HEALING FROM CHRONIC EMOTIONAL PAIN: Some Principles

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This paper is based on my personal journey to healing from abuse, my ministry to others seeking to come free from long-standing pain due to past traumas, dysfunctional family backgrounds, etc., and from concepts learned from the resource materials listed in the bibliography. It has one assumption: while significant emotional pain can be and is, for some, healed instantly by God, for others their healing is an ongoing process. It is to the process that this paper speaks. It takes as its framework the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, which have been modified slightly to reflect faith in the God of the Bible and the issue of emotional pain as opposed to alcoholism. What is presented here is not a manual for healing, but some principles that can help a person receive God’s healing.

Step 1
We admit the depth of our pain and the reality that we can do nothing to heal it.

When God doesn’t heal our pain in a divine miracle and we hurt day in and day out, week in and week out, and sometimes year in and year out, all the while trying to put on a brave face and do our best to be good Christians, eventually, we reach a crossroads. We seem to be doing all the trying and God seems to be doing nothing – or at least nothing that helps us feel better. So we wonder: if God isn’t invested in helping us feel better, what is He invested in? Does He even care?

It can take a very long time for us to realize that trying to manage our pain is what is keeping us in pain. And having reached that place of understanding, it then takes a formidable amount of courage to let go of all our efforts. But let go we must. Here is why.

When trauma happens, we interpret the trauma. Because the kinds of traumas that lock us into a lifetime of pain often happened in childhood, our interpretations are based on a child’s reduced ability to reason well. So a child being brutally beaten may believe the parent’s lie that they deserve this because they’re bad. The child is almost incapable of reasoning that the beating has to do with the parent’s sin and not their own. Belief systems form out of these interpretations. The beaten child may grow up with a deep-rooted sense of being bad. Even as a born again adult Christian, who knows that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1) and that they have been washed as white as snow, they may still never feel good enough, let alone the supremely precious person God says they are. How then does this person live? A person who lives out of a core of shame will live a life dedicated to self-protecting and to hiding what they perceive to be the truth about themselves. Examples of what they may find themselves doing include: manipulating people and situations in an attempt to keep things in control and safe, never being able to say “no” lest they offend the asker, difficulty experiencing and expressing emotions (another fear of things getting out of control), avoiding new things so as not to be seen to fail, never asking for help even though they desperately need it, being a much better giver than receiver, having difficulty receiving gifts or compliments, feeling tolerated by others rather than chosen or loved.[1] This person, while perhaps looking outwardly, like a model, hard-working, giving Christian, is really, at a deep core level, living out of the flesh (I have to protect me). And since the flesh wars against the Spirit (Galatians 5:17), is it any wonder that this person has trouble receiving what comes only by grace, including healing? This person needs to find the courage to stop managing their pain and admit they can do nothing to fix it or make it go away.

Unfortunately, the people around us can reaffirm us in our victimhood. People tell us that if we had enough faith we would be healed. Or our membership in the local church is in question because we aren’t attending enough meetings. This is where the critical battle to let go and let God takes place. All our life we have let people tell us who we are. We’re bad like our abuser said, we’re too sinful to be healed like our church says, we are mediocre workers like our boss says, and so on. But people only see from the outside. They are not qualified to tell us who we are. Only God is fully qualified to tell us accurately who we are. The battle the wounded fight entails resolutely capturing the identity messages people send and refusing to allow them to penetrate our hearts, but instead referring the matter to God: “God, my boss says that I’m only mediocre and will never rise above that; but what do You thing about me?”[2]

Step 2
We come to believe that God can bring us into full healing.

Admitting powerlessness in the face of chronic pain can seem like jumping out of a plane without a parachute. It is not a decision that necessarily comes easily. And while it is a decision that may speak of the wounded person’s desperation, it also speaks volumes of their faith and courage. It is one of the paradoxes of the faith that a person in this depth of woundedness who looks to God for healing may appear weak and pathetic on the outside, but they are really stepping up to the plate as one of the Lord’s most valiant warriors.

