Shattered Soul - Trauma Triggers
When a child is abused severely often she can't cope with everything that is happening to her. She has no way to defend, protect or understand what she has seen, heard or experienced. Her soul cannot embrace the hurt because it is too painful. She needs to process it but it is so ugly and hurtful. It is at this precise moment that the child unconsciously begins to protect the soul from utter destruction by separating the harmful/abusive experiences into hidden places in the soul. The mind does this without needing the child to actively think about what she needs to do to survive, it as an unconscious act of self-preservation.
Since the 3, 6, 8, 11 year old little child can not deal with the abusive hurt, pain, and violation, the soul helps the child to continue living the best it can by splitting off the incident into a different alter selves (alter egos). It is almost like a picture (or movie) that is frozen in time and stored away deep into the back of the memory. Depending how horrific or frequent the abuse occurs, will affect how solidified the alter self becomes defined within the soul.
But before we can understand the shattered, splitting soul, we have to understand what makes up a human being created by God. The Bible is clear... we are body, soul, and spirit.
Body is physical. This is self-explanatory.
Spirit is, at our natural birth, dead in our adamic nature.
Our spirit becomes alive in our acceptance of Jesus as our Lord and Savior. This acceptance is not a mental assent that believes Jesus is God. In order to receive a new spirit in Jesus, a person needs to see their need of salvation from the bondage and wreckage of sin. A person cries out to no longer be a slave of Satan, to no longer live a lie.
How does a spirit go from being dead to being alive in Christ? The person is repented, experiencing a sorrow that she has sinned against a Holy and Righteous God and is in great need of help. The repented person cries out for God to forgive her for her sins and is determined to live a new way, God's way.
There is no longer a battle in the soul (I will explain soul in more detail in the following paragraphs). Her soul is totally and completed surrender to God's will. "Yes, Lord, Yes." is her only plea. At this point, her old dead spirit is regenerated and made completely brand new...not remodelled, improved, repaired, or cleaned. All old spirit has passed away and her spirit is NEW, absolutely alive in Jesus Christ. Also at this precise time, the Holy Spirit begins to dwell in her body. Her physical is now a temple for God. This is the great mystery of the gospel in the Bible - I am in Christ and Christ is in me, the hope of Glory!
Wise men can not explain this mystery. God thoughts and ways are higher than our ways. Simple minds, with childlike trust, accept what God says to be truth. The kingdom of heaven is open to those who have a childlike heart.
Our soul is explained in a few different ways in the Bible but it consist of our mind, will and emotions.
Our mind is our mental processing, what we believe to be fact and lies, our mental reality. Our will is the part of us that gets to make decisions. We are not programmed robots or puppets acting out on a stage. By our will, we get to decide if we are going to worship God as the Love of our life, Lord and Savior. We also decide how we will live and what purpose. We, humans, were created to live for God and to bring Him glory. It is through living the life we were originally created to live that we will find peace, joy, fulfillment and assurance.
Finally, our emotions...this is the part of our soul that is also called our heart. You have heard 'follow your heart'...meaning you should follow your feelings or emotions. This can be a very unwise way to live. Our heart is deceitful, and needs to be renewed by our mind through reading the Word of God, purifying our thought life that feeds our heart/emotions. Our emotions can be misleading and they can often be self-serving, pleasure seeking and leading us away from God. God created us to feel. He created emotions and they are good. But He did not intend for us to live being led by our heart/emotions. He desires us to be led by His Spirit and to teach of the way to go in life through mediating and studying His Word, absolute Truth!
If this information is new to you about the body, spirit and soul, it make take rereading the explanations to help you understand it more clearly. It is a lot of details to try to understand all at once. But it is critical to understand how a person is created by God, if you want to seek the possibilities of being healed from abuse and trauma.
As the child gets older, the childhood memories are tripped open by our senses....a smell, a taste, a look/scene, a touch/texture or something we hear. Our senses are part of our physical body. They respond, operate automatically and bring up associations or memories to what our body physically senses. The smell of peach cobbler or pumpkin pie might remind you of grandmothers during the holidays. Fall leaves could trigger a time of fun camping in the hills or mountains. A special song reminds us of our first dance or kiss. We all have precious, loving memories that are recalled by our senses.
