Healing Prayer From Painful Memories

Emotional Healing: How to Release Painful Memories • Psychic Elements Blog

Do you have sad or painful memories that return to haunt you time and again? Do you think these thoughts define who you are? Keep you awake at night? Perhaps your whole life has been defined by one negative event that you relive over and over?

Problems arise because our consciousness is unable to distinguish between the actual event and the memories of it. Therefore, the memory becomes the ‘main event’.

We add to it; we wonder if things would have been different if we had taken a different course. We associate places and dates with it. We give it labels such as guilt, remorse, grief and blame.

Years later, the painful memory has become so embellished that it is embedded in our reality. It’s part of who we are.

Thousands of years ago, in Ancient Greece and right up until recently, it was accepted that the mind-body connection was a given. Then as medical discoveries advanced, doctors considered all illness and disease could be treated with allopathic remedies, i.e. medication.

What Happens When Unhappy Memories Take Over?

There is increasing evidence that becoming a slave to unhappy memories has a detrimental effect on the human body. When we allow negative thoughts to swirl in our minds, it triggers the release of the stress hormone, cortisol from our adrenal glands.

This, in turn, inhibits the hypothalamus in the brain from releasing other hormones which restrict the adrenal response. Therefore, negative emotions repeatedly cause this vicious circle of stress.

You feel worse, and therefore feel and think more unhappy thoughts.

All this hormonal activity leads to adrenal fatigue, digestive problems and also leaves us susceptible to auto-immune dysfunction. In short, our bodies go into constant defense mode because of the continual triggers of cortisol and adrenalin. Learn more about the process here.

As well as all this, our mental health is also affected. We become fearful, unable to engage emotionally with others. We think that we are doomed to relive the unhappiness forever.

Everywhere we go; everyone we see; TV, movies, books, newspapers, social media have the ability to provoke those memories. Often people avoid certain places because of the memory they hold.

Dates and anniversaries are the same – as a certain date looms closer, some almost go into lock-down mode.

Positive Benefits of Releasing Painful Memories

Releasing or neutralizing painful memories has increasingly positive effects, both on mental and physical health. The body can return to homeostasis so that healing takes place. We feel calmer, able to do more and be more ‘present’ within. Life is no longer a battle because your brain and body are not going to war.

Mentally, you have made space for new memories and new experiences. You will feel free, lighter and unencumbered. You can go back to places you previously avoided, making sure to focus on those everyday details. Those dates on the calendar will no longer have the power to paralyze you.

Yes, you can mark them as significant anniversaries, but they cannot take hold of you. You can even talk about your unhappy memories from a one-step-removed position. You are not trying to erase them, merely calming your response to them.

No-one thinks you should forget your most emotional times, but simply to be able to leave the disrupting emotions back in the past where they belong.

Why Memory Suppression Techniques Don’t Work

A few years ago, a standard method of stamping on painful memories was to use suppression techniques. An example of this would be to wear an elastic band on your wrist and to snap it painfully every time you became aware of an unwanted thought. Needless to say, this self-bullying was ineffectual, causing a mere temporary displacement of the memories or negative thinking.

Then we were advised to ‘think positive’. Positive thinking was considered the magic bullet that would heal the world. Unfortunately, telling an unhappy person to change their thoughts from sad to joyful isn’t usually well-received, not to mention nigh on impossible to do.

Memory suppression doesn’t work. It leads to a feeling of failure and anxiety – because the memory will keep coming back, along with the associated emotions and negative labels. Thus the vicious cycle of stress hormone release begins again.

A Simple Technique to Release Unhappy Memories

A simple method to let go of painful memories was devised by Florin Dolcos Ph.D of the Beckman Institute. He carried out a study on two groups of people.

The first group was instructed to think of their unhappiest memories and explore the emotions that the memories stimulated.

The second group was told again to connect to their unhappiest memories but this time, they were to focus on the details around the memory – where it happened, what the weather was , who was there, and so on.