As a first step, people in chronic emotional pain need to understand that pain is not their core identity. Unfortunately, pain is a very demanding experience. It sucks a person into itself and demands full attention. We try to ignore it at times and get on with life, but that seldom proves to be our answer to living the promise of Jesus of living “life to the full” (John 10:10). Besides, pain is a signal that something is wrong. We don’t want to ignore it completely because it’s telling us something important. It’s telling us about a part of our lives where Jesus’ healing has not yet penetrated.

Pain can also bring negative experiences into our lives in addition to the hurt:

(1)        It can be a separator. We may turn against our bodies or our minds, resenting them because all they seem to contribute to our life is pain.

(2)        We may, because of our pain, have difficulties with God, who has all the power and desire to set us free but isn’t doing so.

(3)        We may come to deny our hearts, our dreams, our ability to minister in the face of our own inability to overcome what is dragging us down.

(4)        We may withdraw from others to be by ourselves and nurse our wounds.

Pain can become more real to us than anything else in our lives. It can become a dictator, and we can take on a victim attitude. We may lose our sense of worth, especially in a society that supremely values the strong and the accomplished, the movers and shakers. So we turn on ourselves and our God, and we are at risk of losing our peace, rest, hope and faith.

The people around us may fuel our descent. The healthy tend to treat people with mental/emotional trauma with a range of reactions from pity to avoidance. The wounded may be left aside because they can’t keep up with the strong. If the disturbed are part of general meetings, they are expected to act and talk as if nothing is wrong. If their pain spills over, they become uncomfortable to be around. So dishonesty enters the load of pain the wounded carry. The message is that they are not accepted as they are or for who they are: they must be someone else in order to be part of anyone’s group. The strong pray for healing, but not necessarily for the struggle the wounded are in. And the caregivers of the hurting may be completely overlooked as far as support goes. On the other hand, the suffering, too, may not see the loads carried by the well and may not uphold them either. So we all end up in a vicious cycle of neither understanding one another nor upholding one another in edifying ways.

But to give pain this much attention is not helpful to either the sick or the well. A more helpful focus would be for the wounded to:

(a)        direct healing efforts to the source rather than the symptoms of pain

(b)        detach; and

(c)        become a “glass half full” person instead of a “glass half empty” person.

First, if pain is a signal of something wrong, while pain may need some management, it’s the roots where we need to focus our healing efforts.

Secondly, we need to stop stressing about what we cannot change. We need to detach from, instead of being sucked into, our pain. This involves several changes in mind-set. We stop rejecting ourselves and choose to accept ourselves as we are and for who we are; this robs pain of some of its ability to cast us into a demoralizing self-rejection, dissatisfaction over our lot, and questioning of God’s goodness toward us.

Finally, we try to live happily, focusing heroically on what is good in our lives and feeling grateful for that; this breaks the stress of striving for something that ultimately only God can give – our healing – and frees us to focus our energy on the things that are positive and uplifting in our lives. We focus on living in the now instead of in vain regrets over what has been lost or fears of what may be our lot in days and years to come; this tends to reduce fear and anxiety.[3] We release our burdens and cares to God and leave them there, knowing that He cares for us; this opens us up to receive His care of our hearts and minds (Philippians 4:6-7). We also release our tight control on our lives and our demands as to how we ought to be, and we allow room for God to move with His vision for our lives.

In short, since we have so obviously not received a miracle of healing, this does not have to wreck our lives. We can wait on God and, in the meantime, focus our energy on living well while we wait.

Step 3
We make a decision to turn our will and our lives, including all our pain, over to the care of God.

How the church can help: The church can give people the grace to own their story - their true story. We can avoid minimizing their pain with comments like, “Well, your mother beat you because she herself was beaten by her Dad. She did the best she could with the cards she was dealt”. We can avoid treating forgiveness at the level the wounded need to forgive as an easy act of the will when, in fact, they will need to walk the same five-step emotional path as those in grief before they are living the forgiveness on their lips.[4] And, no matter how desperate the person’s story, they need to be accorded respect in proportion to the amount of faith, courage and perseverance it is taking to walk through that story into the freedom Christ is giving them, as well as the grace to walk that walk at their own pace and in their own God-directed way.

