God's promises. Are they real? I awoke this morning with the Holy Spirit saying "Trauma lies between pain and The Promise.' In my life, I used to spend time thinking I knew what God's promises meant for my life. I worked around them, believed them and spent a lot of time thanking God for them. I knew I was blessed and I knew God was real. Life then somehow changed drastically for me. I started losing things like family, finances, material things, jobs, security, and even hope. It left too. What I had initially been thanking God for and believing, now became like a dead weight. Confusion set in. My faith started shattering. It soon became very apparent that what I was believing wasn’t real. Had I really been living in stupidity when I thought I was living by faith? My life soon became like a broken-down castle with cracked blocks, crumbling and falling off the sides. Barren; lifeless; even dead, with God seeming like a liar.
My brain couldn't keep up with reality. Too many things were changing too rapidly. I started having panic attacks and anxiety attacks so strong, I had to go to the Emergency Room several times and even admitted to the hospital for it. This is when the effects of trauma became very apparent in my life. I was later diagnosed with PTSD. Trauma…the place between pain and the promise.
The amount of sorrow in this place is unimaginable and I don’t wish it on anyone. It started tormenting me with guilt and shame for believing something so stupid. The enemy started to wreak havoc in my mind. In looking back, I believe that part of the problem that caused the effects of trauma was because I couldn't get my focus off MY understanding of the promise. I hung on long past the point that I should have let go and let God take the wheel. Isn’t that what faith is though, believing in what you cannot see? I think I learned the real meaning of faith wrong somewhere.
The reality of this is, God's promises ARE true. He doesn't change or lie. What did change was what was going on around me. When I looked at my life, nothing showed the promise anymore. My house was gone, my car being repossessed, no job in sight and I was living in a place that I only used to believe I would visit to help people. My life wasn’t flourishing and my faith felt dead.
All these things were MAJOR changes and completely unexpected. I didn't feel prepared, forewarned or even ready. I was used to God preparing me. I may not have known exactly what was coming, but my spirit would know a change was coming, either good or bad. I didn't know this was coming. God either didn't feel the need to tell me or else I completely missed it. Either way, I was shocked into trauma.
Trauma came somewhere between the pain and the promise.
In reflecting back, I now know that what I was believing about the promise had been wrong. Much of what I believed wasn’t supposed to happen then or even happen with the people I thought were involved. Much of the promise is actually happening in my life today, a completely different way than what I used to believe.
My thoughts this morning are this, don’t let your present-day circumstance lead you away from your relationship with the Father. Keep your eyes on Him even in the dark times. Trust Him even if you cannot see or understand. Ask Him for His understanding of the promise and then wait for revelation of His understanding.
Don’t stamp your own understanding on it and go on with life. Do your part to keep trauma away from you. Keep looking to Jesus and search Him for the answers.
Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow. - Helen Keller
Commenti