In the very same way, usually when the soul is in a place in life's journey when it feels more protected...when it is out of the physical, emotional, abusive danger...many times after marriage or after the birth of children or after the death of a perpetrator ... the memories of horror surface in pieces or flooding scenes by an associated sense.
The sense trigger (also what I called the trauma trigger) may be seeing a toddler sleeping peacefully in bed, the smell of a cologne, the sound of a voice or a noise, a touch on the body or the shape of a building/door/piece of furniture. The trauma triggers are as random and wide ranged as the various sounds, sights, smells, tastes and feelings of the precise abuse. It could be the swaying of a swing, the color of a wall, the creaking of a door, the look on a face, the taste of a food, the smell of a candle, the feel of a gathering, the cry of a child, the rejection of an idea, the shape of a doorway, the thought of a fact, ..... the list is endless.
But that very moment, when the trauma trigger is sensed, the adult becomes the helpless, vulnerable, terrified victim again. She feels, smells, hears and sees everything that happen or maybe just a piece of what happen. During a trauma trigger the adult behaves, speaks, feels and thinks in a way that is totally inappropriate (proportionate) for the current situation. The response is not to what is currently happening in her life. She is reliving the childhood abuse, and responding appropriately as the child she was when the abuse occurred. It is a very unsettling event.
For the time the trauma trigger enfolds and endures, the adult becomes the ego of the child. The body reacts as if the abuse is taking place again.... adrenaline rushes through her body... preparing her to fight, flight or freeze... and she does one of these in response to the memory. It is usually very emotional, and a lot of crying, screaming, fear, anxiety, compulsive behavior accompanies the 'fight, flight or freeze' response. She doesn't understand what is happening and those around are shocked, scared, alarmed, and deeply concerned.
This process of shattering (experiencing the tripping of trauma triggers) can occur over years...day by day, month by month, incident by incident. Until memories start to come together and she learns that she is experiences a trauma trigger from the abuse she endured, she feels unstable, insane, incapable of being functional. She can't control the trauma trigger response anymore than she can control the beating of her own heart. The experience happens to her. She is not choosing her response, or experience. She is responsible for her actions, but she is acting as a wounded child should in the experiences she lived through. She is not pretending (role-playing) or acting out because she is a selfish, or immature.
Sadly, the observer (mate, friend, child, or innocent bystander) also feels she is unstable, odd, weird. She may be blamed for her inappropriate actions, ridiculed for not responding maturely, corrected for not being 'godly', avoided because she is unpredictable, unstable, dysfunctional. People generally out of fear, and lack of understanding or control, set boundaries to keep her away. Very few people are able to step into a storm with someone experiencing trauma triggers.
Trauma trigger episodes are very damaging cycles. The adult survivor of child abuse needs time to learn that she is not "crazy"... that she is behaving and feeling exactly as a child should and would who experiences what she did. With the help of a very talented, compassionate, trained counselor, the adult survivor can begin to identify the trauma trigger behavior to the exact childhood abuse that took place. This is not hard for the adult survivor to do. If she closes her eyes and thinks about the place in her body that she feel the emotion and then allows her mind to scan her memories searching for what the physical feeling is attached to usually her mind can quickly recall the precise incident in a memory that may be shadows to crystal clear detail.
An adult survivor of child abuse can have many alter selves (alter personalities) that need to be healed. Each trauma triggers can be associated with a different dissociative self, a part of her soul that separated off to hold/contain the horrific memory, so that she could continue functioning and living life. It is part of our inborn survival mechanism that is part of our being designed by God to help us to cope with and survive extreme abuse/trauma.
The disassociation can be mild to very distinct. Often the more severe and long term the abuse, the more separated and distinct the disassociated parts of the soul can be. The term multiple personality is no longer used in psychology, since the movie of Sybil that cased this label/diagnosis to be linked to the most extreme type of shattering that can occur in a soul.
Sybil had dissociative selves that lived in there own realities apart from the real world. Each self was very individualistic in voice, clothing, personality and behavior. The individual selves were not aware of each other and did not see that they were all sharing one person's being (body, soul, spirit). This is the most extreme form of a shattered soul.