Step 4
We make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

All sickness is the result of sin,[5] and all our life struggles have spiritual roots.[6] Walking out of long-standing emotional pain is no exception. The error to avoid is to believe that I am in pain because of my own sin. More often than not, chronic emotional pain begins out of the sin of another (abuser, dysfunctional person, hurts and wounds delivered by significant others) or as a result of negative circumstances (accidents, losses, etc.). How we end up locked in pain is that we failed to deal with the people and the circumstances in a godly way because we were too young to know how, or we weren’t believers at the time, or we were believers but we were overwhelmed and had no one alongside to help us through, etc.). We tried to get over it as best we could but, although the pain may have passed into our subconscious or our unconscious mind so that we are barely aware of the initial trauma, pain that is improperly dealt with or not dealt with at all remains very much alive. And it tends to mutate. Anger becomes bitterness. Sorrow over loss becomes an inability to trust. Rejection becomes fear of intimacy. Horror becomes a spirit of fear that keeps us anxious even when life is not threatening. And so on. Now we have moved into our own sin. For each person on the road to healing, there will come a time to develop a “searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves”. This is an inventory of what is good about ourselves as well as what is skewed. And it will surely lead to a significant forgiveness list.

There are two potential dangers to the wounded person in this process. One is that, having taken a hard look at the sin and unforgiveness within themselves, they will add to their pain by beating up on themselves and putting themselves down with negative self-talk, something to which emotionally wounded people are quite prone. It can take much personal spiritual warfare to stand in faith that sin confessed is completely cleansed (1 John 1:9).

The other danger is that the wounded person will misunderstand forgiveness as lovingly releasing into freedom from all consequences someone whose sin may have been quite grievous. This would be the impossible dream for someone at this initial level of healing. But this is not the essence of forgiveness, so best to stick with the heart of things. The love of enemies that God calls us to (Matthew 5:44) will surely follow, but something more fundamental needs to be addressed first.

The wounded get locked into unforgiveness, not because of a past event or events, but because we interpret those events into negative messages about our life and our identity.[7] We remember the abuse, and we still feel powerless and fearful and worthless. We remember the marriage breakup, and we still feel betrayed and unloved. We remember the car accident, and we still feel abandoned by God when we most needed Him. We remember hurtful life events, and we don’t react as if we are recalling memories of events that are past and therefore without power in our current lives; we react as if we are all the things that those events made us feel. But those people and those events really don’t have the power to keep us trapped. We are trapped because we have given them authority to keep us in our place of pain. Forgiveness is revoking that authority. It is taking back the key to our happiness that we have given to offending people and events and never letting them have it again. It is stopping listening to the low opinion that we came to about ourselves because of those people and those events and listening only to God as the authority on who we are and how valuable we are. We may, like Gideon, feel like a fearful victim hiding our grain in a winepress lest the enemy see it and attack us and take it away, but we may find God calling us a “mighty warrior” (Judges 6:11-12). Ultimately, God is the only one who knows us well enough, including our potential, to tell us who we really are. We need to silence all other voices if we are to heal.

In my personal experience, people releasing forgiveness can fall into two traps with regard to the offenders in their lives. One is to make excuses for the sin done to them: e.g., “Lord, I forgive my mother for abusing me, but you know, Lord, that she was abused, too, and really did the best she could.” While that is true, the hurt being forgiven is not the sanitized hurt the adult is talking about here, but the uncomprehending, deep, betrayed hurt they knew as a child. We encourage people to pray a simple prayer that names the sin without excuse (Jesus taught us to forgive sins, not excuses for sin) and includes the emotional pain that is also being forgiven: “I forgive _____ for [name action] and for making me feel ________.”

The other pitfall for the wounded is to scapegoat the offender: forgiving their sin but then continuing to live as if their own ongoing pain is that other person’s fault. While the initial pain may have been that person’s fault, our present pain is not their fault. It is our choice. That is hard for the wounded to hear - that we can choose our emotions. We can choose to hurt, or we can choose to heal. Many cannot even begin to comprehend that simple concept, so caught are they in a victim stronghold. But it is one of the most freeing and empowering concepts a wounded person can take hold of. The truth is that, in Christ, we have only one legitimate master, and that is Jesus. Pain is not our master.

Step 5
We admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our dilemma.

