Heart Devastation & Inner Healing Part 2

10/1/24  

(This post could cause triggers for some.)

Hi Honored Being – 

Have you ever felt your relationships are less than they can be, and wondered ‘why’? And have you perhaps realized there was something inside of you/your heart that holds you back from living what you know, or maybe doubt, you deserve?

For several months now I’ve been working a program from CWG Ministries called “Prayers That Heal The Heart”. (PTHTH). It’s been an incredible journey that’s taking me so much farther towards healing the wounds from the sex trafficking, etc., then the previous years of therapy did. Or another way to perceive it could be, it took all those years to prepare for this.

In any case, I’ve known almost from the get go that God is the reason why I’ve survived all I have, but still struggled with trusting Him (and e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e else). Over time I’ve been able to open my eyes to much of what God does and trust more fully in what I see, as far as He’s concerned anyway. That’s helped tremendously as I’m working with Him (and the coach I resisted initially, of course) with this PTHTH. 

The coach has been acting as the mortal voice of grace and guidance when my (previously life long) habit of sabotaging myself in myriads of ways desperately grasps for control. As those old behaviors and ugly lies are being eradicated and overdubbed with God’s truth, the persistent chains that have kept me from breaking free of the hell of the past are disintegrating. 

Hallelujah!

Hope, faith and abilities are greatly improving as we’re working through this program. 

This is one of those ‘simple, but not easy’ experiences. There’s an intensive amount of work to do if I want to make the most of it, and it’s taking a much longer time than I’d hoped (of course & Ugh! :)), but for sure this is the my path to becoming whole and healed.

The altitude of my attitude is definitely rising, even with grief and some confusion being mingling in.

A lot of the grief is stemming from (choke) both of my pets dying nine days apart. The first, my beloved four legged security blanket and perpetual dog/buddy-by-my-side, Cooper, died after a couple of long and increasingly debilitating ailments played out. 

Then my beloved rabbit died unexpectedly. He hadn’t had any major problems; I could tell he wasn’t feeling well that morning so I made a vet appointment for the next day. When I came home later in the evening, his spirit was gone and all that was left was a cold body. 

Lord, that hurt. Triggered quite the sob fest for the couple of days or so, and the process continues. But hey, I am feeling and not numb to it. That’s supposed to be a good thing, isn’t it?

So grateful for all the condolences and sympathy that came my way. Even received a bouquet of flowers from my 90+ year old friend. Even though she’s blind and can never read this, I’m thanking her anyway: Sheila, AKA Mighty Mouse, I love you and thank you for finding one more way to minister to someone when it’s needed the most. For a few years now you’ve been showing me what real love and friendship are; I hope to be doing you proud by learning well and offering the same for you and others. 

Some other grief is arising as the memories of the hell of childhood are being worked through with PTHTH. Not all of it is always completely absolved when a session is over but what’s so cool is, God is responding to that in unexpected ways. I think He’s showing me when we ask Him first into pretty much everything, He will provide, frequently by using others.

A couple days ago I was feeling the grief and kinda dejected. Not even walking in my favorite park and leaving small gifts for others was easing the grief and doubts. I asked God for some sort of validation that I wasn’t as alone as I felt.

Then God sent love notes via people to encourage me.

Something may have happened at the park but I couldn’t see well enough to determine if the person was someone I knew and acknowledging me or something else. Then a few minutes later there was a man wearing a Desert Storm Veteran ball cap. I thanked him for his service and he replied: “Thank you. You’re worth it”! (!!!!!!)  

Huh??? I was sure I couldn’t have heard what he said so I (not so) eloquently replied “what??” He unabashedly repeated: “You were worth it.” I hoped he didn’t see the tears in my eyes as I thanked him and quickly walked away.

Ten minutes later I paid for something and the change back was $1.43; according to Mister Rogers that number means, “I love you”. 🙂 I’ll take that! 

For God to come through in such a timely way where I couldn’t even doubt a couple of His nudges meant so much and actually got me to genuinely smile for a while!

Thank You, God. 

The memories Holy Spirit, my coach and I have been working on have ranged from seemingly innocuous to some of the worst. And sometimes, those minor ones somehow lead to the more god-awful.

For example:

We were healing a memory of my fifth or sixth birthday where my mother took me to a McDonalds for lunch. I asked to her to please not smoke (I had asthma and it would effect it) and in her usual arrogant way said she wasn’t going to let me tell her what to do. As she reached down into her purse to grab her butts to light up, she stared me down with that mocking glint in her eyes. I hated that glint – it told me I was just a joke and my needs (and self) were worthless to her.

But considering everything else I survived, that incident wasn’t that big a deal, right?

