Overcoming Childhood Trauma
A totally amazing realization, when as an adult you find yourself in a place where you feel stuck, overwhelmed, you do not know how to move forward in any area or any stretch of your imagination. So where do you go from here?
For years I searched……more like wandering, about over the Internet trying to find something similar or familiar to my endless feeling of loneliness, a feeling of desperation to find acceptance, always stepping forward to try to make a difference not just in my life but in the lives of others, as I could see others had some of the same insecurities I did. How was I suppose to help get them there when, I myself, didn’t know how?
As I prayed, sought out authors and pastors and teachers of the word, they were all seemingly saying the same thing. Trust God. Well, that’s nice. HOW do you TRUST God? Trusting God to give you a vehicle, or heal your big toe or heal your baby of some traumatic experience or disease is much different than believing God for something you can’t seem to see, touch, smell, hear or taste. I didn’t know what I needed. I would cry out and get no where. It seemed all my prayers ended up at a dead end street.
Once I decided to just take the bull by the horns and obey, I noticed a difference. I took index cards and pulled out scriptures from the word of God that seemed to fit my situation….whether they actallly did or not still remains to be seen, but all scripture is for reproof and for insight and sharper than a two-edged sword, so in my mind….I said, “this has to get me somewhere, somewhere is better than no where, I pipped.
Every day during that first summer I would take my index word of Cards and leave the house around 9 am in the morning and begin a power walk, taking myself to the bottom of the hill at my little place in the country. Then jsut as I would finish my cards, I realized I would be at the bottom of a giant steep hill that went up a steep grade and I could decide to jog up the hill or walk. Seemed every time I decided to jog. My words were like the little Engine that Could….I would huff and puff and deep breathe and huff and puff until I had found my way to the top of the hill. Wow! I thought I feel amazing. So, that began a ritual. Every day I would speak my scriptures and every day find myself running, huffing puffing up the steep hill till I was at the top. Many times I would keep running just to see how long I could keep up the pace. I quickly grew tired of the game as I realized I was in good enough shape to run several miles……that was good enough for me. But my heart was still an issue.
Hard – heartedness had set in from past trauma and I was not about to let go or give up till I found a soft heart of flesh again. “I will take the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” That’s what I was longing for. A heart of flesh. A heart to love, and be loved once again with an undeniable kindness and a heart that reached for mercy for my fellowman instead of telling them they didn’t have enough faith. I wanted to “be there” for them even if it hurt. I found such a hardness within, I couldn’t sometimes even go on. I felt so hopeless. I kept trudging along, realizing that I only had one choice, to believe in something I couldn not see but simply KNEW. I knew that I was loved, I had experienced that deeply, profound, mind blowing, ever-abiding love of God somewhere in the depths of my soul in years before and I was going to find it again, even if I had to die trying.
I worked every day on my attitude, prayers seemed to hit the ceiling, days turned into months minutes turned into hours. When would I ever be free from these crawling insects that tormented my skin day and night and when would I ever find a way to move beyond my own self-pity and self loathing attitude to find peace …..”like I river” …..I feel like I once experienced.
As David said “I USED to go with the throng to the house of God” I longed for those days when I would be in the house of God worshipping with the believers and the music would seemingly come to a halt all at once. The singers, the band the piano, the guitars, etc. Everything would come to a Holy Hush! No one wanted to move. I weep even now as I write about the love of God that overtook me during those days at Shady Grove church. We were known as the worshipping church, but then pride filled our hearts because we had something going. How childish! Anyway, little by little we enjoyed the fame and the way God was moving in our midst and finally we shoved the Holy Spirit right out the door. I left along wth a lot of other friends I had made. We all knew something had shifted in the Spirit and I didn’t want to hang around where Holy Spirit wasn’t.
I went to the Lord and asked, “what do I do now.” At that time He showed me I was to back away. I spent time seeking Him alone for a while and trying to find direction for my life till I ran into a couple who were going to an offshoot of that same gathering. I began to attend and worship became sweet again, but in reality there was an arrogant spirit that lingered. We are so easily distracted when we think we have something that someone else doesn’t. So I didn’t stay there long, but I longed for that sweetness again. I found it in my own living room, dancing and singing and learning to play the piano. A friend and I threw together our camping gear and off we went “North to Alaska” ….Ha! Just kidding! We did go north though, all the way to lower Canada around Sudbury where we snooped around a nickel mine and then crossed the St Croix bridge and rode a ferry into New York, crossing Niagara Falls. Beautiful Sights! It was that time of the year and Tulips were everywhere; colors unimaginable! Beautiful sights and plenty of places to get snacks. Pictures were taken. Jen my youngest was 6, David was 7 and Jason 9. We thought we were in heaven. There was so many different people to look at and sights to see. Not a boring time in any of the day. We took all our home0schooling tools and books with us and when we “wanted to” not saying that was often….we stopped and took out our spelling and had a test, or we would
It was during those years of being wtih my children and feeling free that God began to show me a better way. He was a God of love and mercy, not of anger and judgment. Then I ended up under a teacher that gave me just what I wanted ….more structure…..but not so much mercy. I had to eventually be delivered again from a religious spirit, but i learned a lot during those days. I learened