Fibers of the Heart

All trauma is not the same.

“As long as you keep secrets and suppress information, you are fundamentally at war with yourself…The critical issue is allowing yourself to know what you know. That takes an enormous amount of courage.”

― Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Doctors that study trauma use terms like deep emotions to call out issues too complicated for the brain. God calls this our heart. While so much of what these doctors say are true and helpful, one thing often remains in the victim: a broken heart.

My flight or flight mechanisms may well stay a little broken while I am here on this planet. Witnessing a murder as a child left in me the message that all anger can potentially end in death. The brutality of years upon years of consistent sexual abuse by my parents and my brother encourages me to stay hidden.

I do not stay hidden. I have learned to fight back. To stand even when I am afraid. I live by the words of Ephesians 6:12 and it strengthens me in the night hours: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

After you have learned to stand, what do you do with the pain? The fibers of our heart are left tattered. Missing the foundational pieces of love.

This is where the healing balm from a place beyond earth lends guidance. Jesus’ destiny, as He described it, was to heal the brokenhearted and set the captive free.

This was the touch that stopped my deep, bleeding pain.