Door 3: Emotional Trauma

Trauma is anything that causes pain. Hospitals have trauma units to treat people who are in severe pain in their bodies. As I mentioned before, our emotions can also be hurt.

Emotional traumas are inner hurts that can be caused by sudden physical injury or emotional shock. There are two types: traumas we cause through disobedience (which means we must face the consequences of our actions) and those we had no part in causing. Sometimes other people may hurt us or accidents may happen, and those things can cause emotional trauma.

However, there is good news. Jesus came to heal us of both types of trauma. In Luke 4 the Bible tells us that He came to set captives free as well as prisoners. Captives are minding their own business and get kidnapped. Prisoners did something bad and deserve to be locked up and punished. Either way, Jesus wants them free. Remember, Jesus came to be our hero and to rescue us even though we didn’t deserve it. That includes saving us from trauma.

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon

me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Luke 4:18

When talking about trauma, it is important to realize people are different. Something might cause trauma to you, but not your brother, sister, or friend. For example, your heart may be trashed because your grandpa died, but your brother was only sad for a little while. While it is understandable that you want to be like everyone else and fit in, it is also true that there is no one else like you on the planet.

Here is one way of understanding how trauma works. What happens when you are shocked or scared? You suck in air through your mouth. Imagine that your soul sucks things in too. Sometimes, in a bad situation, you may “suck in” an evil spirit. That’s not exactly how it happens, but it’s a good picture anyway. After you get over being scared, you take a deep breath and blow it out, and that helps you relax. But when it comes to trauma, people often don’t deal with it right when it happens. Over the years, the trauma sticks around and grows. So many adults are still dealing with traumatic things that happened when they were your age. That’s why I encourage you to deal with any emotional trauma you may have now instead of letting it hang around twenty years.

How do you deal with it? If it was because of someone else, forgive them. Good examples of this are divorce, car wrecks, being left alone, getting locked in somewhere like a car or closet, or almost dying. Moving towns, someone close to you dying, seeing something that scares you, being scared by someone, and hurtful situations can also count as trauma. When you forgive whoever was responsible, don’t forget to tell the evil spirit you “sucked in” to leave you. If you don’t make it leave, the evil spirit may remind you of the hurt. The enemy may even make you feel the hurt in your body or cause you to dream about it. So get rid of it!

If you did what caused the trauma, apologize to God and repent. Don’t forget to forgive yourself. Yep, that’s right, forgive yourself. You are Father’s child too, and He doesn’t like you to mistreat His kids, even if it is you. When you forgive, you also give up the right to punish people for what they’ve done. You will not even punish yourself. When you punish and want people to hurt or know how badly they hurt you, the healing in your heart isn’t finished yet. Remember to let the pain go, and if necessary, let yourself off the hook for it. Jesus does!

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