This song was birthed out of my greatest inner healing so far.
As is often the case, my wound traced back to my childhood. My parents had a rocky relationship. They separated when I was 6 and then divorced when I was 7. I lived with my mom, and as a highly sensitive person, I adopted the role of emotional support animal for her. No child enjoys chaos around the house or witnessing parents being broken down. So I did everything I could to control the emotional environment myself.
I’d try to keep cool so I didn’t add to the stress. I suppressed and attempted to muffle the inner crying out in order to keep the peace. All this simply led to me pushing down fear and worry and anxiety and anger.
Fast forward to adulthood. There I was operating in the “real world,” but the faulty mental and emotional programming still carried over. I was still suppressing. Still keeping the peace at all costs, even at the cost of my own health. Never knowing why I was so upset, unsettled, and frustrated, but I was.
Why did it take me until I was 42 to address this issue? The enemy is so clever. In my case, I was still dealing with the same issue I had when I was 7 years old. I didn’t want to rock the boat. I never wanted to bring up my past wounds and current frustrations because although I was 42, my mind was in 7-year-old mode thinking, “At all costs, don’t upset mom.”
One day after a most helpful counseling session, I finally decided it was time to talk with my mom. Now I can’t promise your results will match mine, but it didn’t take 5 minutes before we were crying together on the phone. I felt years and years and years of tension coming undone. I felt so much frustration and fear and anger simply go limp and dissipate. I felt life and innocence rush to the surface of my consciousness. We healed together. When I got off the phone, I stumbled – literally catching myself – because it felt like so much had been physically removed from my inner being.
Even as I type this the answer begins to present itself in an obvious fashion –
In church we often hear about sin breeding in the darkness, but anxiety and fear and depression also have a field day in the dark. And what was the magic bullet here? Was it really just as simple as bringing what was in the darkness into the light?
It was.
I’m sadly convinced that most church environments only encourage our felt need to suppress the hard stuff inside. We feel pressured to put on our “Sunday best” and act like we have it all together. Even the question of “how are you doing?” is a constant stumbling block since there’s no way that this question can be truly answered in less than an hour. We simply respond, “Great!” and keep grooving while there are disturbances within that need a proper outlet for release.
I propose that we become walking permission slips for honesty. What could radical honesty look like? For me it meant bringing up a lifelong wound to my mom, and in the process, Jesus set us both free. It literally felt like a lifelong curse had been broken – with just one little phone call!
How many people go to the grave with all that tension still stuck inside? It’s no way to live! It’s for freedom that Christ has set us free, so let’s live into that freedom! Pray for wisdom and grace that we might open up and bring that darkness into the light. What happens whenever you turn a light on in a dark room? The darkness instantly vanishes. Now I know our healing journey is much slower than this, but I promise the darkness inside you can’t exist when it’s presented to the light of truth.
Find a counselor or spiritual director. Ask them for guidance on how to process and excavate these past traumas. And know that you were made for ABUNDANT life. This is what Jesus offers us, but it requires great courage and trust to fully walk it out.
It’s not the easiest road (probably why so many people remain stuck in their past), but it’s worth it. The small amount of courage and faith we have will multiply as we see the process working. We will be much more willing to break through those inner “no-trespassing signs” within us when we sense further invitations into more and more healing. We will have experiential knowledge that the enemy can be quickly defeated if we simply choose to stand in the light.
And…we don’t have to walk this path alone. Life is a team sport, and we are most certainly walking alongside each other in healing. I can’t help but think about the first Track that 10KFAM students are graced to walk through. The primary objective of the first six months is to be willing participants of the necessary hard work within ourselves.
All areas are assessed and inspected for brokenness. In the found areas of brokenness, the student is shepherded through that season with their coach and spiritual directors in order to discover pathways to healing and wholeness in Christ. This is the most important work of a leader in the Church.
No one really benefits from that in the end. But everyone benefits when we love and serve from a healed spirit that is properly calibrated in the healing love of Christ.
May we stand in the light and discover the freedom and abundant life Jesus promised for us. It’s right there for the taking. We just have to be brave enough to walk into it.
Grace and peace and big love,
Paul