The Suffering Only God Can Heal

 

“And I will rescue you from both your own people and the Gentiles. Yes, I am sending you to the Gentiles to open their eyes, so they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. Then they will receive forgiveness for their sins and be given a place among God’s people, who are set apart by faith in me.’ For the Kingdom of God is not just a lot of talk; it is living by God’s power.”

Acts 26:17-18 (NLT)

“Being in this relationship takes too much out of me – I’m so tired of it.”

If you have experienced abuse as a child or have grown up in an abusive household, the trauma of what you saw and experienced impacts your entire life. Many adults that encountered domestic violence and abuse in some way as a child get up in the morning and begin their days feeling as though a dark cloud is hanging over their heads. They never associate the deep sadness and insecurity with what happened to them years ago. They may have many questions about why it happened or why they went through it, and they won’t let themselves get over the fear of not being protected, supported, or loved. The dark cloud is the heaviness of this fear, and it shows us that fear is indeed bondage, and the devil seeks to keep us enslaved.

We are born into bondage, because we are born in sin. Many of us overlook the heft of what that means, or we will not try to understand it. Since Adam’s and Eve’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden, every single person that is born in this earthly realm was born under the enslavement of satan’s darkness. It sounds like something out of a sci-fi horror movie, but the imaginations of human beings couldn’t come up with something like this. Human beings in Biblical days chose to sin, and most of us are still choosing sin over obedience to God today. Romans 5:12(NLT) says, “When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.”

Some of us have had wonderful childhoods, filled with joy and happiness, and we don’t experience extreme hardship until later on in life. But some of us have had the innocence of childhood stolen from us because the devil wanted to prevent our destinies in the Will of God from going forward. We must not be blind to the reality that the enemy sought to utterly destroy us, and the devil did it by working through those who refused to live through the love of Christ the way they should have.

As a person that has experienced the trauma and pain of domestic violence, you can’t afford to allow the truth of John 3:16(NLT) to slip by you. It is the foundation of your healing, and you must meditate on it and allow it to sink deep within your core. Jesus Christ said in this verse, “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” The wages of sin is death. God sent Jesus Christ to the earth and gave him, His only begotten Son, as a sacrifice to die for us. When Christ died on the Cross of Calvary, he took our place. We deserved the suffering, punishment, and torture he endured, but we could not have withstood it.

The reality that we are born into a sinful world, with people, most that do not walk in the love of Christ, cannot be lost on us. It’s nothing to take lightly. It is the condition of the world and shows us the darkness of satan’s dominion. The Bible tells us that he is the god of this world. 2Corinthians 4:4(NLT) says, “Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.”

Becoming born again through the Lord Jesus Christ transfers us from satan’s dominion to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. Colossians 1:12-14(NLT) says, “12 He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light. 13 For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, 14 who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.” Many believers are still in sadness because they haven’t fully understood what Christ accomplished for us spiritually, and it is precisely because they haven’t understood it, that they haven’t fully accepted it.

Being born again makes Jesus Christ the Lord of our lives. He’s in the position of authority and dominion, not us, and certainly not the devil. Our responsibility is to walk spiritually and by faith in him, but many of us don’t do this. We still have fear in our hearts from what happened to us, and this fear makes us want to be in control. The reality is that we can’t be in control, but we won’t accept it. So, what ends up happening is that we carry all the frustration, anger, fear, and anxiety of our pain into our relationships. Unconsciously, and sometimes consciously, we choose people as partners who mirror this pain back to us. They show us the depth of our anger and pain, but most of all, they reveal our refusal to let God take it away.

 The solution is to be healed through Jesus Christ. 1Peter 2:24(NKJV) tells us, “Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.” Jesus Christ took care of our pain on the cross. He was crucified and because of his suffering for us, we are healed. He paid the price, and we have to stop trying to pay it ourselves, because this is something that we are incapable of doing.

 James 1:2-4(NLT) tells us, “2 Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. 3 For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” God wants us to get to a place where we are not dependent on fear or pain to protect us. We cannot depend on a person, and we are not dependent on ourselves, to do for us what only God can do. The trauma of what we’ve been through leaves us with wires crossed that we are not able to uncross, but God can. If we seek Him first in all things, He will help us continually walk in His healing and blessings. He is forever and always our Source of all good things. We can depend on no other for what only He can provide. 

God doesn’t want us walking around fearful of what the next relationship brings. Doing so means that fear is still the master. Know for sure that the love of God through Christ must be the master, for God is the healer of broken hearts. The process of healing for those that have endured domestic violence and abuse is one where we become extremely conscious of our need to react and control. These impulses will need to be continually surrendered to Christ. We must humbly submit them to His Lordship in all our relationships in order to keep ourselves from turning to fear and fight or flight urges. Heavenly Father will place individuals of spiritual strength and maturity in our lives. We will need their help to remind us of our identity in Christ and help us to remain grounded in his healing power.

 Growing up, we may not have been supported in the ways we needed, but now that we have received salvation, we can be. As survivors of trauma, we can’t do it alone. It is important to recognize the kind of spiritual help and guidance we need from Christ and from others of faith to support us, give us good counsel, and pray for us as we seek to live through the healing power and victory of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.■

Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“The Suffering Only God Can Heal”, written by Kim for https://rescuefromdomesticviolence.blogspot.com© 2021. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.