The Bible teaches (James 5:16a): “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” For the wounded, shame is often a deeply rooted stronghold. We are ashamed of our abuse, we are ashamed that we are not stronger Christians, we are ashamed of some of the vile emotions like rage and hate that churn around in our unhealed pain, we are ashamed of our weaknesses and fear that we will be rejected if we become fully known.

Craig Hill, dealing with shame itself,[8] and Melody Beattie, dealing with co-dependency,[9] talk abut the roots for each of these forms of chronic pain. The roots are similar. Prominent among them are family rules imposed by dysfunctional families, rules like:

·        Deny your feelings, and don’t feel angry, lonely, deprived, fearful, etc., because that’s just wrong. If you have any of these feelings, keep them to yourself.

·        Don’t trust your own thoughts. No independent thinking allowed. The parents are always right, and to voice any other opinion is to invite pain into your life. You also don’t know what’s best for you, so don’t go there either.

·        Don’t need. Don’t bother anyone. Don’t identify, mention, or try to solve problems in the family.

·        Always maintain secrecy about anything wrong. Don’t admit to a mistake or make yourself vulnerable to anyone. Maintain an appearance of being perfect.

These are all secret-keeping things. Quite obviously, from a psychological perspective, this is not the way of healing, but of crazy-making and being locked into pain, as the authors note. The Bible would agree. Jesus very clearly said in the book of John:

19  This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

20  Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

In other words, darkness and hiding are all about fostering evil and keeping it alive. To be free from the evil in our lives, we need to step into the light. If we find the courage to call a halt to our hiding, we reap cleansing and healing: “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

Step 6
We are entirely ready to have God remove all our defects of character.

This is the hope of every wounded person: that God will thoroughly heal and restore us. Dr. Larry Crabb[10] sees this as the place where the church has the greatest potential for good but where she tends to get off course. He believes that the church tends to respond to the wounded in one of two ways. One is to exhort them to do what’s right and to change their ways, then follow up on them and hold them accountable for what they have done. This is seeing the wounded as bad decision-makers and heaps guilt on top of their pain. The other approach is to try to fix what’s wrong in the wounded person. This is the psychological approach and tends to promote a view of the wounded as damaged rather than as God’s image-bearers. This may not instill a lot of hope.

The wounded do want to be fixed and do want to do what’s right. But what the wounded want and need more than anything is for God to strip away the pain, the negative beliefs and the learned dysfunctional ways of doing life, and to bring them into their true identity. What kind of person did God create when He conceived this now wounded life way before anything was created? Because that is the person He sees when He sees the hurting. Yes, He sees pain and other things that need to be removed. But once all the defects are gone, then what? What will be left? This is where Dr. Crabb believes the church can shine if she would learn to focus on releasing what is good in the other - first looking for and seeing that good and then helping the wounded begin to live out of that place instead of out of their woundings. The heart of a wounded person is not sin. Nor is it psychological complexity. It is the image of God and the capacity to connect in such a way that others know they are, at their core, acceptable and good and a delight.

Step 7
We humbly ask God to remove our shortcomings.

This is another step of tremendous courage. Our shortcomings tend to be our defence mechanisms. They have protected us from hurt - sometimes for many, many years. To have God remove them can leave the wounded feeling defenceless. The wounded may also see their defences as part of themselves as opposed to elements of the flesh that are not part of their identity. Having those defences gone can leave the wounded feeling like they have been left with no identity at all. At this point, they need to be strongly encouraged that they are on a good path and that their God-given identity, if it isn’t already manifest, will be, and they will live out of that identity. It is critical that people moving through this step with God be assured that there is a person to discover who is truly wonderful. One helpful tool is an understanding taught by Singing Waters Ministries on core identity.[11] A very brief summary of this teaching is this.