Upon measuring the subjects' neurological and verbal responses with MRI scans, Dr. Dolcos and his team discovered that those who had focused on the details around the memory had a lack of adverse neurological feedback. In other words, they felt ‘normal’.

The first group had the response predicted: they felt unhappy, and their neurological activity confirmed it. Dr.

Locos’ colleague and partner in the study, Ekaterina Denkova, reported, “One thing we found is that when participants were focused on the context of the event, brain regions involved in basic emotion processing were working together with emotion control regions in order to, in the end, reduce the emotional impact of these memories.”

Try it yourself. Deliberately think about something in your past that makes you unhappy. A funeral perhaps, or a relationship break-up.

Now reflect on the surroundings, the weather, what you were wearing, your hairstyle, the details of the room, what you ate. You should find that your mind moves smoothly from the central memory, through the trivial details and away.

Do this each time and instead of suppressing the painful memory, you can just neutralize it.

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Источник: //psychicelements.com/blog/emotional-healing-release-painful-memories/

Emotional Healing from Painful Memories

I really love the work of Steven Stosny and I think that much of what he says can be helpful to people in committed relationships as well as those who have been hurt by infidelity.  This post will address his ideas for emotional healing from painful memories.

While getting the quote for yesterday’s discussion, I got sidetracked and started reading a few of his other posts on the Psychology Today site.  I came across the following article that deals with the importance and function of painful memories.  However, we need to be aware that our automatic defense system can create false alarms and ultimately undermine the healing process.

Painful memories of past hurt are necessary for health and wellbeing. However, our automatic defense system can trick us and undermine the healing process.

Memories of past hurt are necessary for health and wellbeing. They keep us safe in the present and future, by activating an automatic defense system.

It’s easier to see the function of painful memories and the automatic defense system in physical pain. Having burned your finger on a stove makes you more careful when you feel the heat; stepping on a nail last week makes you look before you leap today.

Though more complicated, the function of emotionally painful memories is the same as the physically painful. Recalling betrayal is ly to make you more cautious about whom you trust; remembering the pain of past failures will usually motivate more learning, effort, and attention in future enterprise.

The mammalian brain is remarkable in its ability to perform risk-benefit analyses. It is able to balance memory of pain with the potential reward of a given behavior in the present, as long as the focus is on the present.

Un other animals, humans often subvert this process by ruminating about the past as if the function of memory and imagination were independent of the present.

This leads to vain attempts to solve the problems of the past instead of those we face in the present and future and paves the way for making the same mistakes over and over.

Repairing Hurtful Relationships

The automatic defense system works most efficiently on infrequent hurts with specific memory triggers. When it comes to emotional pain in ongoing relationships, the memory triggers are vast, general, and imprecise. Intimate relationships carry continual reminders of past hurts with generalized memory triggers tone of voice, body language, or facial expressions.

For example, bumping your knee on a chair or banging your finger while hanging a picture can produce the same tone of voice, body language, and facial expressions as past outbursts of threatening anger, rejection, punishing withdrawal of affection, or abuse.

A sullen look after a hard day at work or a typical response to the home team losing a key game can look the stonewalling and emotional isolation of the past. A distracted or preoccupied demeanor from a spouse who has strayed can trigger the pain of infidelity.

In short, the automatic defense system is prone to false alarms and can easily prevent healing and cause more hurt.

Just Leaving Won’t be Enough to Heal

If you continue to be hurt in your relationship and are sure that the automatic defense system is not precipitating the hurt, the clear message of your pain is to remove yourself from its source.

Unfortunately, leaving a hurtful relationship will not be enough to disarm the automatic defense system. As a matter of fact, it is ly to become more sensitive as its activation-cues grow less frequent. The amazing adaptability of the human psyche produces one of the cruel ironies about overcoming past hurt.

The more frequent and intense the hurt was, the greater your tolerance of it – that’s how the bad becomes bearable. As hurtful incidents decline in frequency and intensity, you actually become more sensitive to them, meaning that far less stimulus hurts far more.

