Transforming Hidden Memories

The mind has
Corners and crannies
Where hidden lie
Memories

The heart wants
Uncovering
From carrying
The burden

Where can they meet?
Heart and mind
Like oil and water
Refuse to mix.

--bg

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Hebrews 4:13 NIV

 

A child sat on the side of the road and saw the crashed cars. There was the bloodied man being held up by the ambulance drivers. There was her Father holding his chest, and there was her brother coming behind in his own car, rescuing her from the scene.

It was a memory locked in the recesses of my mind. Occasional nightmares and flashbacks from the scene would replay years later, but I would tell myself how thankful I should be that God preserved my life with only a chipped tooth, and my Dad only suffered a few cracked ribs.

But the heart knows when a fear takes root.

I wrote those paragraphs for the beginning of a blog post shared back in 2017. It was a freeing post, sharing the blessed gift of seeing His victory over fear. However not long after I wrote that post, the Lord began to uncover something deeper about those traumatic memories of that accident. It wasn’t fully uncovered until just a few weeks ago as I recounted the story to a family member who had never heard it.

The words choked in my throat as my voice began to shake. I realized that the trauma was hitting me full force again. Could it be that the Lord had even more healing to work in my heart?

I told of how I had realized that the nightmares and the flashbacks seemed to come from another identical scene. Except in that secondary scene the accident was not “mine.” My 4-year old brain had “created” another accident, with another bloody man, sitting along the road, oozing blood as the police car lights cast an eerie glow. …

In fact, there was no second accident. Those vague details faded away as I allowed the Lord to merge those images into the true reality of what had happened. The thought of being in an accident where a man was injured so badly was more than my young mind could handle. It’s amazing how the human brain works to find safe places for our emotions to rest.

But as a dear friend shared with me, “those defense mechanisms serve us well for a while. But as we grow they are no longer safe for us.”

I asked the Lord why I had hidden away the trauma of such a scene? How had those defenses served me well, but at the same time caused the wound to go deeper?

And His answer went deep into my soul. 

It was the beginning of my way of minimizing my own situations. “My” accident wasn’t that bad. But denial only drives the pain deeper. And those flashbacks escaped so that my body would not have to bear the weight of that trauma any longer. The condemnation towards myself took root:

• I should not speak about my own pain, since others have it so much worse.
• I really don’t need to pay attention when a wound is stirred. It’s not that bad.

Oh but our Lord sees things so differently! He does not want those wounds to be covered over. In fact He spoke up for His people who were being minimized by the rulers and priests of Israel:

They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. “Peace, peace,” they say, when there is no peace.”

Jeremiah 8:11

He uncovers, not to condemn, not to minimize, but so that His healing life can overflow in us:

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.

Romans 8:1

I chose to only see the good, not any bad. But the Lord is the only One who can truly redeem and bring good from bad. When we try to do it ourselves, we become the fixer. When we deny and block the bad, we miss out on the full mercy of God.

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

Romans 8:28

Oh our Lord is so merciful to us and so protective of His children, waiting for just the right moment to stir His healing.

Just a few weeks before the accident re-telling, another stifled memory refused to remain buried. But this time it was my adult daughter who was the teller of my story, as she asked “Don’t you remember those hateful words that were uttered over you by someone so close to us?” I remembered the situation very clearly, but no, I had spent years blocking those words from my memory. Denying their presence had done nothing to erase the sting. In fact, with the denial, I had allowed my thoughts to slip more easily into doubt:

• Surely I must have caused my friend to be angry with me.
• If I tucked away the hateful words, then it must not have been as bad as I had felt.

Yet again, the Lord had allowed that defense mechanism to be a sort of protection during those months long ago when our lives were uprooted. But the time had finally come to join with my daughter and face those words spoken over me then. Since she was so young when she overheard them, she had felt the sting all those years too.

As the words were brought out into the open, it was the same as when the images of the accident were faced. Beside and over and under and around those words and images stood the outstretched hands of my Risen Saviour. He had always been there, bearing the deepest wounding for us, carrying the balm of His healing, just waiting for our hearts to receive His touch.

He transformed my tangled memories, and He renewed my mind with His good and perfect love. His will was always to heal, never to harm.

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:2

Forgive me Jesus for all the years of denying my need. But oh Lord Jesus thank You for setting me free from the law of sin and death, and uncovering Your grace at just the right time and way.

Dear One,

May I ask a hard question?

Is there a long-buried 

pain in your heart?

There is ONE

who longs to meet you

with the LIGHT of HIS PRESENCE.

And I know He is waiting to transform your heart and mind too.

So I pray for you, my friends, to be blessed before His presence today. Whether the pain is physical, such as I have from my chronic illnesses, or emotional, such as comes from our heart hurts, Jesus will meet us, because HE is our secret place.