God conceived us before time (Ephesians 1:4), with a holy character (Ephesians 1:4), a calling (Ephesians 2:10), a certain body and a certain character (Psalm 139). We were born into this world. The family and the world around us blessed us in many ways. But being sinful, they also brought pain into our lives. As a result, we learned to self-protect. And, being sinful ourselves, we added to our own load of pain. So we developed ways of helping ourselves feel better despite our shortcomings and failures. None of which sounds too terrible except when you consider the cumulative effect. The cumulative effect of years of self-protection is that we no longer live out of our true selves. We live out of a self that was created for protective purposes. One example would be the person who is always seeking to please so no one rejects them. They never say “no”, they always present a happy face, they never let on when they are struggling, they never need help, they never reveal negative emotions, they never contradict. But that is not them. The real them does hurt, does have needs, does have really bad days or weeks when they need help, wants to say “no” because they are worn out from always saying “yes”, are sometimes offended, and do believe some things totally opposite to what others believe. When this person receives Christ, they are thoroughly cleansed of sin, are deeply loved just as they are, and are accepted fully and without reservation by God who wants to pour His grace into their lives. There is technically no need to self-protect. But when they come to God, they are so used to putting a false self out and hiding behind that, not even realizing this is a false self, that they do the same to God. God doesn’t love this self. He didn’t create it. It is a creation of man. He loves the real person. But all He meets is the false self. The way to healing for such a person is to repent of the false identity and ask God to take it down. Then the real person and their God can relate face-to-face and heart-to-heart, and God’s grace can pour into them without the false person standing in the way.

Step 8
We make a list of all persons we have harmed and become willing to make amends with them all.

Hurt people are not exempt from hurting others. As we come free from the pain others have caused us, we also need to come free from the pain we experience because we have hurt others as well.

This involves separating our wrongdoings from our identity. When we have hurt others, especially people we love, it is easy to fall into the trap of beating ourselves over the head and lamenting all the harm we’ve done. Or, we may fall into the opposite trap - blaming the other person because they did something evil first that caused us to _____. Both are wrong ways of thinking that will hold us in captivity to our pain because both are ways of saying to ourselves that we are victims who are stuck and without power to heal. If we beat ourselves up, we are saying that we are stuck in our evil; there is no freedom in God’s forgiveness. On the other hand, if we blame the other, then we’re telling ourselves that others have control over us.

But, if we understand that no one made us do anything, but we have free choice and all kinds of wisdom and power in Christ to make right choices and do right things, and if we also understand that our past behaviour is merely past behaviour and says nothing about who we are and who we are becoming in Christ, then we can move forward. This step tells us that we may even be able to fix some of the wrongs of the past. This is a critical understanding. It means that the past can’t lock us in. It also means that no one is defined by their past. Not us – and not the offenders in our lives. Even as we can change and come free, so can they. This is part of extending grace to others even as we hope to receive it.

Step 9
We make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them, others or ourselves.

Odds are, it is in relationship that we have been hurt. The deepest and most impactful hurts tend to be interpersonal. However, odds are it is also in relationship that we will heal - first through our relationship with God (John 17:3 - “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent”), and secondly through our relationship with godly and loving people:

            When people connect with each other on the basis of a vision for who they are and what they could become; when we see in others what little of Jesus has already begun to form beneath the insecurity, fear, and pride; when we long beyond anything else to see that little bit of Jesus develop and mature; then something is released from within us that has the power to form more of Jesus in them.[12]

And so we are called to always seek to reconcile relationship problems - so that our relationships, first with God, then with others and ourself, can be the vehicles of blessing God always intended that they be.

This does not mean a return to abuse. We need to be wise. The call of Jesus is to reconciliation, not a return to allowing another to take advantage of us or to harm us: “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24).

Seeking reconciliation can be a frightening prospect to someone whose only experience with having done wrong is to be beat or humiliated or otherwise abused. However, it is an incredibly powerful healing experience to go to someone, knowing you have done them wrong, and to have them forgive our sin and continue to see us as a valuable friend, accepted and still cherished. This tells us that we are fundamentally acceptable, just as God says in His Word: “To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved” (Ephesians 1:6 KJV).

Melody Beattie, in her book Beyond Codependency,[13] offers some good practical help for those making reconciliation or what she calls “negotiating conflict”. This is my adaptation of her principles:

(1)        Before you go, remember that you are not responsible for the results. You are only called to go and seek reconciliation. If it doesn’t happen, this is not a cause to beat yourself up. Continuing unforgiveness is the other person’s problem. Also remember that no matter what, God still loves you and accepts you, and you are at peace with Him. This is critical.