Today psychological professionals, counselors and teachers use the disassociate disorder to contain many levels and types of patients that suffer from the splitting of the their soul.
These memories and alter selves can be healed! The alter child self can receive the resources she needed to get through the abuse, but did not have when the abuse occurred. Brainspotting, a powerful healing therapy developed by Dr. David Grand using biolateral stimulation of the right and left brain, can help speed the healing process and permanently restore the fragile shattered soul. Dr. David Grand has trained therapist throughout the world in the restorative, healing methods, and is on the cutting edge of developing healing therapies for people who have lived through trauma.
The wonderful good news is that there is a process and a way for a shattered soul to be healed. God, also, can work through a person's spirit from the inside out and can lead the healing of the soul of a person who has surrendered their being to Him. A person's spirit is regenerated when she accepts Him as her Lord and Savior, her spirit is completely made new. This is a vital key to healing in a God-led way. It is a great gift to the person to be lead by God, the Great Physician, the Creator, the Lover of her Soul through the healing process. It also helps the person to understand that she is cherished/treasured, accepted, and whole in her spirit as she goes through the hard work of allowing God to heal the shattered parts of her soul. her spirit is not broken. It is completely pure, lovely and pleasing to good, not because of what she does, but because of Whose she is. She is the precious daughter of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords!, and nothing can take that away from her or separate her from Him!
God has the ability to totally heal a person in the way He deems best for the individual. He can instantly in a time of prayer, surrender, praise or tears mend the broken heart/soul. He can also choose to allow the person to persevered through the trials of the past in order to learn valuable truths. These truths can be used to minister to others who have been hurt or to deeply repair the shattered soul to bring understand her pain.
God has shown me that He loves to redeem what was meant for evil and to use it for good for the dear person that loves Him. He desires to bring beauty out of ashes. He specializes in mining diamonds from ugly coal. He is the Author and Creator of blessed, unlimited, uniquely-individualized healing that is exactly perfect for the one precious person He is healing. He was there during the abuse. He heard, saw and felt it all. He understands the depth of pain, and He alone is able to touch into the deepest places in a soul. He is the Lover of the soul, Redeemer, Healer, Restorer, Comforter. And best of all, He is always available. He always has time, and His door is always open.
The healing of a shattered soul is not an easy path, but it is the only path to real living. For the adult survivor of child abuse there is hope and a way out of the trauma that was lived through. She doesn't have to live life shattered and in constant pain, depression, regression, obsession, or any other negative way of surviving. God wants more than survival, He wants to bring victory, freedom and the abundant life that is available for every child of God.
Child abuse is horrible and it destroys lives, but a person doesn't have to be permanently destroyed. She can be completely restored and healed to be the person God originally designed her to be.
I personally encourage you to take the step of faith in the direction of God, to be embraced by His all-consuming love. Remember healing is a process, not an event. Persevere with God and not only will you be healed, but you will be able to intercede in the healing process of others. You can be an ambassador of Jesus. As Moses lead the slaves of Egypt out of bondage, God will anoint you to be able to face the Pharaohs of this world and you will show those in bondage the way to freedom, the abundant life, the land flowing with God's milk and honey. In the authority and power of Jesus, you will be able to proclaim, "Satan, set God's captives free! Let His people go!"
May all of God's love and grace be with you as you attempt to understand the effects of child abuse, generational sin, mental illness, trauma triggers and shattered souls.
Since the 3, 6, 8, 11 year old little child can not deal with the abusive hurt, pain, and violation, the soul helps the child to continue living the best it can by splitting off the incident into a different alter selves (alter egos). It is almost like a picture (or movie) that is frozen in time and stored away deep into the back of the memory. Depending how horrific or frequent the abuse occurs, will affect how solidified the alter self becomes defined within the soul.
But before we can understand the shattered, splitting soul, we have to understand what makes up a human being created by God. The Bible is clear... we are body, soul, and spirit.
Body is physical. This is self-explanatory.
Spirit is, at our natural birth, dead in our adamic nature.
