Steve Teachings
Emotional Wounds that Mold Us
They have all had Emotional Wounds, and the scars that they have carried with them for a long time.
I too, have been formed by the wounds and scars that I have been inflicted with, it effected the way I saw myself, how I defined my character, with who and how I associated with people around me. These scars used define how I react to every relationship I find myself involved with, good or bad, friend or foe.
But in order to deal with these wounds to our spirits, because, that is what they really injure is our spirit, we have to understand them, we have to look at them straight in the face, and find out where, and when, we received the blow from each one of them.
That's not an easy thing to do, but it has to be done.
Until we do that, until we make a conscious decision to face them, to see them as what they really are, as painful as some of them may be, we will never be free from them, or have the peace and freedom that we are so badly longing for.
As long as we keep ourselves from bringing them out of the closet, the closet that you have so carefully hidden them in, the healing that most of us want, will never take place in our lives, and our lives will show it.
What skeletons are you hiding in your closet that you are protecting so much ?
Last week I talked about the imposter, that person that we want the people we associate ourselves with to see. That false self, the one we think protects our emotions from being exposed, our fragile selves, who we hate because of the weakness that we don't like to see.
Do you know what is wrong with that imposter ?
No matter how much we try to hide our true selves, it still comes out, sometimes at the most unfortunate times.
So how do we keep from being exposed ?
We Can't….We work hard to keep our true selves under wraps, by letting our imposter selves dominate our personalities, we are loud, threatening and we push people away that try to get too close to us.
We are like rattlesnakes with our tails rattling away, warning people to not get too close or we will bite.
But then we find that we don't like the isolation, we find that we need to have someone we can talk to in our lives. Like Jimi Hendrix said in a very small expression in one of his songs, ”loneliness is such a drag”.
But does that really help us ?
So as we continue in these song lyricks, let's look at what he was really saying in that song he composed:
How many of us have sat staring at a fireplace, or a wall, or out into space, thinking about someone or something that was heavy on our minds. It could be about a relationship we are in, or a house mortgage, some past due bill, it doesn't really matter what the problem is, we just know that it is heavy on our minds.
Just like he says in the song, we sit there staring until our minds finally turn our molehill into a mountain, then we loose it, we explode. Our imposter self takes over and things end up worse than they were before.
Did we want that ?
Did we want our fragile selves exposed ?
Not at all, we just reacted to the situation the way our imposter self would handled it, because we don't know any other way to deal with those vuneralbilities, we don't know how to keep from exposing our weaknesses, so we hide behind that imposter because we lack the tools we need to deal with it.
So continuing on with the song:
What he is saying here is that in time, all the serpents in the wishing well, which are all those fragile secrets and painful afflictions that we are hiding in our lives, will expose themselves no matter what we do to hide them, and they will be obvious to everyone around us.
How will they become obvious ?
Our lives will refect what is in our hearts, our pain will show in our appearance, our pain will show in our words, our pain will show in our health.
Our wounds show up in our emotions, we are unable to be comforted, we look for social validation, but we can't find it, because we have to revisit the place where the wound took place. Many of these wounds have been inflicted by those who were supposed to love and protect us, an abusive father or mother, an aunt or an uncle, or a trusted family friend.
It doesn't matter who it was, we have to go back and deal with the wound.
Why ?
Because our wounds make us vunerable, they are a chink in our armor, they make us weak before our peers, so we have to go through extrordinairy measures just to protect ourselves and conceal our weakness.
So what do we want, an advocate that will be in our corner with us, some one who will, as the song says, toll our bells, a true friend that we can confide in.
Thank God I have that friend in my life, His name is Jesus Christ, and because He is my friend, I tend to gravitate to people who are His friends too. I have to, because I don't want the imposter run my life.
I don't have to give in to all that comes when this imposter is in control of my life, I don't have to be addicted, I don't have to an alcoholic, I don't have to be addicted to promiscuous sex, I don't have to let someone else define who I am for me, I don't have to get the validation that I have always wanted from the people who were closest to me, who would never value me enough to give me that validation.
I don't have to give into to that imposter, and neither do you. There are things that you can do to get that real person back into your life, there are things you can do to free yourself from that taskmaster who enslaves you, who takes you to places you really don't want to go to.
There are things you can do to take back your life.
But first, you have to go back to the wounds, you have to go back and see them for what they are and be healed from them, be healed from the effects that they have brought into your life.
Just because you were wounded, you don't have to stay wounded, you have a choice, you can have those emotional wounds and scars healed.
6 “Is this not the fast that I have chosen: To loose the bonds of wickedness, To undo the heavy burdens, To let the oppressed go free, And that you break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; When you see the naked, that you cover him, And not hide yourself from your own flesh? 8 Then your light shall break forth like the morning, Your healing shall spring forth speedily, And your righteousness shall go before you; The glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. 9 Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; You shall cry, and He will say, 'Here I am.' “ If you take away the yoke from your midst, The pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, 10 If you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, Then your light shall dawn in the darkness, And your darkness shall be as the noonday. 11 The LORD will guide you continually, And satisfy your soul in drought, And strengthen your bones; You shall be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. Isaiah 58:7-11
What a powerful scripture, what a powerful promise !!!
My God, is a God of healing and restoration, He's a God of freedom and mercy, He's a God of compassion and love. He wants to set you free from your imposter, he wants to break the yoke that you have had on your neck for so long that you can't even see the burden your spirit is in.
He wants to free you from the wickedness that your imposter self told you was freedom. Look at your life, is your spirit hungry for righteousness, or are you poor and spiritually exposed and naked.
Do you have heavy burdens that cause you to worry and not want to wake up in the morning and have to face them ?
When people see you, do they see someone who is full of charisma, or do they see someone that is broken ?
You have to go back to the wound that broke you, you have to go back to the wound that altered your life, that sent you spiraling out of control, you have to go back and be healed so you can experience the peace that surpasses all understanding.
Why do you have to go back ?
Because God wants to restore you into the person you were always meant to be, not the imposter that hides behind strife, fear and insecurity. God wants to bless you, he wants to strengthen your bones so that you stand tall and upright, to be completely satisfied with who you are, and not who you aren't.
He wants to make you a beacon of light, a spring that never fails, who when you pray to Him, He says here I am.
Is today the day you go back to revisit the wound ?
Is today the day that you will finally face those things that have had a devastating effect on your life, that you have been guarding so diligently ?
“ If you take away the yoke from your midst, The pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, 10 If you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, Then your light shall dawn in the darkness, And your darkness shall be as the noonday. 11 The LORD will guide you continually,
God wants to show us the way, He wants our lives to have meaning and fulfillment, He wants to be your friend.
What decisions we make today, will mold us for the rest of our lives. We have to love ourselves enough to put a higher value on our spirits, to heal those wounds that have broken us…to free ourselves from the imposter that keeps us bound…we have to rediscover our real selves that are in the image of God.
We have to go back and revisit our wounds...