(2)        Remember that reconciliation is about drawing closer to people. They are to be encouraged and edified. It is the problem between you that needs to be fixed, not the other person. Also, this is not about you being bad. It is about you having done something harmful to the relationship that needs to be mended. Your confession of your sin has cleansed you and you are still righteous in Christ. Accept yourself and the other and confront the problem.

(3)        You are seeking a solution that is in the best interests of the relationship. The best solution to your differences may therefore not be the most economical or easy or convenient solution available. But if it heals the relationship, that is the solution you want.

(4)        Reconciliation is not a win-lose exercise. It is not making peace at any cost. Some costs are too high. What the other person wants from you may be for you to return to abuse. Reconciliation is always win-win. It may cost you something, but if the result is a return to an unhindered and good relationship, then you have also gained. Christ lost much to reconcile us to Himself, but he went to the cross with joy in his heart because of what would result (Hebrews 12:2).

(5)        Be prepared that your encounter with someone you have hurt may go easy, or it may take some talking and exploring of hurt feelings before reconciliation is complete. Because it doesn’t happen quickly does not mean it isn’t happening. Sometimes the process involves doing your best and then waiting on God to work in the other person’s heart. Sometimes people need some space to work through their feelings and to collect their thoughts and work the situation through for themselves before the two of you can proceed further.

Hebrews 12:15 says: “See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” This means that, as we seek reconciliation with someone we have hurt, we need to be sure we have done all we can to ensure that no bitterness takes root in their heart. For example, if I borrow Mary’s car and have an accident, I could just return it with deepest apologies and offer to pay for the repairs, but that wouldn’t address the full problem I have created for Mary. She now has to take time off work to go get estimates for repairs done, she will be without a vehicle while the car is in the shop, and her insurer may boost her insurance rates. To make full amends, I should also offer to take the car around for estimates, loan her my car while hers is in the shop, and pay any difference in car insurance payments. The goal in reconciliation is not to solve our relationship problem lightly, but to solve it thoroughly. That is the example Christ gave us. Our reward is relationship with people of immeasurable worth and the deep satisfaction of knowing, perhaps for the first time in our lives, that we can be wrong and make it right, perhaps bless the other in the process, and be accepted by them despite the wrong. This is the stuff that drives our courage to come further out of our self-protections and press on in life, hope that we can be blessed in relationship even without being perfect, and the faith that we can be for others a blessing and not just a curse or someone of no worth who is good only to be used and hurt and then rejected.

Step 10
We continue to take personal inventory and when we are wrong promptly admit it.

This is now easier to do because we know that admitting wrong is not admitting we are wrong but that we did something wrong and need to learn from it and attempt to make changes so we don’t repeat it.

On the positive side, a personal inventory also means affirming what is right about us. Melody Beattie explains:[14] “If we emphasize and empower the good in ourselves, we will see and get more of that. If we empower the good in others, we will get more of that too … To empower means to give power to. What have we been giving power to? … Do we want to empower the problem or the solution?” Dr. Larry Crabb says it this way:[15] “Healing community does not depend on getting people to do what’s right or on figuring out what harmful psychological forces are causing problems and then trying to fix what’s wrong. … Communities heal when they focus on releasing what’s good.”

Step 11
We seek, through prayer and meditation, to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for the knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out.

It is a mistake to believe, when we come to God for healing, that freedom from the specific pain that troubles us is all we need. God knows we need so much more and is willing to give more. God is interested in our wholeness. And so we seek His will. The result is that our journey into healing may look different than anything we expected. God may not deal directly with our presenting issue first. He may see that we have something else in our lives that needs ministry more urgently, and so He goes there. If we’re not open to flowing with Him, we may resist Him and wonder why we are suddenly aware of a different pain than the one we started with. We may make the mistake of thinking we are getting worse when, in fact, God is raising awareness of something new because He is ready to bring healing into that and sees this as the best starting place for us. We need to learn to relax and flow with Him.

Here is where the deeply wounded fight one of the most crucial battles in their healing journey. As God brings healing, He will ask us to forgive offenders and to confess sin, as the previous steps indicate. Without that kind of spiritual healing, we will have difficulty receiving or holding onto our emotional healing. Those steps in themselves can be huge hurdles, especially where particularly cruel offenders or abusers are involved. But probably an even harder battle for the deeply wounded is to learn how to lay down their striving, their defence mechanisms and their false identities, and to be open and vulnerable and simply receive from God.

