Levels of Healing - ? -

 

I have recently gained new understanding of the process of healing from emotional wounding. I am passionate about the ability we all have to heal from trauma and deep pain. We need not be limited and defined by it forever. I have found that the process of healing is intentional and not merely a matter of time or “moving on”. To heal one must face the betrayal, trauma event or relationship that caused the pain and walk through the process of identifying the impact it had on them. One must grieve and be comforted. Often working through anger and disappointment is required in order to forgive and come to a place of peace. I have found that it is possible to experience freedom from the anger, shame and deep sorrow that is often the result of trauma or deep emotional wounding. I have experienced my own journey of healing from physical and sexual abuse. I have also worked through relational tensions, betrayal and loss.

In all these journeys I have experienced a kind of process that involved “levels” or layers of processing and healing. For example, I have forgiven someone and then years later found that I needed to forgive the same person again. I experienced this in my process of healing from being raped. I have forgiven the young man who raped me countless times and in different ways. Forgiveness has not been a one step thing! I have found that as my circumstances and life changed there were new ways I needed to forgive.

My college years were a time of great healing in this area of my past. It was in college that I discovered the love and hope of Jesus and began to truly heal. It was in college when I first forgave my abuser. But years later, as I was dating and then engaged to be married, I found I had new things to forgive as I thought of that past relationship. As my husband and I walked through our first years of marriage, and discovered ways that my history of abuse negatively affected our marriage, there were new layers of things to grieve, forgive and work through. Then when we tried to start our family and discovered that I was unable to conceive, due in part to the scar tissue in my uterus the past resurfaced again and offered new places of pain and loss to work through. In each of these times, and numerous others, I have experienced the process of facing the pain and seeking comfort and more healing. I have found renewed strength, hope that has kept me moving and peace that goes deeper than understanding.

There is an analogy that is commonly used by counselors to describe this process of healing layer by layer: an onion! I have heard it many times and I have used it myself in talking with others. Truthfully, I used to hate it - a part of me still does! The onion analogy is that there are layers of processing and healing from pain and trauma. The first time I heard it, while in college, I felt like I was being sentenced to a never-ending process of pain. I wanted to believe that at some point I would finally be done healing from the events of my past. The onion analogy, as described to me in counseling, seemed to offer no hope of this; there would always be more layers!

At some point, many years later, a friend who is a life-coach, used the onion analogy in an effort to encourage me. Unfortunately for him, I unleashed my disgust and pent-up frustration of this analogy. I remember asking him if he thought there was ever an end. I asked; “Will I be an 80-year-old woman, still dealing with another layer of how being raped at 14 impacted my life?” I was in my 30’s at the time and I had done a lot of work and was experiencing a great deal of freedom and healing from my past. To think that there was still more to work through was overwhelming. I hated that it seemed that everything came back to this issue in my past.

The onion analogy was redeemed in that season of my life. As I worked through that current layer of pain, I realized that doing so rewarded me with another “layer” of healing and cleansing. I was rewarded by a new and perhaps deeper experience of comfort, hope and healing. I had the realization that God would never stop loving me out of the pain I endured. I re-phrased the question I had asked my friend. Instead of the onion analogy being a life-sentence to processing pain, I turned it to being a life-long invitation to freedom. My new question was this, “Will I be an 80-year-old woman and still be discovering new freedom and healing from having been raped at 14?” Because I am convinced that God loves me and because I believe that there is no limit to how much I can experience His love and healing – I believe that there is no limit to the ways He will continue to redeem and restore what was painful in my past.

All of this understanding and my experiences of healing had formed in me this rather linear picture of inner healing. One experience allows us to be ready for the next deeper layer of processing and healing. I don’t think that view is wrong necessarily. But this past year, I had a new revelation about the healing process that impacted this understanding.

A good friend of mine died very young of cancer. She and I had processed her pain resulting from an incidence of violence and trauma in her past. I had seen her take courageous steps to heal and live again. Her life was marked by victory and overcoming hardship. But there were things that she was still working through, things that were unsettled. Months after she died, I realized that part of what I was grieving was that she never had the opportunity to experience the fullness of freedom that I believed God had for her.

I don’t want to go into the details of her experience, because it is not my story to tell. But there were specific things she had in her heart to do, as a way of declaring her victory over certain fears. I could relate to this from my own experience of healing from trauma. There are specific events, choices, victories that I can point back to in my life that are evidence of the process of healing that has happened within my heart and spirit. I know the thrill of taking these steps and celebrating the victory and courage of overcoming what once overcame me! Because we had talked about these things and she had shared vulnerably with me, I knew of some specific things that she wanted and planned to do that were steps in her healing process. I was grieving that she didn’t have those opportunities. This sorrow was in tension with my belief that she is fully healed and in the very presence of Jesus and so it was kind of a non-issue.  But still I had, at one point, become aware of this sadness in me as I considered the timing of her death and my continued sorrow over the loss of her friendship.

As I considered this discovery that I was sad at what she “missed out on”, God spoke gently and quietly to my spirit. What my spirit received from Him shifted my understanding in a significant way. I felt God saying that she didn’t miss out on anything!  I heard God say that because my friend was looking at Him and walking towards Him, she had received His fullness!  I was suddenly aware that my linear, step-by-step view of inner healing wasn’t the whole picture. I realized that my previous view had a performance element within it: as if my working through one “level” somehow earned or allowed me to progress to the next. But this is not in alignment with some of the truths I believe about God and how He relates to us. We are not preforming or earning anything from God. God gives, God saves, provides, heals and restores from the wealth of His love and mercy. We could never earn what He has given. I also believe that God is never holding back what He has for us. While there may be an issue of timing, I believe that would be motivated by Gods purpose and what is best for us, not an issue of Him holding back so that there is something to give or release in the future.

I felt that God was assuring me that my dear friend did not miss out on anything He had for her. She was pursuing Him, trusting Him and depending on Him. If she had lived longer there surely would have been ways that God would have continued to reveal His love and power in the painful places of her past. But not experiencing that doesn’t mean that she hadn’t received the fullness of God while she was alive.

My words feel inadequate to me in explaining this shift. It is subtle, but so significant to me. The onion analogy or a step-by-step image carries a performance mentality. You complete one step so that you can go another layer deeper or another step higher. While I believe there can be a progression in our process of healing. I also believe that God gives generously and that what matters most is that we are pursuing Him and receiving from Him. There is a freedom in this that is significant and encouraging to me.

I pray that it encourages you as well. If you are pursuing God and receiving from Him, then you are getting His very best for you! He is not holding back, reserving something for a future time.