My Soul Healing Journey

One day, I was musing about the Word and thought that a good way to sum up the Bible is that it is a book about relationships. God wants us to understand how to relate to Him, how He relates to us, and to cultivate positive relationships with others. The Word is full of good and bad examples of these. When we experience difficult relationships, we can benefit from soul healing. "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." John 8:32 (KJV)

Our Relationship to God. ​I got saved when I was 25 years old. There were many positives about the experience and my early walk, but one looming difficulty remained. I had not had a loving relationship with my father. He was neutral when my siblings and I allowed him to do what he wanted, or was angry when we interfered. I had a lot of emotionally based father wounds. For self-protection, I avoided him and authority figures in general. This perspective made it difficult for me to see God as loving, caring, and someone I could completely trust, submit to, and want to be with. Mother wounds could certainly affect one's relationship to God as well. Most of my examples are based on my personal experiences, as we want to maintain total confidentiality during any healing sessions we have with others. If someone gives public testimony, it becomes public knowledge, and we can then discuss it.

We can become angry at God because we feel He has withheld something from us, caused something, failed to protect us, or done any number of other things that we might hold against Him. God wants to speak to us about these hurts and bring freedom and restoration. The first time God revealed one of His names to His people was to Moses, as recorded in this scripture: 

Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in faithfulness and truth." Exodus 34:6 (TLB). It is so reassuring to know these are attributes of our loving Father who invites us to come boldly to His throne of grace.

Relationships with Others. We can experience a deep hurt or recurring hurts from friends, co-workers, or even close relatives. Additionally, we can have stressful or contentious relationships and wonder why we struggle to get along with others. God can speak truth into these situations and bring healing, or at least show us how to be protected from them. The following scripture assures us of God's concern: " I will restore your health [physical, emotional, spiritual] and heal all your wounds [physical, emotional, spiritual],' declares the Lord." Jeremiah 30:17 (EHV-Emphasized)

Recurring Negative Emotion. Lingering negative emotions can be so difficult to bear. These are a few examples: abandonment, regret, fear, loneliness, rejection, anxiety, extended grief, unworthiness, shame, condemnation, shyness, rage. The enemy plants a lie. God speaks truth to the lie and dispels it, setting us free. "So if the Son sets you free, you really will be free." John 8:36 (NIV)

Questions. We can come to Abba Father and ask any question, even those hard "why" questions. He has such wisdom and love for us that He knows precisely what answer we need. The question can be related to emotional healing or not. I was widowed when my son was three. When he was seven, he went through a phase where, when I corrected him, he would not listen and got into a circular discussion that went nowhere. God promised to be a father to the fatherless, so I cried out to Him to give me a strategy. He did, and it worked every time. I corrected him with a Bible verse. It shut down every argument, and he took the correction.

Curses. Often, curses are negative words that are spoken over a person. Those lingering words can have a profoundly damaging influence. They need to be broken off, and then positive words spoken over the person to replace them. Curses can be generational. God's blessings extend to the thousandth generation, but curses can extend to the third and fourth generation. You can examine your family tree to identify any recurring negative patterns. Some of these are divorce, conceiving out of wedlock, cancer, genetic conditions, rebellion, anger/rage, addictions, etc. These need to be broken off as well.