Carrying out God’s will means making every effort to enter into God’s rest (Hebrews 4:11), in other words, to rest from our own efforts (Hebrews 4:10). In the healing context, this means resting from our own efforts to control and self-protect. Jesus spoke the same invitation when he said that if we stress and fret about protecting ourselves from hurt, we’ll lose our lives; but if we learn to lay our lives down and entrust them to God, we’ll find what our life can truly be (Mark 8:35). God’s rest is a healing place. If we can’t find our way there, our healing is greatly hindered. What keeps us out isn’t our wounding or our level of pain. The only thing that can keep us out is a lack of faith (Hebrews 3:11-12), which the Amplified Bible describes as “leaning the entire personality on God in absolute trust in His power, wisdom, and goodness”.

This is where the church can be supremely helpful to the hurting believer. Hebrews, following its warning that we not let unbelief preclude us from enjoying God’s rest, says (Hebrews 3:13): “But encourage one another daily”. It is no easy thing for a person who has been abused to learn to trust at a deep emotional level. They may have a theology that God is good all the time and can be trusted with anything, but their pain will continue to warn them to be wary, to not let their guard down, to keep a closed heart. This is a battle that the faint of heart will never win. But brothers and sisters in Christ can gently encourage the wounded to take a faith stand with God, and can create a safe place for the wounded to voice their struggle and receive help and prayer without condemnation or unreasonable expectations being placed on them. In other words, the church can model that place of rest until the wounded feel comfortable there and can receive God’s rest into their hearts.

Step 12
We have a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, and carry this message to others in need, and we practise these principles in all our affairs.

Healing has a beginning and an end. Wholeness is a lifestyle. Once we have stepped out of our bondages, we are far from done. As wonderful as that is, there is so much more. Our promise as Christians is that (2 Corinthians 3:18): “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” Our destiny doesn’t stop at healing or even at wholeness. Our destiny is glory. As wonderful as our healing is, there is so much more even beyond that. Our path will include suffering. But here is where God’s promise to work everything for good becomes an important one to cling to. Everyone who moves into healing from chronic emotional pain sooner or later comes to the realization that, although they originally saw their suffering as a hindrance to life, in fact, God has used it for good and there is much that came out of their suffering for which they are grateful. The pain takes on a certain beauty. And so future suffering, allowed by a God who cares deeply for us, is not to be feared. Like Jesus, we fix our eyes on the joy set before us (Hebrews 12:2), and our pain becomes, not a stumbling block, but a stepping stone to greater glory.

In summary, each person’s healing is an individual journey. It will look different in many ways from other people’s journeys. The principles presented here are helps and guides only, and they may not fall into place in a certain person’s life in the order in which they are laid out here. But hopefully they will be of help to those struggling with chronic emotional pain and those seeking to understand and to walk with the deeply wounded in their journey to healing.

Sharon Currens

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Bibliography

Beattie, Melody. Beyond Codependency: And Getting Better All the Time (Center City, Minnesota: Hazelden Educational Materials, 1992), ISBN 0-89486-583-8

Beattie, Melody. Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself, 2nd edition (Center City, Minnesota: Hazelden Educational Materials, 1992), ISBN 0-89486-402-5

Crabb, Dr. Larry. Connecting: Healing for Ourselves and Our Relationships - A Radical New Vision (Nashville, Tennessee: Word Publishing, 1997), ISBN 0-8499-1413-2

Crabb, Dr. Larry. Shattered Dreams: God’s Unexpected Pathway to Joy (

Gardner-Nix. Dr. Jackie. Pain Speaking: Chronic Pain Management (series of four CDs on the mindfulness-based approach to chronic pain (Pathfinder Communications Inc., 2004), available from www.painspeaking.com

Hill, Craig. The Ancient Paths (Littleton, Colorado: Family Foundations Publishing, 1992), ISBN 1-881189-01-5

Vision Christian College, Battle for the Body, course manual (Madera, California: Harvestime International Institute, undated)