Flashbacks. Intrusive thoughts and memories. They are not uncommon with me. I try not to think anymore about what happened. Those things have passed. Those people, in one way or another, have passed. And the Lord of all creation used the events that transpired to draw me to Himself.
I have been doing well in regards to the PTSD. It has not been so easily triggered as it had once been. The voices of my ghost are distant and all but completely washed out. The Lord has brought me such a long way from where I had once been.
But every now and again a word, a whisper, an image, a thought, a memory breaks through. The trigger activates at first an emotion, then a secondary emotion emerges (usually anger), and then I invite all the madness and guilt it brings.
Today the trigger was a letter found while cleaning out my files. It held a dialogue of accusations, excuses, and underlined the mantra that we as good Christians do not address or face issues, problems, or sins, but “forgive” and talk about them in secret behind our brother or sister’s back. The first emotion to emerge was sadness followed by a desperation to explain to those who are forever unwilling to listen that this is not how the Bible teaches us to deal with in-house problems. A few more memories slipped through, but before it could take handle, I realized -by the grace of God- exactly what it was doing; bringing me to a place of idolatry.
Sometimes I forget how addictive the hurt is, or just how sweet melancholy is on the tongue. Sometimes I forget how my God and my King is ever and always enough; that this other stuff is just simply garbage. The memories will always be with me. Unlike my files, those are things that I will never be able to purge from my life, but this is not a curse alone.
The memories serve to remind me how my Lord and Savior is greater than any man or woman who proclaim that their cult religion is all that defines god. The memories serve to remind me of how my Master plucked me from the teeth of jackals and lions and laid me to rest at His feet. The memories serve to show me that it was by His GRACE through Faith by which I have been Saved -once and for all, preserved, and kept.
The beautiful madness and the twisted longing for old things is cruel and wicked. The desire to fall back on old habbits and to journey down old paths is simply my foolish flesh rising to rebel against the things of the Spirit. But I am not longer a slave to my flesh, but a slave to Jesus Christ. In Him I am free.
And if in Him I am free, why should I choose to be once again bound to that which I hate the most? The Christian life isn’t easy, but in Christ I find the empowerment to walk where He leads. And so these emotions that come from a deceptive heart shall be as that letter, placed in the garbage and put behind me.
My ashes for His Beauty -which is never cruel.