Our spirit becomes alive in our acceptance of Jesus as our Lord and Savior. This acceptance is not a mental assent that believes Jesus is God. In order to receive a new spirit in Jesus, a person needs to see their need of salvation from the bondage and wreckage of sin. A person cries out to no longer be a slave of Satan, to no longer live a lie.
How does a spirit go from being dead to being alive in Christ? The person is repented, experiencing a sorrow that she has sinned against a Holy and Righteous God and is in great need of help. The repented person cries out for God to forgive her for her sins and is determined to live a new way, God's way.
There is no longer a battle in the soul (I will explain soul in more detail in the following paragraphs). Her soul is totally and completed surrender to God's will. "Yes, Lord, Yes." is her only plea. At this point, her old dead spirit is regenerated and made completely brand new...not remodelled, improved, repaired, or cleaned. All old spirit has passed away and her spirit is NEW, absolutely alive in Jesus Christ. Also at this precise time, the Holy Spirit begins to dwell in her body. Her physical is now a temple for God. This is the great mystery of the gospel in the Bible - I am in Christ and Christ is in me, the hope of Glory!
Wise men can not explain this mystery. God thoughts and ways are higher than our ways. Simple minds, with childlike trust, accept what God says to be truth. The kingdom of heaven is open to those who have a childlike heart.
Our soul is explained in a few different ways in the Bible but it consist of our mind, will and emotions.
Our mind is our mental processing, what we believe to be fact and lies, our mental reality. Our will is the part of us that gets to make decisions. We are not programmed robots or puppets acting out on a stage. By our will, we get to decide if we are going to worship God as the Love of our life, Lord and Savior. We also decide how we will live and what purpose. We, humans, were created to live for God and to bring Him glory. It is through living the life we were originally created to live that we will find peace, joy, fulfillment and assurance.
Finally, our emotions...this is the part of our soul that is also called our heart. You have heard 'follow your heart'...meaning you should follow your feelings or emotions. This can be a very unwise way to live. Our heart is deceitful, and needs to be renewed by our mind through reading the Word of God, purifying our thought life that feeds our heart/emotions. Our emotions can be misleading and they can often be self-serving, pleasure seeking and leading us away from God. God created us to feel. He created emotions and they are good. But He did not intend for us to live being led by our heart/emotions. He desires us to be led by His Spirit and to teach of the way to go in life through mediating and studying His Word, absolute Truth!
If this information is new to you about the body, spirit and soul, it make take rereading the explanations to help you understand it more clearly. It is a lot of details to try to understand all at once. But it is critical to understand how a person is created by God, if you want to seek the possibilities of being healed from abuse and trauma.
As the child gets older, the childhood memories are tripped open by our senses....a smell, a taste, a look/scene, a touch/texture or something we hear. Our senses are part of our physical body. They respond, operate automatically and bring up associations or memories to what our body physically senses. The smell of peach cobbler or pumpkin pie might remind you of grandmothers during the holidays. Fall leaves could trigger a time of fun camping in the hills or mountains. A special song reminds us of our first dance or kiss. We all have precious, loving memories that are recalled by our senses.
In the very same way, usually when the soul is in a place in life's journey when it feels more protected...when it is out of the physical, emotional, abusive danger...many times after marriage or after the birth of children or after the death of a perpetrator ... the memories of horror surface in pieces or flooding scenes by an associated sense.
The sense trigger (also what I called the trauma trigger) may be seeing a toddler sleeping peacefully in bed, the smell of a cologne, the sound of a voice or a noise, a touch on the body or the shape of a building/door/piece of furniture. The trauma triggers are as random and wide ranged as the various sounds, sights, smells, tastes and feelings of the precise abuse. It could be the swaying of a swing, the color of a wall, the creaking of a door, the look on a face, the taste of a food, the smell of a candle, the feel of a gathering, the cry of a child, the rejection of an idea, the shape of a doorway, the thought of a fact, ..... the list is endless.
But that very moment, when the trauma trigger is sensed, the adult becomes the helpless, vulnerable, terrified victim again. She feels, smells, hears and sees everything that happen or maybe just a piece of what happen. During a trauma trigger the adult behaves, speaks, feels and thinks in a way that is totally inappropriate (proportionate) for the current situation. The response is not to what is currently happening in her life. She is reliving the childhood abuse, and responding appropriately as the child she was when the abuse occurred. It is a very unsettling event.