You begin to react to the faintest possibility of hurt as if it were highly probable.

Here’s a typical example. You have no doubt lived through painful experience at some time in your life and coped with it remarkably well. Yet almost as soon as it passed you probably mumbled something , “I could never go through that again!” You became more vigilant for – and intolerant of – anything that remotely resembled the hurtful experience.

A tragic example of this phenomenon occurs in suicide. Clinicians have long known that the most dangerous time in a person’s severe depression is when it begins to lift. The newly energized and hopeful victim feels unable to endure the possibility of relapse and is ly to take drastic action at the first significant, albeit temporary, downturn in mood.

Emotional Healing Means Reconditioning

Whether you choose to stay in an improving relationship or to leave it, your automatic defense system will ly undermine your relationships in the future – including those with children – unless it is reconditioned.

Research shows that imagination and memory are opposite sides of the same coin, almost impossible to distinguish with any certainty and highly dependent on current physical and emotional states. Healing is never tied to the past; it is a matter of willful focus in the present.

Emotional healing occurs when the brain associates painful memories with restorative images. Repeating the association over and over conditions the painful memories to stimulate the restorative images automatically, in lieu of the automatic defense system.

Typical grief over loss of a loved one is an example of how this process occurs naturally for most people. Memories of the deceased are acutely painful in the beginning of the grief process; they keep you focused on loss and inhibit premature reinvestment of value in others.

Over time, you begin to focus on positive experiences with the deceased – what you’ve gained rather than what you’ve lost – and it becomes pleasurable to think about the loved one. Restorative images of love, meaning, purpose, and appreciation have reconditioned your focus from loss to value-orientation.

At that point you are free to invest value more fully in other people and in other areas of your life. (You can read the original post here.)

What about the painful memories of infidelity?

One of the most important takeaways from this article for me was when Stosny says:  “Emotional healing occurs when the brain associates painful memories with restorative images.”

It’s understandable how a person can do this somewhat more easily with respect to a loss of a loved one for instance, as Stosny describes above.  How many of us have  felt the intense pain of losing a loved one, but then several months later the pain has been replaced by loving, happy memories?

It is so much more difficult in my opinion when we’re talking about the painful memories associated with infidelity.  Most of us tend to associate these memories with nothing but more pain, emotional turmoil and feelings of betrayal.  It’s damn tough to find any restorative images!

I think that it just takes time to be able to produce these helpful images.

  As time passes and though still painful, the intensity of the pain and hurt from the affair starts to subside and it becomes easier to go beyond that pain to focus on things that are more positive and therefore more restorative.  It also helps tremendously to have a spouse who has done as much as possible to help you heal along the way.

In our situation, I’ve been able to look beyond the affair to an extent and see that we now have a relationship that is so much better than before.  That in no way implies that the affair was a good thing and that it isn’t still painful, but it does shine a more positive light on its outcome. 

There’s no way in hell that I could have put such a positive spin on things without a sufficient period of time passing and after putting in the hard work required to recover.  Affair recovery is a very long process and it takes a long while for the negative images to dissipate and for new, better memories to take their place.

What do you think?  Have you had any success at associating the painful memories of infidelity with something more positive and restorative?

Steven Stosny’s Books: 

“Love Without Hurt: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One”

“How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It”

“You Don’t Have to Take it Anymore”

Источник: //www.emotionalaffair.org/emotional-healing-from-painful-memories/

Does Your Family Need Healing? Try These Powerful Prayers for Peace, Healing & Harmony

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The holiday season is a great reminder for many of us that the promise of peace from the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ, has yet to be fulfilled in many of our families.

The Holy Family had circumstances beyond their control–namely, the attempted murder of the Christ Child–that could have disrupted their peace as family unit.

While we can’t always control the external forces working against us, we can pray for forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing from the physical, emotional, and spiritual wounds that keep us in bondage and distant from one another.

