A Saturday Evening Post

Most of us remember a toy from our childhood with motion sensors. When you walked by it, it set off the lights or sounds or even speech. Our kids were given a Tonka backhoe named ‘Chomper’. Frequently he could be heard in the middle of the night if we walked by him on the way to the bathroom.  It’s rather disturbing in a semi-sleep state to see red glowing eyes and hear “HELLO FRIEND!” Worse. Once it was set off, it went on for hours through a cycle of 4 sayings. To get back to sleep, we had to stuff it under couch cushions and in closets, trying to get the thing to shut up.

Our oldest is in college now, so like good parents should, we conspired against him. Our son’s roommate was a quite willing participant. We sent Chomper to him and asked if he would place him somewhere in the dorm so that the mechanism would be set off at a time when it was not expected. Our son’s roommate played along beautifully. He just put Chomper under my son’s blanket and my son, who doesn’t go to bed at any decent time of day, came back to the dorm room at two in the morning. He was trying to get bed in the dark so as not to wake up his roommate, and was greeted by the haunting voice, “Let’s go dig!”

              My son said he just sat back and stared back at those red flaming eyes, in dismay like that inner child had come back to haunt him in his dorm room. How could he be here?

Events sometimes happen in our lives that leave us with scars, sometimes we process them in a healthy manner, sometimes we have lots of supportive people around us to help us process the pain and heal. But Sometimes we don’t, and we avoid those memories. They may cause us to feel guilty or embarrassed, and we stuff it into a corner of our mind. Like that scary toy it will continue to haunt us.

We need to bring them out, let them know we know they are there. Events will trigger a memory from the past, maybe a sound or even a smell; and those experiences will force themselves into your conscience mind. Your brain will recall these things because they need to be dealt with. Grief will not stay in your past. We are tempted to stuff it back into the recesses of our mind, but know that it will force its way to the surface. things as small as an embarrassing high school moment to more severe things can result in a variety of symptoms ranging from anxiety and depression to marriage problems and substance abuse. This may even prevent a child from having a whole parent, distracted by the pain, like being kept up all night as the voice from the past demands your attention.

I have talked some about my new employment at Healing Hearts. We provide support for people processing grief. I have been receiving training and studying quite a bit on my own. I have been astounded at the problem mental and emotional disorders have become in our country. One in four suffer from a diagnosable depressive disorder.  10% of adults suffer depressive illnesses (major depression, bipolar or dysthymia) Hopkinsmedicine.org.

 Waiting lists can be as long as 10 months even for a suicidal patient. Why is mental illness so high? I have been astounded at the magnitude of the problem, and the simplicity of the solution.

              Jesus said:

Come to me all who are wear and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28

Just a few nights ago our family was sitting around sorting out old memories from the past. Someone mentioned a time when one of our neighbors did something unkind to one of the kids. When my daughter remembered that incident, she was angry with that child all over again as if it had just happened. The same thing will happen when you experience a more substantial memory. You will feel those feelings again.

Three things are the biggest obstacles to healing from trauma; fear, pride, and habits. These three are intertwined with one another and often when we let go of one, we will have to let down the other two as well.

               When you access those feelings again, you will feel all the fear, guilt, and frustration that you felt in that moment. Sometimes you might think allowing that memory to be pulled back up won’t have any value. Forgive and forget right? Might as well leave it alone, it’s too painful. We would rather bottle it up and put it away.

Those memories might conjure up feelings of shame. Maybe the role you played in that negative memory, whether real or imagined, causes you shame, and your pride stands in the way of allowing that memory back into your consciousness.

It can be as simple as a habit. You might just be used to bearing that burden alone, and you don’t know what it will feel like without it, so fear moves into position, and you decide better to hold on to it.

I recently participated in a Webinar; Permission to Thrive with Susan Angel Miller. She lost her daughter to a brain tumor. The amount of psychological research and studies that have been conducted is easily summed up in something we have always known because Jesus said it first;

 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. – Galatians 6:2.

Don’t bear those burdens alone. Find someone who will listen. Susan said she found people were so thankful when she brought up the death of her daughter, because they had memories they wanted to share with her, but didn’t know if talking about it would cause her grief. She modeled what she needed from them. By talking about her own pain, and when they shared in the memories, she found that she and other people both experienced the healing effects of “Bearing one another’s burdens.”

Social isolation has a huge impact on us emotionally and physically. According to the CDC socially isolated are more likely to experience chronic illness, dementia, and even hearing loss.

We all know people that had emotional obstacles, for one reason or another, they just hadn’t set a relationship right, or never dealt with feelings of guilt. Maybe you can be the one willing to go into the wilderness of that pain with them. That is what we were put here as Christians to do.