For the time the trauma trigger enfolds and endures, the adult becomes the ego of the child. The body reacts as if the abuse is taking place again.... adrenaline rushes through her body... preparing her to fight, flight or freeze... and she does one of these in response to the memory. It is usually very emotional, and a lot of crying, screaming, fear, anxiety, compulsive behavior accompanies the 'fight, flight or freeze' response. She doesn't understand what is happening and those around are shocked, scared, alarmed, and deeply concerned.
This process of shattering (experiencing the tripping of trauma triggers) can occur over years...day by day, month by month, incident by incident. Until memories start to come together and she learns that she is experiences a trauma trigger from the abuse she endured, she feels unstable, insane, incapable of being functional. She can't control the trauma trigger response anymore than she can control the beating of her own heart. The experience happens to her. She is not choosing her response, or experience. She is responsible for her actions, but she is acting as a wounded child should in the experiences she lived through. She is not pretending (role-playing) or acting out because she is a selfish, or immature.
Sadly, the observer (mate, friend, child, or innocent bystander) also feels she is unstable, odd, weird. She may be blamed for her inappropriate actions, ridiculed for not responding maturely, corrected for not being 'godly', avoided because she is unpredictable, unstable, dysfunctional. People generally out of fear, and lack of understanding or control, set boundaries to keep her away. Very few people are able to step into a storm with someone experiencing trauma triggers.
Trauma trigger episodes are very damaging cycles. The adult survivor of child abuse needs time to learn that she is not "crazy"... that she is behaving and feeling exactly as a child should and would who experiences what she did. With the help of a very talented, compassionate, trained counselor, the adult survivor can begin to identify the trauma trigger behavior to the exact childhood abuse that took place. This is not hard for the adult survivor to do. If she closes her eyes and thinks about the place in her body that she feel the emotion and then allows her mind to scan her memories searching for what the physical feeling is attached to usually her mind can quickly recall the precise incident in a memory that may be shadows to crystal clear detail.
An adult survivor of child abuse can have many alter selves (alter personalities) that need to be healed. Each trauma triggers can be associated with a different dissociative self, a part of her soul that separated off to hold/contain the horrific memory, so that she could continue functioning and living life. It is part of our inborn survival mechanism that is part of our being designed by God to help us to cope with and survive extreme abuse/trauma.
The disassociation can be mild to very distinct. Often the more severe and long term the abuse, the more separated and distinct the disassociated parts of the soul can be. The term multiple personality is no longer used in psychology, since the movie of Sybil that cased this label/diagnosis to be linked to the most extreme type of shattering that can occur in a soul.
Sybil had dissociative selves that lived in there own realities apart from the real world. Each self was very individualistic in voice, clothing, personality and behavior. The individual selves were not aware of each other and did not see that they were all sharing one person's being (body, soul, spirit). This is the most extreme form of a shattered soul.
Today psychological professionals, counselors and teachers use the disassociate disorder to contain many levels and types of patients that suffer from the splitting of the their soul.
These memories and alter selves can be healed! The alter child self can receive the resources she needed to get through the abuse, but did not have when the abuse occurred. Brainspotting, a powerful healing therapy developed by Dr. David Grand using biolateral stimulation of the right and left brain, can help speed the healing process and permanently restore the fragile shattered soul. Dr. David Grand has trained therapist throughout the world in the restorative, healing methods, and is on the cutting edge of developing healing therapies for people who have lived through trauma.
The wonderful good news is that there is a process and a way for a shattered soul to be healed. God, also, can work through a person's spirit from the inside out and can lead the healing of the soul of a person who has surrendered their being to Him. A person's spirit is regenerated when she accepts Him as her Lord and Savior, her spirit is completely made new. This is a vital key to healing in a God-led way. It is a great gift to the person to be lead by God, the Great Physician, the Creator, the Lover of her Soul through the healing process. It also helps the person to understand that she is cherished/treasured, accepted, and whole in her spirit as she goes through the hard work of allowing God to heal the shattered parts of her soul. her spirit is not broken. It is completely pure, lovely and pleasing to good, not because of what she does, but because of Whose she is. She is the precious daughter of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords!, and nothing can take that away from her or separate her from Him!
