“But
Jesus looked at them and said to them,
“With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
Matthew 19:16(NKJV)
Trudy started smoking when she was
15 years old. She’s 62 now, and still hasn’t kicked the habit. Instead, she’s
added a few more vices that she wouldn’t exactly call addictions, but others
would. She drinks, but only at night; two or three glasses of wine, or how ever
many it takes for her to get to sleep. And sleep doesn’t come easy. Her days
are filled with occupation and care for others. She’s so loving and giving, and
people adore her. Her nights are a completely different story. She dreads the
late hours. Thoughts of how severely she was abused by her late husband crowd
her mind. Without the drinking and self-medicating, she says she’d never sleep.
Married at 18, she divorced
her husband years ago, but he abused her well into her thirties. She fought
back but it came with a price, one she is paying now with aches, pains, and a weakened
body. Trudy came to the Lord in her forties and accepted the Lord Jesus Christ
into her heart. She’s come a long way spiritually, but she’s erected a barrier
around her years of struggle and suffering. If anyone or any situation comes
near it, she retreats emotionally and becomes that victim all over again. The walls
of fear that she’s put up seem impenetrable, masquerading her pain with a raw cynicism,
bitterness, and anger that find their way to the surface at night, despite her
best attempts to keep them hidden.
The contrast
between her kindness and bitterness speak to the spiritual war within. It
reveals how deeply an individual can be impacted by domestic violence and
abuse, or any trauma for that matter. It also shows us the gift of free-will
and God’s allegiance to allow us to hold on to the things we refuse to
surrender to Him. Heavenly Father commands us in Romans 12:2(NLT), “Don’t
copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a
new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s
will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” God instructs us to
change the way we think. This means we must confront thoughts that promote fear
and keep us paralyzed. We must be careful observers of our thoughts, and reprogram
them to the mind of Christ, where freedom and God’s love run the show.
Romans
8:37(NLT) declares, “No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.”
In order to have faith in the
victory of Jesus Christ, we must believe that we have victory over any issue,
vexation, or problem because of what God has done for us through him. Our
Master assured us in Mark 10:27 that with God, all things are possible, but the
reality is that some people believe it is easier to trust their pain than to
believe God. They don’t want to hear this talk about changing their thoughts if
it means they have to dig deep. They become agitated and frustrated by the notion
of confronting their fears. It seems grueling to them to do so, because that
fear is a demon that’s made itself cozy for a very long time.
The truth
is that when our hope is firmly placed in God through Jesus Christ, this hope can’t
help but to propel us into our destinies. Jesus Christ said in John 8:32 that
the truth will make us free, and the truth is that Christ has given us liberty
through his sacrifice on the cross. When he died, our old lives died with him.
When God resurrected Christ from the dead, we were resurrected also. Romans
6:7(NLT) declares, “For when we died with Christ we were set free from the
power of sin.” This is the truth, and it’s not possible for another person
to believe it for us. We have to believe it for ourselves. We must decree it with
all the glory of heaven we can muster. Truth must take hold of us to this
degree, so it can fill all our empty and broken places.
Domestic
violence and abuse is a stark contrast to freedom, and this stumps a lot of us.
But the reality of freedom is alive in us through the life of Christ! It is more
our truth than any trouble we’ve endured, because we have his Spirit living
inside us. Noah was mocked when he built the Arc and told others that torrential
rain would flood everything, but rain did come, and as always and in every
situation, God’s truth prevails.
God can do
anything. We must break out of the prison that keeps us from trusting this. Trudy
had not daydreamed about her freed self. Nor had she imagined her glorified
self. She rebelled against the notion of even an introduction. So fearful of
life outside her walls, she made relationships and people fit into her compact
life, so she could control everything. There are many of us that live this way,
or we withdraw and isolate because of the pain we’ve experienced in life. We
become extremely sad, feeling hopeless and powerless, and the shame of it makes
us feed our weaknesses in the shadows. Many of those that are Spirit-filled know
better than to contemplate suicide, but because of the pain and disappointment in
their lives, they do wish they were not alive or had not been born. God doesn’t
want any person feeling this way. He wants us to know and accept the help and
healing He offers through Christ!
The Spirit
of life is in us! There is no remedy in a bottle or addictive substance. Our solution
is the Lord Jesus Christ and all that he has made available to us! We should be
learning how to receive his spiritual medicine through patience and faith in
him. Anger and fear of everything cannot be the predominate expression of our
lives. These two disintegrate joy, and survivors of domestic violence and abuse
know this from experience. The only way to not repeat the pain of the past is
to give it over to the One who holds our tomorrows. We must be willing to open
our eyes wide and our hearts even wider to Him. There is frustration, tears, and
sorrow involved, there always is with release, but the journey to God’s healing
and to walking in His wholeness is more worth it than we can imagine. He leads
and we follow, this is the key, and it never fails to unlock the door. If we
humbly submit ourselves to God in faith, we’ll patiently endure as He reveals
the truth we’ve refused to see, and His light and love will flood our dark
places.■
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.
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