You need never fear truth. The Healing Lord is the God of truth and he moves in an atmosphere of truth, not one of living in denial. Just as Jesus offers full forgiveness but we must confess our sins – admit to ourselves that we are morally damaged – so healing is available to us but we must first admit that we have been internally wounded.

To deliberately live in denial is to resist the Spirit of truth. Even though he knew they needed healing, Jesus – the truth (John 14:6) – didn’t heal people without them facing reality and admitting their problem (examples). As much as Jesus wanted to heal them, their healing hinged on them admitting that they were sick and needed healing. Had they out of shame or through priding themselves in being macho said, “I’m fine,” they would have missed their healing. This principle applies to emotional healing as well as physical healing. There is no truth that takes God by surprise. There is nothing too hard for him or is beyond his ability to forgive.

Defeatists and escapists say nothing can be done about the past, so just forget it and get on with life. The truth, however, is that much can be done about the past. We can heal from the pain of the past, we can forgive those who had hurt us in the past, we can learn from mistakes that occurred in the past, we can identify sins in our past and enjoy God’s cleansing, we can seek to undo damage that we did to people in the past. All of these are very important to God and sidestepping any of them displeases him.

Yes, the apostle Paul wrote, “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead . . .” (Philippians 3:13) but this is the same man who at least twice in his spoken testimonies (Acts 22:3-5; 26:9-12) and at least four times in his writings (1 Corinthians 15:9; Galatians 1:13; Philippians 3:6 1 Timothy 1:13-15) (and no-one knows how many other times not permanently recorded) glorifies God by recounting his sordid past. In fact, most of the Bible is devoted to recording past events – often analyzing them over and over.

Should someone who has made marriage vows forget the past and commit adultery? If someone cheated you out of thousands of dollars before he become a Christian, does he honor God by “forgetting what is behind,” declaring that he “is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come” and continue to live in luxury at your expense, or should – before moving on – he do what can to rectify his past by returning your money? It was after Zacchaeus had resolved to put right his past misdeeds that Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house . . .” (Luke 19:8-9).

Let’s not pervert the Holy Word of God in a shameful attempt to justify cowardice or sin. God wants us not to bury the past but to learn from the past so that it ceases to be a useless waste and what was once a stumbling block is transformed into a stepping stone to greater things. We were born again not to hide from the past but to take the hand of our victorious Lord and boldly face it. The crucified Lord who did not sidestep the ugliness of our past but in his own body bore the full consequences, wants us to partner with him to resolve and restore our past so that we can live in freedom and purity and wholeness.

The emotions we don’t want to face are inside of us, whether we deny it or not. They don’t scare God. The only problem is that they often scare us. He wants you to have the courage to get really honest with yourself and with him and face your fears and your past disappointments, frustration, anger, inner pain, and so on. He is not shocked. He knows it already and he still loves and accepts you. Rather than force himself on you against your will, he honors you by restraining his longing to deliver you and tenderly waiting for you to trust him enough to invite him into the dark corners of your life and let him touch that ever so tender part of you with his healing hands.

It is in the dark that shadows loom and harmless things seem terrifying. It is when we bring them into the light that sanity returns.

God wants you empowered to get on with your life but this cannot happen until with Christ you face the ghosts of the past. Living in denial is a sure way to keep the pain nagging in the background and hinder healing. Distressing dreams can be an invaluable way of helping us face reality so that we can heal.

Various things are needed to resolve emotional issues associated with past trauma. A key matter is to end the blame game. Nothing festers the wound, preventing healing, like blame, whether it be God, other people or ourselves that we blame. Our one and sure hope is to let our crucified Lord do what he longs to do by letting all the blame be placed on his innocent shoulders. There is blame – grave offences have been indeed committed – but we let all blame die with the One who died for the sins of the world; the one who was tormented so that our torment could end.

An obvious key to finding peace is talking to God about the issues. Something we can foolishly overlook, however, is talking to people about the things that disturb us. Many of us think ourselves too spiritual for this. If so, we are more “spiritual” than God. For Scriptures exposing as a lie our temptation to keep things solely between God and us, see Our Need of Human Help. It would be negligent, however, not to issue this warning: when it comes to being wise, sensitive and understanding, the average person is sadly lacking. Trusting some people with your secrets is like trusting a butcher to do open heart surgery. Make a matter of serious prayer the choice of who you share with. Then, as it were, test the waters to see if he or she is both worthy and competent before launching into a full revelation of whatever concerns you.

Here’s a powerful saying: You are as sick as your secrets. (Source)

In the dark, things terrify us. It is bringing things into the light that empowers us to cope.

Related Pages

Healing of Memories Why memories needs to be restored, not destroyed

Help With Ugly Memories & Flashbacks

Comfort, Understanding & Healing for Abuse Survivors