God has the ability to totally heal a person in the way He deems best for the individual. He can instantly in a time of prayer, surrender, praise or tears mend the broken heart/soul. He can also choose to allow the person to persevered through the trials of the past in order to learn valuable truths. These truths can be used to minister to others who have been hurt or to deeply repair the shattered soul to bring understand her pain.
God has shown me that He loves to redeem what was meant for evil and to use it for good for the dear person that loves Him. He desires to bring beauty out of ashes. He specializes in mining diamonds from ugly coal. He is the Author and Creator of blessed, unlimited, uniquely-individualized healing that is exactly perfect for the one precious person He is healing. He was there during the abuse. He heard, saw and felt it all. He understands the depth of pain, and He alone is able to touch into the deepest places in a soul. He is the Lover of the soul, Redeemer, Healer, Restorer, Comforter. And best of all, He is always available. He always has time, and His door is always open.
The healing of a shattered soul is not an easy path, but it is the only path to real living. For the adult survivor of child abuse there is hope and a way out of the trauma that was lived through. She doesn't have to live life shattered and in constant pain, depression, regression, obsession, or any other negative way of surviving. God wants more than survival, He wants to bring victory, freedom and the abundant life that is available for every child of God.
Child abuse is horrible and it destroys lives, but a person doesn't have to be permanently destroyed. She can be completely restored and healed to be the person God originally designed her to be.
I personally encourage you to take the step of faith in the direction of God, to be embraced by His all-consuming love. Remember healing is a process, not an event. Persevere with God and not only will you be healed, but you will be able to intercede in the healing process of others. You can be an ambassador of Jesus. As Moses lead the slaves of Egypt out of bondage, God will anoint you to be able to face the Pharaohs of this world and you will show those in bondage the way to freedom, the abundant life, the land flowing with God's milk and honey. In the authority and power of Jesus, you will be able to proclaim, "Satan, set God's captives free! Let His people go!"
May all of God's love and grace be with you as you attempt to understand the effects of child abuse, generational sin, mental illness, trauma triggers and shattered souls.
Comments
• We must not forget that boys are also molested and have often been betrayed by those they should have been able to trust to keep them safe from such dangers. When these boys grow into teens, young men, then adults, they are aware of the different expectations that society has regarding display of emotions by the male gender. When a trauma trigger occurs, a male must decide whether he can afford to allow it to emerge fully - for to experience it and react might cost him the only safe, secure relationships he has now. It does not matter if he has a romantic, friendship, or family relationship at stake - or maybe all three. The fact is that a male display of emotion is not tolerated at the same level as a female display. The risk, therefore is greater for him, and the response is likely that he will drive the memory back inside.- and if not, he will keep trauma triggers as low profile as possible, and confide in as few as possible, if anyone at all.\
• I am a little concerned about your explanation of the "body, soul, and spirit." The body is self-explanatory. The spirit, you say at first, is dead in our academic nature, but comes alive "in our acceptance of Jesus as our Lord and Savior." But the word spirit comes from the word "breath" which causes me to believe that while we have breath, we are living on this earth. Just as when it said so often in the scripture, "he gave up the ghost" meaning to die, when we give up our spirit, or breath, we die from this life. The soul, on the other hand, is called...in the Greek the psyche. And yes, it also mentions in translation the breath, the vital force that shows itself in breathing. It includes the desires, feelings, affections, aversions... it is the essence of who we are that is different from the body that does NOT DISSOLVE when we die. In the new testament however the spirit is called pneuma - and one definition says it is the soul that has left the body after the body has died! HOW CONFUSING!
For what it's worth:
I believe that the soul is what lives on forever and therefore is what is "converted" from sinful nature to new life and to following Christ. He "renews" our mind. The mind is part of the soul. He tells us to bring every thought into captivity, to cast down imaginations (2 Cor 10:5) These are activities of the will and imaginations often stem from emotions. I am using the components you listed as parts of the soul here to strengthen my point.
