The Battle for Your Wounded Heart
Who can heal your wounded heart?
Listen now: The Battle for Your Wounded Heart Series 8, Ep 5
As we begin episode 5 of our series, Fighting Your Spiritual Battles, we continue to explore the idea that we were born into a world at war. We are all casualties of that war and in a sense, we are the “walking wounded”. As counselors, we meet with people who are walking around with hurts, wounds, injuries, fears, losses, and traumas as a result of the curse of sin. Not only that we have a full-time enemy to contend with that has been given permission by God to have limited and temporary rule over this world.
Whether you know it or not, or want to admit it or not, your heart has been wounded in this battle. Your story contains scenes of heartache and pain, and your sense of being loved by God has been disrupted in some way that is unique to you. In this episode, we’d like to make the case that: unless you know the terrain of your story, and where you’ve been wounded, then you may be lost, confused, easily deceived, or helpless to resist the enemy’s tactics in your life.
We’d like to help YOU know the terrain of your heart, and how the enemy may already be playing on your vulnerabilities, so that you can become wise, discerning, and ultimately experience God’s love in a profound way as you learn how to intelligently fight your spiritual battles. The best way to do this is to look at and understand your story.
Why Your Story Is Important
First of all, God is the author of your life story, and He intends for your story to reflect something of His glory and the larger work of His redemption. When we talk about “knowing your story”, this is not just a psychological exercise. Nor is it gratuitous vulnerability just to get noticed or to get attention. For all the good and fun of social media, sharing online is a poor substitute for authentic connection.
Second, knowing and understanding your story will require vulnerability, but it is more than that. The details of your story reflect the nature of God and His intention for the purpose of your life. Your life is revelatory, as it both reflects God’s authorship over your life, and that it reveals something about the nature of God because you are created in His image.
Third, God is the source of all clarity and truth, all wisdom and revelation. He sheds light on ALL things, including your heart. Here are a few verses that encourage this type of self-reflection:
Psalm 36:9 says, “You are the fountain of life, the light by which we see.”
Psalm 43:3 says, “Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me.”
Ephesians 1:17-18 says, “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened.”
We see all throughout the Bible that God desires to help you search your heart, and reveal the mystery of your stories, and the truth of what has happened or is happening within your heart, if you ask Him. But there are reasons why this is difficult.
Why Might You Resist Looking at Your Own Story?
1. You may see truth as disruptive and disturbing. Denial is more comfortable.
2. You may have been trained to live behind a mask to avoid the pain of rejection and being misunderstood. You may not like talking about things you can’t fix! Many times, our clients say, “There’s no point in going back and talking about that because that won’t change anything”.
3. You have been encouraged to spiritualize (cover over) heartache and loss.
4. You minimize the broken places of your story because you compare it to others, and it may not seem as bad. Don’t compare your story to someone else’s: compare your story to Eden. Many times our clients say, “I feel like I’m wasting your time because I’m sure there are other people who have experienced way worse than what I’ve experienced”.
5. You have been coached to not enter the suffering of your own life because no one will stay with you when you speak of tragedy and harm.
6. You have not been taught to hold anger and sadness at the same time. Those two emotions together equal grief. If you don’t allow yourself to grieve, you will stay stuck in anger, bitterness, and regret, with no way forward.
7. You feel the need to protect your perpetrator or the person who has harmed you, especially if it’s a family member. The popular notion of “they’re doing the best they can” doesn’t name the reality of sin and evil. People who have harmed you primarily need your forgiveness, not your compassion.
A Map for Looking at Your Story
Here are the 5 markers on the map we want you to look for:
Wound, Lie, Agreement, Accusation, Self-Redemption
1. Wound: Where did evil see something good, innocent, or beautiful in you and seek to destroy it? For example: What type of home did you grow up in? How did mom and dad relate to each other? Was there safety and connection or was there abuse and neglect? Addiction? Abandonment? Parents divorced? Did you experience triangulation or emotional manipulation in your family? Who used you to get their needs met? What binds were you put in growing up that created a lose-lose situation? What lies were you told about yourself? Who betrayed your feeling of safety and trust?
2. Lie: How were you lied to, stolen from, or deceived? Deception is causing someone to accept as true or valid something that is not true or valid through trickery, lying, and deceit.
3. Agreement: Any time you find yourself in agreement with the enemy, evil will steal your opportunity to experience the goodness of God. Evil seeks to destroy your relationships and distort the unique way that you represent the image of God. Agreeing with the enemy means that you believe the lie that he is telling you, and integrate it into your self-perception and internal belief system.
4. Accusation: It is not the accuracy of an accusation that matters. It is the tone of voice that the accusation is being delivered. Conviction of the Holy Spirit will always be a kind voice and a hope of rescue and redemption. Accusations from the enemy are more like a curse – words spoken with the intention of bringing harm. The core accusations that plague you in your everyday life have their origins in the early experiences of your life. The goal of these accusations is to condemn you and lead you to shame and self-contempt.
5. Self-Redemption: This is an attempt to cover up feelings of shame – a painful emotion that arises as a result of feeling you have failed, are bad, or so badly damaged that you are unlovable. This leads to isolation, disconnection, and the use of defense mechanisms.
Sounds like a pretty bad predicament!
But Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Naming the pain of your stories invites the comfort of God. To repair what sin and evil have broken requires experiencing the kindness of God. It’s God’s kindness that leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4).
Understanding Your Story in the Light of God’s Truth
We encourage you to embark on a Storywork Process:
Reflect on the times you have been hurt. Do you have an enduring vulnerability?
What are the lies you have been told? Name them and write them down.
What are the false beliefs that have woven themselves into your psyche?
How have you developed your own system of self-redemption?
Where do you feel accused before God instead of forgiven and welcomed as His son or daughter?
When we faithfully engage with the particulars of our story, and allow ourselves to name and acknowledge the truth of how we have been shattered or broken by sin, we are doing battle against the enemy of our soul that will have a profound generational effect. Whatever pain you don’t transform, you will transmit.
Ephesians 6 tells us that your battle is not primarily against people. Yes, people have harmed you, and of course we all experience pain from our relationships. But that is not your primary battle. Your struggle is primarily against the rulers, powers, and spiritual wickedness in high places.
Hope means believing that death does not have the final word and that someday heaven will be fulfilled on this earth. Hope means to live in the tension of what is and what is yet to be. Even though Jesus stands in authority over death and the forces of evil, He has not yet brought all of his opposition under His feet, so we continue to fight in a war.