Thank you to everyone who reached out from the last article I shared ‘Sanctified Imagination- The Key to Overcoming Panic Attacks’ I am so grateful for your feedback and humbled from the testimonies and good reports that have come back to me from that piece. If you haven’t read it, please click here to read more.
I woke up this morning with the instruction: ‘write’ loud in my heart, and as I considered what I should pen I realised that what I needed to share on this topic was not complete. In this article, I feel almost commissioned to tackle one of the biggest lies in the soul healing journey that keeps people in the cycle of bondage for years. The lie that you never really get better, you just manage. The lie that you can never truly recover but you can be a recovering sober.
One of the stigmas of soul wounds or any mental health issue is that our society has taught us that if you have it, you will always be subject to it. But I want to counter that and say that in the same way your body can heal from trauma, so can your soul. God built into us a healing mechanism for every attack and with the right support human beings have recovered from every disease that has ever been named. Some supernaturally and others through the advances in medicine but healing is most definitely the children’s bread.
Let me show you the heart of this issue. On your healing journey you will slip up. It is going to happen. But one of the biggest mistakes I ever made was that when I slipped, I truly believed that that single slip up negated all of the progress I had made. I felt like every time I took 2 steps forward the enemy would come in and drag me 3 steps back. I felt bad for falling off the bike but miserable for the fact that I had fallen, yet again. Shame would come in and whisper lies like ‘if you were really healed you would never have slipped. You keep falling because you can’t be healed, you are passed redemption from this’. Guilt says ‘I have done something bad’, let me find ways to move past this but shame says I am bad, I am the problem and the only real solution is to remove me from the equation.
I understand that is raw, but I must be truly honest about this if it is to be of any help to anyone. Suicide is the real epidemic that is tearing through our world today. Mostly affecting young men, but women as well. If you are in this place I want you to know that I hear you, I feel you and I want you to know there is real hope in Jesus and in the power of community. We can do this, one phone call at a time.
I remember the Lord speaking to me about my 2 steps forward, 3 steps back routine. I had slipped and the weakness in me had made me careless and hurt someone I really loved. For 2 months I lamented about what a terribly vile human being I was to bring such pain to this person. In this place the Lord brought a prophecy about making progress and reversing to my memory and gave me a powerful analogy that has put a stop the self-loathing in my life and allowed me to make supernatural progress. It has been transformative for me and I pray that it will lose the bands of shame from you too.
The Analogy
Imagine you have been working out lots, eating great, sleeping on time, and generally looking after your body. As a result of this, you lose some weight which is visible to the human eye and people around you comment on how good you look. All man can see are the external changes, but he cannot perceive the more significant internal healing that has taken place:
· Muscles are bigger and stronger
· Joints are healed and flexibility is through the roof
· Lung capacity has increased,
· Heart rate is healthier, and cholesterol has reduced
· Way more blood vessels
· Hormone levels are under much better controlled
Amongst other changes.
Now imagine that you had an off week, you binge drank, ate garbage, and partied all night. Of course, you would probably feel awful, your moods would be worse, and you probably would have added a few pounds of weight in places that you wouldn’t want it. BUT the slip, (even if it a full week of reverting to old habits) would not have undone any of these internal changes that the world can’t see. In fact, some studies indicate that you would need to consistently revert back to old habits for 3 full months before the benefits you had worked up disappear.
From this analogy, the Lord showed me that it’s the exact same with your soul and spirit. You may have bad days that even stretch into bad weeks, but it doesn’t mean that all the progress you had previously made was undone in that moment of weakness. The emotional and spiritual changes that aren’t obvious to the eye or the carnal mind remain perfectly intact. It is not 2 steps forward, 3 steps back. The enemy cannot undo in 1 foul move that which the Lord has been building for months.
The lie that you are back at square one is designed to make you lose all hope, to make you despair of life itself. But this is a lie! Do not grow weary in well doing, don’t throw in the towel, because if you don’t stop, THE ENEMY CAN’T STOP YOU!
For every territory you take back from him he will always try and come back to repossess. It may be a physical healing, it may even be that for whatever reason you woke up and weren’t sure that you were even saved- but one thing is for sure he will always come (Mark 4:15) And so everyone faces these challenges. Everyone will slip. The question is when the enemy tries to come back how will you respond? (Luke 11:24-26)
Here are my quick-fire tips:
Assess- We need to know how we fell of track. We need to assess our physical, emotional and physical needs to make sure we aren't believing any lies or doing things that are bound to make us fall. Questions like: What are the things that are happening around me that pushed me back to my old ways? What am I fearful of? When was the last time I was accountable with someone for my emotional wellbeing? What has changed that I suddenly feel so overwhelmed? What have I been watching and hearing? Who is speaking into my life and what are they saying? Is my love tank empty and if so why?
Address- Tell somebody. This is NOT for them to scold you, but confession is the powerful knife that strips the shame away from the guilt of conviction. Guilt by itself is useful, but shame is an absolute no, no. It is important to know that although your actions/ thoughts may have been wrong, you are not wrong. Your righteousness is still intact. You are still very, very good. Whatever you name, you have power over, don’t allow sin to name you, instead shame it by telling a trusted friend.
Adapt- Create physical, emotional, and spiritual boundaries to focus your attention to influences that will mould you into the person you are trying to be and in so doing remove the negative influences that have the power to trigger you. Bill Johnson says: ‘If you have more input from the media than the word of God then your discouragement is self-inflicted’. I have said yes to joy and yes to love and so in my house my TV is a decorative piece that is there to make strangers feel more comfortable. Netflix is for my sister and my trusted friends have access to all my passwords. There is a safe surfer button on my electronic devices, and I have DELETED FACEBOOK from my phone. I have a vision board that I actively rewrite every day and I am reading an average of 3 new books every month.
What you say yes to will inform the structure of what you do to adapt going forward.
Dear friends, it doesn’t have to be 2 steps forward, 3 steps back for you. A slip is not a relapse. There are some seasons that are easier than others but regardless of how painful the push, the fact that we are still standing means we are still winning. Can't stop, won't stop.
I love you dearly,
Cx
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