Emotional Healing

Deuteronomy 30:19-20 – I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days.

During a time in my life when I was in a whirlwind of emotional pain and confusion, and wanting so much to do whatever it took to find release and direction, a friend came alongside me and kept pouring truth from God's Word into me. She encouraged me to spend time getting to know God more, and learning about the benefits of spending time in God's Word. As I meditated on the verses I have listed at the end of this devotional, healing slowly came.

I wish I could tell you it was a quick trip out of despair. It was not. But it has been steady progress. And the more I was faithful to learn more of Him and lean more on what I was learning to be true about Him, the easier it has become to run to Him when the darkness of despair feels like an entrapping net.

At first it seemed overwhelming, but I found this to be true: as I began to trust what He was doing [and it seemed at times He didn't know what He was doing], the healing began. Now, little by little, as things come up in my daily life, He shows me how they contribute now, or have contributed in the past, to the overall chaos. He has begun to gently show me the things I have believed about Himself, myself or other people that are lies and is replacing those with the truth from the Word. Then, as I have begun to stand stronger on those truths, He has begun the next leg of the journey.

When I was still in the waiting place to start, and it seemed all of life was like a tornado whirling me around out of control, I would not have believed that one day I would say, "As hard as it has been, I would not trade it, if trading it meant giving up the relationship I now have with God."

Prayer: Lord, as we think, and Your Spirit reveals those places where the enemy has given us lies, called us names, like "hopeless", "desperate", "unworthy" – names that we see as having more power to carve, to wound, than the name of Jesus has to heal – You are offering choices. I pray we would have open eyes to see clearly the choice before us. Lord, touch our hearts to desire to heed the name of Jesus higher and higher. Trauma, conflicts, events, wouldn't be able to drive a wedge, to cause us to choose a solution other than leaning into You with all of our hearts. Lord, we bring to You our disappointments. Minister to us in those areas of "if only", or "I wish that", or "how come?" that our heart could receive Your love, Your blessing, Your acceptance, Your healing. We love You. Come Holy Spirit. Minister in our hearts with Your healing spirit. Amen.

If this concept has interested you, here are some of the verses she gave me.

Psalm 32:7-8 – Thou art my hiding place; Thou dost preserve me from trouble; Thou dost surround me with songs of deliverance. I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

Psalm 139:13-14 – For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Psalm 147:3 – He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds.

Isaiah 30:18 – Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you, and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; How blessed are all those who long for Him.

Isaiah 57:15 – For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever, whose name is Holy, "I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.

Luke 4:14 -Jesus said, "[God] has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are downtrodden."

Exodus 23:27-30 – I will send My terror ahead of you, and throw into confusion all the people among whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. And I will send hornets ahead of you, that they may drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites before you. I will not drive them out before you in a single year, that the land may not become desolate, and the beast of the field become too numerous for you. I will drive them out before you little by little, until you become fruitful and take possession of the land.

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