The Feast of the Holy Family is an excellent day to pray for peace in your family. And if you can pray together as a family, healing prayers will be quicker and more effective. (Matthew 18:20)

Litany of Healing for Families

Heavenly Father, I give you thanks, honor, glory, and praise for my family. I ask you, in the name of your son Jesus, to bless and protect each one of us and to help us be attentive to your plan for our lives.

I also ask you to preserve our health and to heal us individually and collectively as a family unit: spiritually, emotionally, and physically for your greater glory.

Remove all obstacles (any unforgiveness, negative inner vows we have made, oppressive ungodly spirits) preventing a harmonious spirit and cooperative behavior within our family.

I believe in You, Lord! Help my unbelief! May Your will be done!

From all habits of sin preventing a close relationship with you,
Heal my family, O Jesus.
From anything preventing a Spirit-driven life,
Heal my family, O Jesus.
From anything preventing acceptance of the the Father-God’s unconditional love he has for us as adopted sons and daughters,
Heal my family, O Jesus.

From anything preventing the peace, joy, goodness and unity that only You can provide,
Heal my family, O Jesus.
From anything preventing having the mustard seed faith that can move mountains,
Heal my family, O Jesus.
From all forms of selfishness and pride,
Heal my family, O Jesus.

From all inherited spiritual defects,
Heal my family, O Jesus.
From spiritual apathy,
Heal my family, O Jesus.
From all forms of addiction,
Heal my family, O Jesus.
From the effects of painful memories,
Heal my family, O Jesus.

From bondage caused by negative inner vows,
Heal my family, O Jesus.
From all the effects of broken relationships due to unforgiveness, adultery, divorce, and/or the various forms of abuse,
Heal my family, O Jesus.
From all unhealthy attachments,
Heal my family, O Jesus.

From all ungodly emotions, attitudes, and behaviors, (e.g. pettiness, manipulation, argumentativeness, jealousy, etc.)
Heal my family, O Jesus.
From all inherited emotional and psychological defects,
Heal my family, O Jesus.
From all emotional and psychological illnesses,
Heal my family, O Jesus.

From all inherited physical defects,
Heal my family, O Jesus.
From all physical afflictions and illnesses,
Heal my family, O Jesus.

Lord, increase the virtue of faith in my family.Lord, increase the virtue of hope in my family.

Lord, increase the virtue of charity in my family.

Help us, Lord, to internalize the words of Joshua: “As for me and my household we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15)

Take healing a step further and meditate on Joshua 6:1-27. 
Perhaps you will be the Joshua of your family–interceding and orchestrating the walls your family builds around one another to fall flat.

A Prayer for Healing

Lord Jesus, you came to heal our wounded and troubled hearts. I beg you to heal the torments that cause anxiety in my heart; I beg you in a particular way, to heal all which are the cause of sin.

I beg you to come into my life and heal me of the psychological harms that struck me in my early years and from the injuries that they caused throughout my life.

Lord Jesus, you know my burdens.

I lay them all on your Good Shepherd’s Heart. I beseech you, by the merits of the great, open wound in your heart, to heal the small wounds that are in mine.

Heal the pain of my memories, so that nothing that has happened to me will cause me to remain in pain and anguish, filled with anxiety.

Heal, O Lord, all those wounds that have been the cause of all the evil that is rooted in my life. I want to forgive all those who have offended me. Lord, look to those inner sores that make me unable to forgive.

You who came to forgive the afflicted of heart, please heal my own heart.

Heal, my Lord Jesus, those intimate wounds that cause me physical illness. I offer you my heart. Accept it, Lord, purify it and give me the sentiments of your Divine Heart. Help me to be meek and humble.

Heal me, O Lord, from the pain caused by the death of my loved ones, which is oppressing me.  Grant me to regain peace and joy in the knowledge that you are the Resurrection and the Life!

Make me an authentic witness to your Resurrection, your victory over sin and death, and your living presence among us. Amen.

