Who Said I Didn't Need Healing?

Who said I didn’t need healing?  That would be me.  Who said I needed healing? God did, and that should be enough.  Do you still need proof?  Don’t worry, I did too.  Let’s dispel this fallacy together as we look at the Word of God.    

Genesis: 15

After passing through the Red Sea the Israelites began their journey to the promised land, via the desert.  As we know, without water we can survive for only a short while.  Now, lessen that time by the fact that the elements of the desert exponentially increase our thirst.  Here God’s chosen and newly freed people are three days into the passage and are already frantically in search of water.  Their lips are parched.  Tongues are clinging to the roofs of the mouths. There is no ebb and flow of strength; it is only ebbing at this point. 

The Need for Healing Revealed

The further that I am removed from my previous abusive situation, the more that I come to understand the absolute necessity of healing.  As so many often do, I felt that my deliverance from the abusive relationship would be enough.   I figured that I would need a little time to work through some issues, but since I was already a Christian, I concluded that healing was most likely taking place or already done.  Being gone was my freedom and all I needed…so I thought. 

I have been wrong many times in my life, but I don’t think it has ever been to the great degree that I experienced with this crazy assumption!!  I had escaped!!  Should that have not lifted the load of weight upon me?  In some ways I might be able to say yes.  It did lift a load, but not the load.  Wasn’t getting out with my life more than enough?  Again, affirmative only to an extent.  I was alive, but I was not living.  Wasn’t I free from the oppression cast upon me?  Absolutely!  Nevertheless, the bondage that I was still under kept me in walls of captivity of a different sort.   

Catching Up

Wow, I am so shocked that almost two years have passed since I have first and last posted on this blog!  When I started writing I was in the next to last semester of school working on my Bachelor’s of Business Administration degree.  As you would imagine the load got to be too much to bear and I didn’t have time.  Beyond that, each time I would attempt to write another post I simply could not complete a single topic or thought.  It just seemed too painful to continue and often I contemplated deleting it altogether.  However, I knew beyond any doubt that God placed this blog upon my heart and I just could not bring myself to doing away with it. 

Now, I am at a place in my life that I am ready to begin writing again and I couldn’t be more excited.  It has been an event-filled two years.  I have since completed school, among a myriad of other awesome, as well as painful, things.  Yet, the greatest event that has taken place has been that God sent the most amazing man into my life and we were married in October 2012.  In this relationship God has afforded me an opportunity that I never even fathomed or dreamed of in the past.  My husband, Alan, is a pastor and I have the awesome privilege of being a pastor’s wife.  I am ready to open myself up to God’s direction and picking back up writing is one area that He is leading, and I want to be obedient. 

Pain from the Start

From the very beginning, the pain and hurt of abuse racked my soul, forever etching its scars into my heart.  In fact, I am bothered to say that even the earliest of my memories are tainted with the pictures of violence.  Pictures and memories that no child should see, must less recall over the span of a lifetime.  Nevertheless, they are there and are my true reality. 

These memories and recollections don’t come in fancy wrapping or coverings, but rather they are viewed through the war-torn and scarred heart that has to replay them.  Reels upon reels of violence and sorrow, hurt and pain, guilt and shame have long played themselves through my heart and mind so many times.  There is a true meaning to me when I hear the phrase, “I know it by heart”, because unfortunately I do and many of you may know this as well. 

Buried Beneath Layers of Pain(t)

Way too many women carry the scars of abuse. Some of these scars can be detected with the physical eye. Yet others are so very deeply embedded and disguised that one would have a have a difficult time recognizing them. That is unless they truly know what hidden scars look like. I do not gloat when I say that I know what these scars look like, it is only from experience do I write.


At first I could not distinguish my own scars because I worked so very hard to cover them up. Unfortunately, cosmetics won't work on these as they do with bruises, so I was creative in my disguise. I hid them behind the appearance of a clean, neatly organized home; husband and children neatly pressed and well-dressed; being an active football, cheerleading, jazz and gymnastics mom; being an (over)achiever in my job; an overall well-kept front of "everything is okay"; and eventually I allowed my pain and hurt to be masked by covering it with and in the "church". Notice the last part of my statement, I hid in the church, not God, not Christ, but the church.