I believe the Spirit is the breath of life that each person receives at the beginning of their life and keeps until they stop breathing. Yes, there is a Holy Spirit. It lives in inside us after we follow the scripture in repentance and baptism. It does not however, replace our spirit. We do not "become" the Holy spirit. But his holy "breath" fills us and is our comforter, our guide.
As to the rest of your blog, it is amazingly informative and I feel that people will learn from it, grow from it, gain hope from it. Both victims and supporters of victimes will learn from this blog. I am very glad I read it. I learned so much.
I hope I haven't been too blunt :)
Yes, I very much view healing from a female perspective because I am one. You have very valid points on what a boy or man must endure. I have three brothers who lived through the same torturous life that I did and honestly, it has only been within the last year that I have considered what a terribly hard road they have had because they are men. I deeply understand their suffering and at the same time I see that they have to function at a high level – often beyond what should be possible – in order to keep careers and connected to their own wife and children. They have the very same trauma triggers and come unglued inside but have to function very differently than my sisters or I. As most people, we all cover “it” very well, most people who know us would never know how fragile we are inside…. I think quite the opposite, we appear quite strong, on “top of everything” and function as though we were raised in a simple all-American loving family. So your points on males are very well taken and I have not had much time to ponder healing of males. (I have kinda been a little busy dealing with my own healing and family…. In due time I am sure there will be time if God would have me go down that road).
On the second point, it would take a very long time to explain all the details. Unfortunately body, soul, and spirit is not taught in most churches. I will start off by making it very clear that I am not God and He alone fully understands our composition. He made us. My knowledge comes from Scripture and time with Him. I have been blessed with many wonderful teachers of Scripture in my 20 years of being a saint.
I do not have the time tonight (I have been busy all day and just got home after 10:30 pm) to detail the Scripture that supports what I have explained in the blog post. I left off the Scripture references because I feel most people would be bogged down with information overload and not really desire to go deeper. I will post a following blog post just describing soul and spirit Biblically, so the information will be on the site and people who want or need more information will be able to research, dig and discern truth for themselves. Truth is always the best teacher of information… the Bible clearly teaches itself.
The process of understanding who we are as humans – body, soul and spirit – has come over many years of an intense walk with God….in allowing Him to teach me and heal me and to show me His truth. If the information I posted is not correct, it is my fault, not His.
There are a few points I can quickly say:
- The Holy Spirit (Holy Ghost) is a person. The Holy Spirit is one of the three of the Godhead. He does come to dwell inside of believers and yes, He does not take over a person’s spirit or a person does not become The Holy Spirit. While I live in Christ and Christ lives in me….we are not the same. The Holy Spirit is never an it. He is a person….a spiritual person…..not of flesh and blood but of spirit.
- You have the correct words for soul and spirit, but the only part of us that does not live eternally is our body, which Scripture tells us that we will have a new body in our resurrected state.
- The spirit is dead in sin at the birth of every person since Adam. I can supply references later. In one adam we are all born into sin and Satan is our father, until we are born again from above in Jesus and given a new spirit, at this point we become children of God. This is why God can look upon us and have a relationship with us because we are completely new and clean in our spirit. God can’t be in the presence of sin. His holiness does not allow it. It is the very reason that Jesus had to come and die for us, so that our relationship (reconciliation) could be restored and we could once again fellowship with God as Adam freely did in the garden before he and Eve sinned.
- Our soul is composed of our mind, will and emotions. And as I said already, the emotions is also explained in Scripture to be the heart. The heart does not include the mind, so heart and soul are not interchangeable. Our soul is what is going to be glorified at death and what is being sanctified in this life.
I totally agree that all of this needs to be given an expository explanation from Scripture with all of the chapters and verses that support this understanding of His Word.
Let me state clearly again, that God alone understands all. I am not God, but just one of His precious children trying to grasp knowledge so unattainable in my limited capacity to know and learn….Life is a process, and God is always showing and teaching. His ways are much higher than mine. I am not leaning on my own understanding, but trusting Him… and trying to direct people to Him for healing as best as I can explain.
Thank you for your time in writing.
Lindy