Prayer to Our Lady Undoer of Knots

O Virgin Mary, faithful Mother who never refuses to come to the aid of your children;

Mother whose hands never cease to help because they are moved by the loving kindness that exists in your Immaculate Heart, cast your eyes of compassion upon me, and see the snarl of knots that exist in my life.

You know all the pains and sorrows caused by these tangled knots. Mary, my Mother, I entrust to your loving hands the entire ribbon of my life.

In your hands there is no knot which cannot be undone. Most Holy Mother, pray for Divine assistance to come to my aid.

Take this knot (mention need) into your maternal hands this day;
I beg you to undo it for the glory of God,once and for all,in the name of your Divine Son,Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Holy Family, give us your peace.

Peace Prayer of St. Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:where there is hatred, let me sow love;where there is injury, pardon;where there is doubt, faith;where there is despair, hope;where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master,grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console,to be understood as to understand,to be loved as to love.For it is in giving that we receive,it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

St. Francis of Assisi, pray for us!

Jesus, Mary & Joseph, pray for us!

[See also: Are You a Teacher? Try This Litany of Fortitude Asking for Strength Through the School Day]

[See also: Lift Your Heart to Heaven: French Seminarians Chant “Alma Redemptoris Mater” in Notre Dame Chapel for Advent]

Источник: //churchpop.com/2018/12/30/does-your-family-need-healing-try-these-powerful-prayers-for-peace-healing-harmony/

Inner Healing Prayer Heals The Painful Scenes In Your Heart and Mind

Inner healing is one of the most powerful prayer approaches we use. It is inviting Jesus into the scene of a painful memory, looking and then seeing Him appear on the screen inside our mind. We invite Him to move freely, tune to flow and watch the flowing pictures (vision) and receive flowing thoughts (His voice).

Patti’s mom had just died within the last two days, and all Patti could see in her mind’s eye was the last time she had visited her mom in the hospital, which was the day before her death. Patti’s mom was shriveled up in the bed, at 86 pounds or so, and in tremendous physical pain. She was barely conscious.

This was in stark contrast to the way her mom had lived all of Patti’s life. Her mom had been a noble woman with great poise and grace.

So Patti prayed an inner healing prayer. She asked the Lord to let her see her mom as He saw her.

The picture that lit upon Patti’s mind, while in prayer, was her mom in heaven, hand in hand with her dad, who had gone there several years earlier. They were dancing together in a lush green field. They were in the prime of their life. Her dad once again had a full head of hair, and her mom had the BIGGEST smile on her face Patti had ever seen (as her mom had been prone to melancholy).

Wow! All the pain in Patti’s heart vanished immediately and Patti was filled with JOY at seeing them so happy in heaven, and even dancing, which was something their church had never allowed.

Patti told me several times that whenever I tell this story to also share another important truth.

“You need to continue to focus on the NEW picture, and NEVER look back at the old picture, if you want the emotions of your heart to remain healed.”

As we know, emotions are by-products of the pictures we gaze upon. So If I don’t the emotions I am experiencing, I simply ask God to help me identify the picture I am looking at in my mind which doesn’t contain Him in it.

That picture, of course, contains a lie, which is that Jesus isn’t present, everywhere, all the time. Since He is omnipresent, He is everywhere I look (Ps. 139:8). I am asking Jesus to show me the truth.

“Lord, where were You in that situation?” The new picture I receive is a picture of Truth.

Pictures containing lies produce negative emotions of fear, anger, hurt and bitterness. Pictures containing Jesus present, moving and speaking produce Kingdom emotions of love, joy and peace.

One skill we want to establish in life is that of abiding in Christ (Jn. 15). This means seeing Him at your side all the time as you walk through the day (Acts. 2:25).  So now when a tense or painful experience arises, we turn to Jesus right on the spot and see what He is doing and experience the release of His presence, emotions and power, right in that moment.

Here is a powerful story of a veteran being healed of 35 years of PSTD through inner healing and deliverance. Here is another testimony: The Most Effective Inner Healing Program on the Planet!

