Mending the Broken Heart

           Overcoming the stronghold of Trauma:  MAIN HEALING LESSON 16

This teaching on recovery from trauma and abuse is just one of the 24 lessons in our workbook for personal transformation, "Matters of the Heart." All 24 lessons will be helpful to the person seeking restoration and freedom and have been posted on this web site. They are available as a complete set in our workbook which can be purchased as a download or ordered through the mail. The lessons are also available on CD and DVD as 24, 1/2 hour teachings. All scriptures are from the NKJV unless otherwise noted.
 

Introduction

Who broke your heart?
When? Where? Is the pain pushed down so you won’t feel it? Almost everyone knows what it is like to carry the wounds of unhealed traumas of the past. Like physical cuts and bruises these are the places in our memories that we don’t want to touch on in conversation or can only talk about very carefully because so much pain still remains. Some things have happened, large or small, that hurt us and broke our trust with God, self or others. As long as there is pain in the memory, our heart is still broken by those incidents and the distrust and fears that we feel have reason to remain—unhealed trauma will always make our world seem unsafe to our emotions.

The Lord's "safe house"
Ironically, the safest life to have is not one that can’t be broken by painful events, but one which is quickly restored by releasing full forgiveness to others and steadfastly trusting in God despite the pain God allows. Our interior "house" becomes a safe dwelling place for Him and for us. Don’t believe me? Then ask Jesus. Every harrowing passage through the cross of unwanted pain, will always carry us into a resurrection of new creation life—if we do not lose hope. God never afflicts us with trauma (He doesn’t author evil), but He will use it to grow a heart in us like that of Jesus—if we let Him. This kind of growth begins for us once we let the Lord begin mending the broken heart we carry.
 

Teaching summary

What are traumas?
Consider these definitions of trauma from Webster’s College Dictionary:

1)    A body wound or shock produced by physical injury, as from violence or an accident.
2)    Psychological shock or severe distress from experiencing a disastrous event outside the range of usual experience, as rape, military combat, or an airplane crash.
3)    Any wrenching or distressing experience.

For the purposes of this article, trauma is considered to be any event of the past from which we are still carrying pain, broken trust, and/or unresolved negative emotions. The heart is broken wherever there is still pain in the memory. And God wants to mend us! This lesson is intended to help you see how to bring the broken parts of your life to God.

Traumas often become door-points by which the enemy enters to plant distortions of the truth and to bind the heart with bitterness, fear and soul killing messages. These wounded areas can grow into strongholds (see Strongholds (Main Healing Lesson 11))—areas of our flesh that are well fortified against the life of the Spirit and are hard for us to overcome. Traumatic events of childhood, such as illness, accidents, abuse, may also have been points of entry for evil spirits.

Traumas engender a legacy of fears
Such fears often follow us into adulthood: phobias, dreads, our characteristic set of semi-irrational dislikes and anxieties as well as bitter feelings of regret, resentment and shame. Lies the enemy has planted hound us throughout life (ex. “you’re not wanted,” you’re no good,” “you’ll never make it.”) Additionally, we tend to define ourselves by what has happened to us in the past, rather than by the bright future that God sets before us.

Jesus is a mansion builder. He desires to build a mansion within us on eart, not just for us in heaven. yet many live in the dungeon of what should be their mansion—locked in a dark room with terrible memories, devastated by trauma, bound by bitterness.  Tragically, the very things we hide from God and others are the things He wants to heal us of. How can the Lord begin mending the broken heart we withhold from Him?

The way to freedom

If we want to be free, we will have to deal with our traumas—so the root of fear, hurt or bitterness can be removed—and make ourselves trusting and vulnerable to those God would use as instruments of His healing. We will have to risk exposing our wounds to the Light in the presence of people He appoints (discerning whom to trust). But not all at once! Think of issues like tissues in a box and let the Lord pull out one at a time. God wants to mend your broken heart, but you have to give Him all of the pieces…hold nothing back.

You are free to choose
We always have a choice how we will respond to each moment or event in life. Our ungodly reactions to trauma are what can bring the curse upon us—if we reacted in a wrong manner to what was done to us. When trauma happened to us we may have carried away fear and un-forgiveness (our sin) and this binds the past to us and compounds the pain and spiritual darkness resulting from the trauma. We may have reacted in ignorance of God’s ways, but we are still responsible for decisions we made, attitudes we formed, any acting out we did, or inner vows we made.
 

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all. Psalm 34:19

It was prophesied of the Messiah that He would mend broken hearts. At the start of His ministry Jesus read this text in the Synagogue in which that promise had been given. This ministry of Jesus has never ended. He still comes to heal the brokenhearted!

And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: "The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD." Luke 4:17-19

Note: Jesus is the original, universal and ultimate "Handy Man" who fixes broken hearts, not James Taylor, though you just might want to give a listen to "Sweet Baby James" and put the Lord Jesus into the lyrics of this tender classic on Youtube. Let it do your heart good.
 

Recognizing the thoughts of trauma

Usually we are aware of the traumatic events of our past, but sometimes we can live in unconscious denial, having lost touch with the reality of how much we were hurt in the past. Because we have been given free will, if we do not freely choose to bring our wounded places to the Lord, He will not be in a position to mend them. Hence, it is important that we keep ourselves sensitive to what the Holy Spirit may want to show us. Traumas may be carried by us in three main ways:

Painfully obvious. Often we are aware of the traumatic events of our past and still carry them with us like raw wounds that throb with pain whenever we think back upon them. We have carried them so long that it seems like we have been permanently damaged by them—but that is a lie of the enemy. God can and does heal even the deepest traumas.

Partially buried. On the other hand, some traumas were so painful that we shoved them down and spend a lot of mental energy keeping them submerged. Some of the worst traumas are forcefully forgotten—until present events bring memories to the surface or trigger the powerful negative emotions they contain.

Hidden in plain sight. There are other events that we have glossed over so thoroughly that they no longer seem to bother us—but it spills out of us in conversation (Matthew 12:34-35). Or we may feel fine until someone begins to pry and poke into the memories. Then the emotions that come out of us are the best indicators of what is still hidden in our hearts.

For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. Proverbs 23:7
 

Five ways that God heals trauma

1) Our tears
There is a blessing on those who carry their grief to God and give it to Him.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Matthew 5:4

2) The prayers of others
Help is promised if we bring trauma to others for prayer.

Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. James 5:16

3) Forgiveness
Forgiveness clears the way for prayers to be answered and life to be restored.

And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses… Mark 11:25-27

4) Believing truth
This is the way of actively, whole-heartedly, believing God’s promises of restoration (Zechariah 9:12; Joel 2:25).

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28

5) Divine intervention
God speaks and heals through dreams, visions, healing of memories, visitations, prophetic words.

… I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. Joel 2:28

Full healing of trauma is possible!
No trauma has been fully healed if it still hurts to remember any part of it, or if patterns that began after the trauma happened are still continuing. Yet fully forgiving all who need to be forgiven and fully receiving forgiveness where we need it, brings us to the place where there is no pain attached to any of the memories.

Jesus mends the broken heart
—especially as we forgive!
 

Interested in going deeper?

Don't just give these truths a "head bob"!
For further study and for help working these truths into your heart and life, see Mending the Broken Heart part 2 (Head to Heart Guide 16) and "work out" with exercises, discussion questions, review of main points, digging deeper, more scriptures, model prayers, renunciations/affirmations and practical steps of life application.

Or better yet, let us minister to you in person
--at one of our Savannah Seminars...