But then it segued right into another memory when I wondered if the heaviness I’d been feeling in my lungs lately was a body memory of the asthma attacks I used to have. As my coach and I were discussing that, a different memory emerged about one of the sexual abuse occurrences from when I was a small child (3 years old maybe). I was laying on a hard surface and the relative’s hand was pressing my chest down to keep me from recoiling and squirming away from what he was doing to me. 😢

With the work we’re doing, both of those kinds of memories are being healed when I see what else was going on, back then, as we continue the sessions. 

This part has to do with where Jesus was and how He kept the abuse from breaking and/or killing me. Each incident has different details, but frequently two aspects are the same. One, Jesus is extremely angry about the abuse. And two, He is always encouraging me to look into His eyes as the abuse is happening so I see the love and compassion in His countenance and not the gleeful malevolence in the other persons’. Jesus is also repeatedly telling me what is happening is not about me, it’s all about the other person, and what is happening does not effect who I intrinsically am. I AM still innocent, holy, loved, precious and cherished by Him and God. (And the same goes for you too, by the way, no matter what.)

The memories are still disturbing of course, but the lies of shame, degradation, humiliation, etc., are being replaced with the truth of what Jesus is saying. 

As that happens I’m (we’re) being freed to receive so much more of the love and good that’s been waiting for us, and it’s multiplying as we learn how to give that to others. 

The new knowledge of our true value isn’t just coming through the thoughts that are falling into my head as the old memory is reframed. There are also these extremely detailed, beautiful, gently glowing images that play across the eyes of our hearts/inner mind that are different for each episode and person. For example, as Jesus/God is taking away the self-images that are the equivalent of being perpetually covered in – well – sewage shall we say, He’s replacing them by showing my worth to Him. He shows me He is proud to be seen with me (!), for us to be in a relationship (!!) and God is proud to have me as His daughter (!!!). (Can safely say, never experienced that before.) 

This has been revealed in many different images, one of which was Jesus reaching out to me with His left hand. There was a shiny gold wedding band on his ring finger. He was wooing me as my husband, slow dancing with me and showing I was worthy of being chosen, gently loved, to enjoy life with, treated with respect, faithful to, and cherished; and I was capable of being part of a committed relationship where I follow through on what that asks of me because I can grow the faith that He (& potential hubby) do have my best interest at heart too, and I’m not just a product for someone’s selfish, malevolent demands.

That beautiful scene was a little hard to accept, but then my coach told me about an image he had at the same time I was having that one. 

When he married his wife she had a friend who was a designer and she made his wife a one of a kind, beautiful, white satin gown for her. He’d seen me in a similar gown – pure white, signifying Jesus sees me as innocent, and the gown of great value that I was worthy of being clothed in (worthy of the richness of self and life He has for me). My coach saw my hair was in a beautiful updo, and there was something feathery in back of me, kinda like angel wings (protecting me, perhaps?).

Wow. Once again, thank You God.

And to keep from falling back into the old beliefs I am to keep mentally replaying the many images like that God has been showing me as we do this work.

I have a hard time trying to come up with words that can express what an amazing, positive, life changing program this can be (depending on how much honesty we put into it). I pray that someday in the not too distant future I too, can use this technique to be a conduit of healing for others from whatever trauma induced hell they haven’t been able to escape.

It’s humbling and what I’m realizing is, even though I’ve been coming to some of the same conclusions about my value and what I’m worthy of, I never thought anyone else could see that I deserved it too, including friends and a potential mate.

Jesus is showing me different.

Thank You, Jesus.

And while the process is straight forward it still takes a bit of time after each intensive session to more fully integrate the healing.

All this is peeling back more of the self-protective layers that were still clinging to my heart and mind. It’s leaving me feeling so painfully vulnerable at times and wanting to dabble in that agoraphobia that’s aways lurking in the psyche. I wanna sit out of the world while the first segments of this uncomfortable, overwhelming, and extraordinary healing journey is unfolding.

It’s also exposing the anger I didn’t know was still lurking inside. I now see how I could’ve made a truly great guy pay for the sins of the pathetic excuses for males who came earlier in life. 

I’m learning that, for as impatient as I’ve been to move on and just claim all the dreams of various love and ministry God has for me, I’m grateful it hasn’t happened yet. I would’ve blown it up with the underlying anger issues, or chosen a mate and friends who were easier to feel comfortable with because it’s would’ve been what I had known, and they would’ve treated me far less than I deserved.

And you know what? In case you need reminding – you, too, are worthy of the best, and if needed, the time to do the work to heal yourself so you can attain it.

Amen. 

A friend, ‘N’, sent me this song, “Priceless” by For King And Country. It’s from the movie of the same name, which is about child sex trafficking. She said it’s how she and God see me; it’s how God and the right people see you, too. (Thank you ‘N’)

The photo at the top of the post is of a brick our group, Pearl, Unchained had installed in a local park. (Photo by Pearl)