I underwent nearly 15 years of psychotherapy in my journey on this earth. Not all at one time, but over a period of 30 years or so. I had trauma as many do. I was broken within as many are. There were psychic and emotional wounds. I had a story that I published (Holy Love: A Memoir of Sorrow to Glory/on amazon). We all have a story.
The psychotherapy journey was useful in helping me to ‘tame’ and cognitively manage my reactions to life (to a degree). Psychotherapy helped me to better understand myself and the filter through which I danced with life. My relationships benefited somewhat. But, beyond a certain point I realized that ongoing psychotherapy was like mental masturbation. That’s what I referred to it as because there was a pleasure and a near addiction to rewording and revisiting old and new wounds.
In 2009, when I discovered the gift that Jesus Christ offered me, I relinquished my attachment to my own story and the dramas I suffered and continued to fuel. I ‘surrendered’ as many refer to this as. This surrender allowed the Holy Spirit to step in and guide me as I journeyed on.
The wounds we experience and imprint into our souls always remain in darkened spaces within. The aftermath of those wounds: the false thought outcomes, the dysfunctional (or not optimum) patterns of behavior, the incorrect conclusions about ourselves that influence our behavior and negatively impact our relationships; are all available for us to tame, should we choose to. We have been blessed with a will so we can make the choice to turn to Christ as our holy counselor, and harness our will with His assistance to tame the beast, so to speak.
When I speak of ‘healing the wounds’ or ‘healing the lies’, I am in no way suggesting that this ‘healing’ means they dissolve and vanish from existence. Healing does not offer us a spiritual ‘lobotomy’ of sorts, so that its as if they traumas and hurts never occurred and we no longer have scars. We have memory. We have recall as long as our brains are functioning.
What healing may actually mean is that we have seen the lies. We have gazed into that heart of darkness in our souls. We can direct the cleansing light into the dark and we know where the enemy lurks. It’s like looking into the eyes of the enemy and no longer contracting or cowering from its power. With the strength of Christ within we can stand firm and defeat that enemy. With Christ within we can subdue the enemy’s compulsion to resurrect itself and lash out at our psyche and control our minds and behavior. With Christ within our hearts we can tame those errors in our thinking, so that we are in control of them rather than them being in control of us.
You can learn more about my healing journey and the gift that Jesus offers on my book’s website www.jesmith-author.net.
