Maybe you have heard the saying, “Feelings that fire together, wire together.” I believe this to be true. It is why a fragrance or taste or melody or lyrics to a song can instantly transport you back to a time and place and evoke a powerful memory, pleasant or traumatic.

I have learned that geography and proximity can do the same thing.

Sometimes that transportation is against your will. Without warning. A blindside to your emotions. And maybe you can be in a spot 99 times without any disturbance, but then one moment the conditions are just right to pry the lid off that memory you have long protected, and expose it to the elements of your soul.

I am learning when this happens, that it is an invitation to go a little deeper into healing.

As sanctification is to salvation, healing is to the decision to be healed.

It is a process. The working out and walking out in practicality the positional truth of an embraced reality.

It happens in layers.

And the degree of trauma and depth of the wounding may take some time. Especially if you are faced with the need to forgive without the dignity of being seen or heard, or the gift of closure. 

Sometimes forgiveness has to be released in the wrestling match of the soul without being able to talk it through with the person (or persons) who were part of the wounding.

Oh, for grace …

Oh, for the love of a Saviour who does see and hear all. Who knows every facet of your story with crystal clear accuracy you are not capable of. Who knows every detail long after your memory has cemented into whatever version of the story you have rehearsed again and again and again.

Even the best memories lie.

Even the sharpest recollections are limited by their vantage point.

And it is human nature to polarize a traumatic experience in the mind until you emerge as an innocent, guiltless, injured party. It is tough to see the big picture–the 360° view–and impossible to know the motives or backstory of others involved when you are emotionally or spiritually bloodied and bruised and in pain.

These kind of traumatic events must be brought to speech. Whether in a journal or released to a safe human with the maturity to help you process the pain (and not wallow in it), it must be brought to speech and given voice if you are ever going to be able to let it go.

And even in the release, you are profoundly changed. Some events become a B.C./A.D. level alteration to your personal history. An event that marks a before and after in which you became a different version of yourself.

And sometimes you find a level of healing and a place of peace equal to your capacity to process and receive healing, only to find that a fragrance or song or geographical location reveals there is work yet to be done. A visitation yet to be had. A deeper level of healing yet to be experienced.

And that moment–that trigger–is an invitation to step into a greater grace, or not.

You always have the choice. And sometimes you are ready to enter those rooms of your soul you didn’t know you had closed off, and sometimes you are not.

A faithful Father will continue to invite you there, wanting all of you to be occupied by all of Him.

Will you embrace the valley of shadow? Will you sojourn there until the seed of the promise can germinate in your soul and bring new life to things that have been dead or filled with the decay of the felled trees that lay rotting, once tall and fragrant … before the storm … before the lightning strike.

Whatever the pace of your healing, wholeness is a goal worthy of engaging in the process to be healed.

Sometimes the invitation is inconvenient.

What will be your reply?

#liveonpurpose #intentionality #wendykwalters