Emotional Wounds: My Healing Process (LaVonne Sumler)

Emotional Wounds:  My Healing Process

My Story

Today I cried on my walk and talk with God.  It started as sympathetic tears because a group of Christian women who were struggling with relationships with our adult daughters were praying together.  Then someone prayed for her challenges with her mother.  That’s when the floodgates opened and I knew without a doubt that it was, “Me, it’s me, it’s me, Oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer”.

A few years ago, in a short story entitled, LOVEon’s Blues, I shared this about my relationship with my mom:

It hit me that my mom never had a chance to comfort me in the way I needed because I never really shared things with her when I was young.  My dad had inadvertently planted that seed with his admonishments for me not to worry my mother.  Being the responsible oldest child and after more than a number of whippings, I did my very best not to worry her.  I kept my problems and fears to myself.

At a particularly troubling time in my adult life, my mom told me it seemed I didn’t have any use for her unless I wanted something. She said she was hurt by that.  In some ways she was right but there was so much more to it than that.

After writing that story, I prayed for healing and forgiveness and I committed to a closer relationship with my mom and I thought things were better until our family brouhaha this past Thanksgiving.  My emotional wounds hadn’t healed. For the past six months, everything seems to mysteriously touch that wound so that I’ve been periodically experiencing fresh pain.  

I never spoke directly to my mom this past Mother’s Day.  It’s not because I didn’t try.  It’s certainly not because it wasn’t important to me.  After all, I tried twice and I left voice messages on her cell and home phones.  By the time she called me back that evening, I was at a concert and didn’t hear my cell phone and it wouldn’t have been appropriate to answer anyway.  When I checked my phone after the concert and listened to her voice message, it was well past her bedtime so I didn’t call back until the next day.

This brings me back to why I was bawling during prayer.  I feel abandoned.  AND IT HURTS.  Spiritually, I know that God’s grace is sufficient for me but in this flesh, I [sniff sniff] want my mama.  I opened my mouth and everything that was on my heart came pouring out.  I don’t know how long I went on, I didn’t really care at that time.  It was really a personal prayer and definitely inappropriate during this group prayer.  I don’t even remember most of what I said.  What I do know is that I had never prayed this earnestly about this situation.  Although it was unintentional, I somehow understood in that moment that, “I must tell Jesus!  I must tell Jesus! I cannot bear these burdens alone; I must tell Jesus!  I must tell Jesus!  Jesus can help me.  Jesus alone.”

My Revelations and Lessons

After I got home and over the course of several days, I:

• Confessed my sins, repented, and asked God for forgiveness.  It had been so easy for me to feel a certain way about my mom’s actions.  My perception of events on Mother’s Day proved that I hadn’t examined myself.  Yet, when I truly sought God, he showed me that there was a lot of sin in my heart.  I had been prideful, judgmental and unforgiving, among other things.  

I John 1:9 says:  “But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.”

• Asked God to show me what steps I needed to take to repair my relationship.  I had been praying over the years for a better relationship with Mom; however, up until now I continued to devise my own plans.  As each method failed, I developed something newwhich also blew up in my face.  Even though I say I trust God, too often, I act independently of him. 

Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.  Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.”

• Recognized that I had not been faithful in my relationship with the Lord.  The root of my problem was that I hadn’t fully cultivated my relationship with Him. My prayer life is inconsistent.  Like Tony Evans says, I wanted to use God like a spare tire.  I wanted Him to stay in the trunk until I needed Him.  My mom had expressed a similar sentiment about how I treated her.  I had expected God, my mom and others to be there on cue.  Even worse, I wanted Mom and others to provide the unconditional love, mercy and grace of which only He is capable.  So no wonder I was constantly disappointed.

Psalm 118:8, “It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in people.”

• Accepted that healing is a process.  I’ve been teaching this to others for years but I hadn’t always practiced it in my life.  I expected to simply pray and be healed.  And yes, it could happen like that because God is Omnipotent; nevertheless, healing requires that I listen and obey to his commands.  Since I say that I am His, I must desire to live according to his will.

II Kings 5:14, “So Naaman went down to the Jordan River and dipped himself seven times, as the man of God had instructed him.  And his skin became as healthy as the skin of a young child, and he was healed!”

The account of Naaman’s healing from leprosy in the Bible proves to me that healing is absolutely possible.  However, it may take some time because my emotional wounds run deep.  My work requires that I continue to lay my burdens at the cross; that I trust and commit to whatever process is necessary…if I truly want to be healed.