By Shewanda Riley
Last week, I shared how one of the aftereffects of spiritual warfare is what I call Spiritual PTSD – Purpose, Strength, Trust, and Discernment. Even as I began writing this week’s column, I hit a huge wall of writer’s block. As I tried to write this week’s column, my words just didn’t seem to flow, and my thoughts were muddled and confused. This has happened before, so I took a 24-hour break from writing and came back…but still got stuck. Why was this happening!?
This week, I wanted to explore more about how each spiritual warfare battle that we survive is specifically designed to teach us things. But since I kept getting stuck when it came to the feelings that the warfare raised, I thought that maybe that was the issue I needed to write about. For those who have experienced or were threatened with a physical trauma like war or physical abuse, surviving the battle is often just the first step. The next step is how to deal with the sometimes hard to manage feelings that remain.
After thinking about it some more, I realized that part of the reason I was getting stuck was because I was trying to write about an experience that is quite simply difficult to describe. Words like guilty, fearful, confused, relieved, hopeful, and angry do not adequately describe the surviving physical or spiritual warfare. Quite simply, no one wants to admit that they’ve experienced something so life changing and that they can’t adjust to how it’s now making them feel. The experiences compare only in how challenging it is to deal with the feelings that remain. Ephesians 6:11-13 tells us how to prepare for and then fight the spiritual battle but doesn’t really go into how to deal with the feelings that might remain after the battle is over.
In my recent experiences with spiritual warfare, I found myself trying to process extreme feelings—I was glad that I had survived, even if I felt that I’d lost the battle, I was fearful of any additional battles, but mostly I was hopeful that the worst was over. Psalm 30:2 explains, “LORD my God, I called to you for help, and you healed me.” Calling to God means you have to be honest about how you are feeling. Before you can get to spiritual PTSD (purpose, strength, trust, and discernment), you have to wade through uncomfortable feelings to get to the truth of how you really feel…which is the first step to healing.
Part of the healing process is acknowledging the part that God plays in healing us after spiritual warfare. Sometimes, God allows us to experience spiritual warfare so things about our character can die and he can resurrect us to reflect the image of Christ. Often God chooses to use those things that we think disqualify us because of spiritual warfare to be the thing that propels us into our future. Once we let those old things die, we then have the great opportunity to see God use that negative thing be the foundation for us to give live again.
Happy Resurrection Week and remember because Jesus died, we can live!