and how he doesn’t understand why. I think a parent always wonders some of these things. I know she was depressed and found life too hard to face. I happened to run across her final letter this summer. Reading it again after all these years made me aware of how desperate people can feel but they never tell you. She said she could not face another day of work and knew she didn’t want to burden anyone. That wouldn’t have been a burden to us. We loved her and wanted the best for her. We would have done anything to help her.

We should be sensitive to the emotional components in life. That is why we must help each other instead of preaching at each other. People need us to care. You never know what is going on in another person’s life unless they choose to tell you. Secrets abound. Keep in touch with your family and friends. We need each other, and they need you.

My last visit with Lois was four weeks before her death. My children and I made a trip to Oregon to visit with cousins that August. We spent a day with Lois doing some hiking and visiting. I have a picture of us and the children walking on a bridge over a creek. She hosted us at her home in the evening and treated us to dinner. We watched a children’s movie together on TV with the little ones crowding in. I remember her being gracious and on the quiet side that night. My children loved their Aunt Lou.

Love your family. You never know the future.

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I’ve written other posts about her. To access these posts type her name in the search bar.