I have come to realize that my inner sorrow originated from areas of hurt and loss that had never been properly grieved. Most every hurt has some sort of loss associated with it. These compile over time. We try to insulate ourselves from more loss and remembering past loss. But it doesn’t work so well because we are emotional beings, believe it or not, even for those whom seem not to care.

A SPIRITUAL INTERVENTION

The danger came when I failed to see the issue for what it was and failed to deal with its inner truth. I just kept on going, never missing a step. We all have different stories. Negative experiences vary in intensity from slight to moderate to severe. Some people get stuck for years by a word curse said to them by someone who was thoughtless. There are many of them: I don’t love you. No one could ever love you. I’m leaving and don’t try to stop me. You’re just feeling sorry for yourself.

Then there’s the type that demeans a person’s core worth, sense of value, and self-perception. Why’d you do that? You’re so stupid! Can’t you ever do anything right? I knew you’d mess it up. These are words that translate into heart language, a message to your inner person that tells you that you are faulty, that you really don’t matter, in-fact, you never did matter all that much.

Then there are those comments slung so carelessly but hit the intended mark. You’re ugly. You’re fat. You’re a failed abortion (I overheard this one). At some point when repeated often or taken to heart, the messages are internalized and become part of a subconscious system that believes a painful untruth about self, that there really is something wrong with us, something that can’t be fixed.

I have heard the stories first-hand. I find them hard to listen to because they are demeaning, hurtful, sad.

There was the woman married to a religious man who was a tyrant at home; a man who demeaned their children and her in cruel ways; the teenage daughter who was slapped by her pastor-dad for dishonoring the church’s conservative standard of dress; the person who was cheated on and then abandoned by their mate (many of these); the woman who was forced to have an abortion out of fear in response to manipulative threats by her partner (many of these);  the man whose girlfriend had an abortion anyways even after he had begged her to let him raise the child; the person who was molested, raped, beaten, neglected, or abused; the child who was abandoned, unwanted, and denied basic care; the child who became part of the foster care system; the person who was molested by a professing Christian, church member, youth leader, or minister (quite a few of these); the child, now an adult, who has memories like silent stabs etched in their mind.

The list is long in length. There are many, many forms of mistreatment and neglect that have contributed to these dark secrets and deep wounds that continue to fester even when they are buried or ignored; memories buried below acts of self-gratifying and self-medicating forms of denial, addictions and pleasures that hide or push away the pain in an effort to pretend that it doesn’t even exist.

On the other side of the equation, there is also the pain that we have inflicted on others. Those things we have done that we shouldn’t have done. Self-condemnation adds to the presence of pain—a result of areas of wrong one has done that have hurt others and self. These, as well, cause suffering in the person. The thing is, spiritually speaking, these internal messages don’t just miraculously dissipate at the point of belief in God and His salvation. Their messages, like an unwritten code,  leave impressions on psyches and lasting imprints on hearts. One cannot just pretend they don’t exist or push them aside.

And that’s the real problem. We will do something with them. We will find a way to cope. It is in our coping mechanism that we have blinded our hearts and minds to our heart and soul’s true state. These have also contributed to our dark hidden places. Sins and self-gratifying behaviors are often forms of bondage that act like a Band-Aid to cover the wound. Hurting people do whatever they have to do to ignore or bury the pain, to minimize or neutralize its hold on them. 

The Band-Aid never healed anything.

God’s remedy, His spiritual intervention, brings about the healing. If only people knew this to be true, what a difference it could make in their lives.

Now we’re getting to the important stuff, God’s remedy, His answer to our pockets of emotional pain. Keep reading …

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©N. L. Brumbaugh

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