Hello friends,
I know it’s been a little while since I wrote and I know this blog is a little late for Independence Day, but it’s always good to remember and appreciate our freedom as Americans.
Today I want to talk about how you can find your personal freedom. After a traumatic experience, it’s easy to feel hopeless and overwhelmed, and the weight of that experience can make someone feel very trapped. Especially when there are intrusive thoughts, trauma-echoes, (my term for flashbacks), nightmares, and hyper-vigilance because of what happened. When you begin reading off a list of symptoms and effects that sexual violence can have on the victims, you can just see how trapped someone can become with all of those things weighing them down. Not to mention the added stress of the criminal justice process if the case was reported to law enforcement.
So with all these effects, can someone get healing and find freedom from their past trauma? I’ve asked myself that question a lot as I get more and more involved in this work and continue to build CY CHRIST’s vision to help people. I believe that there absolutely is hope and healing for the victims of sexual violence. I believe you can find freedom from what you’ve endured. I believe that a big key to finding this freedom is in Christ. We’ll go over a couple of things you can do to find freedom and healing from past experiences; and although it’ll never erase what has happened, although there will always be scars and bad memories, you can still have freedom and look forward to the day when God will make all things new and wipe away every tear from your eye (Revelation 21:4,5).
Finding Freedom In: Processing
I know I’ve mentioned this before and I’ll keep mentioning it because it is a big part of healing. After any traumatic experience, it’s important to process the experience. During the traumatic experience, your brain goes into “survival” mode. The logical or thinking processes of your brain turn off, and the instinctual processes go into full gear, and their only focus is to keep you alive. After the experience, your body starts returning to normal, but you’re still in shock and are coming down from all of the endorphins. The events are a blur, sometimes there are no memories, or the memories are not sequential, and often times people don’t know what happened to them or what to do.
It is important to process those traumatic experiences. Being able to share it with someone, write about it in a journal, or see a professional will help with processing those experiences.
So I believe that processing trauma, talking about it, writing about it, praying about it, is a great place to start in finding freedom from those traumatic experiences. Sometimes it may feel like a step back to have bad memories dredged back up, especially if it’s been several years, but it could be a necessary part of your healing process. Think about having a physical injury like a broken bone: you don’t have to go to someone to get it treated; it will eventually heal on its own, but that doesn’t mean it’ll heal correctly. I believe emotional traumatic experiences can be the same way. Don’t be afraid to reach out.
Finding Freedom In: Christ
Now for the important part. How do you find the freedom that you’re looking for? I believe you can find it in Christ. “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…” (Luke 4:18).
Jesus came to give liberty to the captives and to those who are oppressed but Isaiah didn’t mean actual prisoners, or people being oppressed by the Romans, he meant, those who were oppressed by demons, and who were captives of sin. You can be a captive to your own past experiences, and oppressed by the memory of them. But as the text reads, Jesus is He who was sent to free us.
John chapter 8 verses 31 through 36 talks about freedom and I encourage you to read it. The highlight is the end. “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”
Jesus is the Son that can make us free. We just have to accept Him as the Son of God and His sacrifice for us and come to Him.
Now about finding freedom in Christ. Perhaps one of the best scriptures for us is Matthew 11:28-30. “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Jesus offers us freedom from worry, guilt, and fear, all we have to do is come to Him. Not only do we have to come to Him, but we need to learn from Him too.
Christ’s yoke is one that gives us the freedom to choose. Where we did not have freedom before but were slaves to sin and all of the awful things that have come as a result of it, Jesus has given us a yoke of love. Paul writes this in Galatians 5:1: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.”
Hosea 11:4 also talks about taking a yoke from our necks, God says, “I drew them with gentle cords, With bands of love, And I was to them as those who take the yoke from their neck. I stooped and fed them.” This is one of my favorite verses in Hosea. Jesus is drawing us with gentle cords and bands of love, not with a yoke of sin and bondage that is hard to bear, but one that is meek.
Finding Freedom In: Scripture
The Bible is a great way to find freedom and comfort. “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.” Romans 15:4. Start reading the Psalms, or the Gospels. The Psalms are an amazing place to start reading. There is a Psalm for every occasion. If you’re feeling happy and praising God, or if you’re feeling guilty, sad, or hopeless. But they always have amazing messages for us. Take this Psalm for example from the second book, Psalm 42:11: “Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God.” You can find tremendous freedom and comfort in the Scriptures.
The freedom Christ offers is free to take. By committing your guilt, your fear, your hurt to Him; by coming to Him and laying it all at His feet we can experience freedom. Nothing can erase the scars and damage that sin has wrought, but Jesus gives us the freedom to continue on the path to healing and find freedom and healing in Him, in His Word, and in His love for us.
Helpful Scriptures
Psalm 42:11
Psalm 119:45
Hosea 11:4
Matthew 11:28-30
Luke 4:18
John 8:31-36
II Corinthians 3:17
Galatians 5:1
Galatians 5:13,14
Revelation 21:4,5
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