When Your Child Needs Healing

What do you do when your child needs healing, especially of the spiritual or emotional variety? Here’s my story. Here at Keeper of the Home, we believe in living whole. What good is feeding the body if you are not feeding the soul?

By Ann Timm

I was asked recently to remember some things from my past that were difficult. To remember the fear and the uncertainty of every next step.

Honestly, I had buried it so far deep that it was hard to remember. It was hard to find that pain again and flush it out. But that’s what I was doing, trying to flush it out. Dig it out.

I had been in a bad place for many years and when I finally got strong enough to get out of that place that hurt so much, it just brought more pain and hurt.

Every minute of every day became a battle. Just to stop and breathe. And stop and be.

Do you know the song, ‘Hold Me Jesus‘? I was shaking like that leaf. Facing a mountain that towered over me, daring me to move. Scared to death to go forward and scared even more to go back.

Well, sometimes my life
Just don’t make sense at all
When the mountains look so big
And my faith just seems so small

So hold me Jesus, ’cause I’m shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won’t You be my Prince of Peace?

Full song lyrics for “Hold Me Jesus” can be found here

It’s not a place I want to go back to, not even just to remember.

When Jesus took me in His arms and took those steps that I couldn’t take, I buried those memories. I buried that fear and that pain. So deep that I couldn’t even dig them out. Until today. Today someone asked me. Today one of my babies needs healing. He needs to heal to be able to grow and become a man and to know and to love himself and know he is loved, he needs to know what only I can tell him.

So, with a love only a mother knows, I was able to dig so deep that he can be set free and begin to heal.

And I begin to heal, too.

~How appropriate that this was happening over Easter, just a few days ago, when we were faced with the Cross and the sacrifice Jesus made for each of us, the ultimate sacrifice that gave so much hope to the world. To you and me. And to my son.

I take my fears and my mistakes, my sins and my sorrows, my anxieties and my worries to the cross…and yet HE carries me. He gives me hope and he gives me His unending love, His joy, and His grace.

Do you have a child who is hurting? Quiet, distant, unresponsive? A teenager that is standoffish, secretive and guarded? Have they been through some kind of trauma? Do they talk to you openly about it? Are they so young that you think they won’t remember or know about it?

Even if they were young and it seems their mind doesn’t know or remember, their body remembers and reacts accordingly. If your child has been through trauma of any kind and at any age, I urge you to get them to talk to someone skilled in digging up the damage and giving them a safe place to unwind the hurt. Someone who understands. Don’t wait. And don’t hesitate to see a counselor or therapist, pastor or psychologist.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with having someone to talk to who can give you knowledge and wisdom to help with whatever you or your child are facing. I’ve lived through trauma and I have a mentor. My husband has lived through trauma and has a mentor. ALL six of our kiddos have lived through trauma. We have a family therapist, mentors and psychologists that we encourage our kiddos to talk to when they are struggling and don’t know how to talk to one of us.

People hurt. And hurt people hurt (others).

If you are complaining about the cost, lets get real…you pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars a year for your child to play sports or take music lessons and carry around cell phones and you make a huge investment in their college education. Make an investment in them. How much more important is it to make an investment into their soul and make them whole.

You are not alone. Please don’t let your child go on feeling alone. 

There is hope. There is healing. He gives new beginnings. Lets begin again.

How has Jesus helped you heal? Do you or your child have a deep hurt? Who do you talk to?

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