Review the Keys of Inner Healing

Inner Healing Defined: “Allowing God to replace the pictures in the art gallery of your mind, removing pictures that do not have Jesus in them and replacing them with pictures that do have Jesus in them.”

Scripture: We are transformed “while we look” (2 Cor. 3:18; 4:17,18). Seeing what Jesus did and hearing Him, HEALS!!! A picture is worth 1000 words, which is one key reason inner healing is so powerful.

Step 1 – Using vision, go back and see the painful scene for one second ONLY. (You don’t want to be re-traumatized, you just want to be present and feel a bit of the emotion.)

Step 2 – Using vision, invite Jesus into the scene. Look at the pictures that will alight on your inner screen.

Step 3 – Using vision, invite Jesus to move freely. Tune to flowing pictures and thoughts and cooperate as Jesus heals the hurt with His loving presence.

A Biblical example of this three step inner healing process would be the trauma Peter experienced when he denied Jesus three times. This occurred at dawn around a charcoal fire (Matt. 26:69-75).

Jesus healed this trauma by resetting the scene in which the trauma occurred (Jn.

21:2-17 – dawn, charcoal fire and three fold confession) and Jesus ministered love and acceptance into the midst of that trauma, allowing Peter the freedom to go on and fulfill his destiny.

Assignment

In your morning devotions for a number of days, ask Jesus to bring to your attention any painful scenes you are holding within. As they come to your attention, jot them down, and then one by one present them to Jesus, asking to see Him present.

Where does He appear in the scene? What He is doing? Journal out what transpires. Follow and cooperate with His leading. If he is touching you, soak in that touch and feel His energy entering, transforming and healing your body. Forgive and release all involved so your prayers are not hindered (1 Pet.

3:7 – HONOR everyone, rather than judging, despising and hating – Mk. 11:25). As you work with one or two scenes daily in your devotional times, you may find this inner healing prayer process will take you several weeks to complete. Take the time.

Full inner healing of ALL painful scenes in your mind is a priceless gift allowing you to walk steadfastly in Kingdom emotions and Kingdom power. So each morning you ask a simple question.

“Lord, is there any painful scene from my past that You would to heal today?” When no more scenes float into you attention, this prayer approach is complete for the time being. Move on to additional prayer approaches.

Other Resources

Rita Bennet has a wonderful book, Emotionally Free, which lays out many testimonies of the above approach to inner healing. I actually use the inner healing steps from her book. It was Fr. Matthew Linn, SJ and Dennis Linn who initially introduced us to these steps to inner healing.

See a listing of more than 40 Spirit-anointed ways to pray.

Watch For Free

Right now we are running the Counseled by God video series for free, which includes a segment on Inner Healing Prayer.

Источник: //www.cwgministries.org/blogs/inner-healing-prayer-heals-painful-scenes-your-heart-and-mind

When Painful Memories Resurface – Receive God’s Healing

Recently I had a memory flashback of a painful event in my life. For several long minutes, it was as though I was actually present in the time and place of the trauma—reliving every emotion in vivid technicolor.

Later, over a cup of coffee, I mused over this occurrence with a dear friend who is a Christian counselor.

“Why,” I wanted to know, “would I have a flashback of an event that has been fully dealt with—one in which there has been complete forgiveness and restoration, and that has been used by God to bring such good in my life?”

I went on to share my response to the flashback, how I had prayed about the incident, re-affirming forgiveness and searched my heart for unfinished business. I could find none.

As I pondered her words, I realized that my response to the flashback had been (typically) to take action. Working out what I could do to fix it, it had not occurred to me to simply receive what Jesus had already accomplished for me.

‘He restores my soul…’ (Ps 23:3)

If something has triggered the flashback of a traumatic memory, here are some thoughts to help you process it:

1. Take the Position of Trust

‘He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.’ (Is 61:1)

You can be assured that if God has allowed pain from the past to resurface in your life, it is because He desires to bring a deeper level of healing to you.

