Last night, I participated in an inner healing session with 3 of my leaders. I went into this not knowing what this was or what to expect. We turned the small wood cabin on the roof into our own sanctuary and invited the Holy Spirit in. I closed my eyes, opened my hands, and waited. Adria put on some music in the background and we began….
Two weeks ago, I shut down emotionally. I didn’t know why this was. I had been thriving in ministry and I had a great team surrounding me. So why the sudden isolation? I began to talk to my team leader about everything that was running through my head and she told me about inner healing.
Inner healing is a process and looks different for every person. For one person it may only take one session for God to reveal everything they need to know. For another, it may take several different sessions and several individual “process” sessions to understand and to be healed.
During this first session, Adria asked me a lot of questions. As she asked them I asked the Holy Spirit to show me the answers to hopefully give me some clarification into why I feel isolated, confused, and ashamed. Ultimately, I want to get rid of the numbness I feel towards my sexual abuse. Why can’t I feel anything when I think about it, but break down later in the most random moments? Why can’t I control my emotions?
God revealed to me that there is a complete disconnect between my head and my heart. My head believes one thing while my heart feels another. My head tells me that the abuse didn’t affect me but if that were true, I would be able to understand and process my emotions. I would be able to feel something, not nothing. The start of this was right after the abuse happened and I decided to not tell anyone. I was hurt and no one saved me. My heart let me down so now it was time to stop listening to my heart and solely rely on my own understanding. I buried the whole incident like it never happened. Because of this, I now suppress any kind of emotion and work through any situation with intellect. But, emotions are meant to be processed and felt. Eventually they will make themselves known if not shown. When this happens to me, I shut down, isolate myself, and enter a depressive state. This happened when I started therapy and had to talk about my emotions. It also happened when my grandmother died and I didn’t know what to do with my loneliness, anger, and sadness. In order to overcome this, I need to stop depending on myself and depend on God.
At the end of this session, Adria told me to ask the Lord, “How can I mature out of independence?” As I began to pray this, the song “Set a Fire” was playing and all I heard was “Set a fire down in my soul, that I can’t contain, that I can’t control. I want more of you God.” If I depend on Him instead of my own understanding, he will bring everything to light. He will help me process and feel those emotions.
Today while doing home visits in Manantiales, I had the opportunity to share a part of this experienceto a 14-year-old girl. Recently, she was raped and has endured many other traumatic events and is now in therapy trying to heal. I told her that I had gone through many of the same things she had and that it seems impossible to heal when we have all this emotion built up… or none at all. But in order to start the healing process we have to depend on God. When we do that, he gives us the strength we need to face those demons, to forgive, and to heal. The girl’s mom proceeded to ask me how long it took me to heal. When I told her that I haven’t experienced full healing yet, she didn’t seem pleased with my answer. She looked angry and started asking again, “How long? As long as 6, 7 or 8 years? How long?” I told her that everyone’s story is different. Everyone has their own timeline for healing and that it can’t be rushed. I then realized why she was angry and frustrated that I couldn’t give her a direct answer. It’s the same reason my own parents were angry and didn’t stop asking me questions when I recently told them about my own abuse. It’s because their love for their child is so great that it crushes them when they cannot help us when we are hurt. They feel like it is their responsibility to fix our problems, just like Jesus wants to fix our problems. But this can only happen when we fully depend on him.
Curación means healing in Spanish. This is my word for Colombia.
