Last night was a pivotal night at church. For the past 7 years I have been walking a faith journey with my pastors and the folks at my Apostolic Church. I was praising and woshipping God when I suddenly felt what felt like a spiny sea urchin coming up and out of me. Immediately I started to feel God's peace all over me.
I have been on a journey with the Lord Jesus Christ that started in 2015 with baptism in his name. For years I had struggled with what I now believe is CPTSD. You see. for almost 10 years I had worked with a man that had alcohol and addiction issues. He was my direct superior at work, and he would cuss like a sailor and had a nasty temper. If I made a slight mistake instead of having a reasonable talk about it he would explode. He constantly would talk about how I was driving him to drinking. But before that I had lived with two severely autistic men that would scream and bang on the walls sometimes late at night. It was the start of a journey with anxiety and OCD that lasted nearly 20 years. That combined with an abusive staff person were catalysts for PTSD to develop. And I just wanted my peace and joy that I had had as a kid before the trauma, I wanted it all back again.
Many people who have grown up with autism deal with this type of trauma. Many are misunderstood by friends and family and they have abuse heaped on them whether mental or physical. For me it was not physical but emotional abuse that happened. Autism is not the demon some people think it is. Most people that grow up with this developmental disability are capable of being successful like everyone else with support.
God is working directly with me and indirectly through a counselor with a local mental health organization. Directly God is starting to take some of the major trauma that I have been dealing with over the past 20 years. And through the Christian counselor that I am seeing he is going to tech me coping techniques.
I know that there is Hope for CPTSD. Counselors and Psychiatrists and meds can help and this is the truth. But ultimately God is in charge of everything and I have been learning this. During the times that I have been at my worst God has never left me. His love is unconditional and is that deep. All he asks is that we give our whole lives to him. This is called repentance. Sunday God used a pastor at a United Methodist Church to preach a message about how Jesus wants to grow our heart 3 sizes. He cleverly used the seasonal classic The Grinch Who Stole Christmas to make this point.
I was angry, explosive, family members were afraid of me. It was because I was carrying hurt that I was not giving up to God. It was because I was trapped in post trauma driven anger and wanting to lash out at people that had done nothing to me. A combination of being bullied for being on the spectrum and several other factors. Freedom is awesome and I am starting to experience that. I am starting to experience God's peace where before I had worry and frustration and anxiety. I am starting to see hope where before there was just a dark tunnel. I was turning to beer and cigarettes when I should have been turning to God. And he called me out on it. Not a finger shaking at me telling me I was going to hell but rather a gentle reminder through a prophetic word from my pastor that I needed to walk out of last night's service in surrender. God did what I couldn't do. He took off me what was keeping me in chains. I had a father wound. I was locked in anger tears and misery for so many years.
I walked out last night with burdens lifted and my heart on fire for the Lord.
And a testimony that can touch countless lives.
Blessings friends.
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