A flashback can also be our inner self’s means of letting us know that it is ready to face and deal with any buried pain.

2. Re-Establish Forgiveness

‘Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.’ (Matt 18:21-22)

A good analogy is that forgiving again whenever you recall a painful event is keeping a wound clean so that it can heal. This may mean simply re-affirming the forgiveness you have already given.

3. You Don’t Need to Handle it Alone

 ‘Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.’ (Gal 6:2)

Sometimes we can work through hurts privately in our personal relationship with God.

However there are times, especially relating to situations of trauma, when we can benefit from others’ help. This could be through a simple discussion, someone to pray with, or Christian counseling.

4. Receive God’s Healing

‘He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.’ (Ps 147:3)

There is something significant that can take place when we allow God to minister to us in moments of reliving the pain. We can receive God’s comfort right there in the very place of the trauma. We can experience His redeeming power. [1]

Take time with God to receive His healing. This may be either in the moment that you recall the pain, or in time aside later.

You may want to:

• Acknowledge and release the hurt to Him
• Consider the heart of the Father to you in the situation—His compassion, comfort, and unconditional love; His complete acceptance, along with His desire to heal you and bring good to your life
• Listen to anything He may want to tell you about the event. The Holy Spirit may lead you to further forgiveness, or repentance, or He may simply want to show you something about the situation from God’s perspective
• Thank God for His healing and receive it by faith
• Be still in His Presence.

You may not feel that anything significant has taken place, but you can be assured that God has brought healing to you.

5. Affirm God’s Word

‘Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.’ (Ps 119:105)

Once you have done the above, even if it is an issue that requires a long-term journey such as counseling, you do not need to dwell on negative emotions or thoughts.

Instead, allow God’s Word to feed your perspective. I find the Psalms a helpful starting place—the Psalmists acknowledge pain in its reality, but always lead you back to a position of faith in God.

Hagar was a slave who was abused and mistreated. Pregnant and alone, she fled into the wilderness. There, the angel of the Lord appeared to her, bringing comfort, instruction and prophecy.

Genesis 16:13 tells us,

‘She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.”

Life’s experiences had sought to rob Hagar of her God-given identity. Abuse had sent her the message, ‘You are a chattel, a despised slave, a usurper.’ Now God spoke into her very identity and destiny: ‘I know you, I love you – and I have ordained you to be the mother of a nation.’

In the darkest place, Hagar received a revelation of God as One who saw her pain, and Who had a purpose for her life which would not be thwarted by the pain.

This experience with God gave Hagar the courage to face her fears and fulfil the future God had planned for her.

Remember, you are God’s beloved son or daughter. He loves you unconditionally and beyond measure. He is sovereign, He is faithful, and He is Your Redeemer.

Notes:

[1] From the counseling perspective, Jean Battersby says,

‘God invites us to allow His comfort and validation to be experienced and sensed IN the relived traumatic incident. Psychologically this allows us the experience of comfort and safety, in a moment that originally was overtaken by fear and disempowerment.

Recent neurological understandings explain the way the anxious or traumatised brain can change (neuroplasticity of the brain) when the mind, body and emotions consistently absorb and experience comfort and safety over-ruling the traumatic memory.

For people who have experienced trauma, it seems to be healing in itself for the person to realise that God sees and knows the meaning and extent of the pain and that He offers deep compassion, empathy and healing.’ Jean Battersby, Relationship and Trauma Counselor

Related Posts:

The Gift Of Prophetic Vision: See What Heaven Sees

Your Identity And Destiny: 3 Keys From The Life of Gideon

Breaking Free From An Orphan Mindset

No Longer An Orphan: How I Discovered The Father’s Love

© Helen Calder Enliven Blog – Prophetic Teaching

Enliven Ministries: in the David McCracken Ministries family

Источник: //www.enlivenpublishing.com/blog/2012/08/13/when-painful-memories-resurface-receive-gods-healing/