I keep having flashbacks. The other morning, I was laying in bed starting to “wake-up” and my mind formed a picture of my mom laying in the hospital bed. She was sick with stuff hooked up to her body. This image disturbed my heart. I was a bit shaken by the flashback because my mom’s sickness was a traumatic experience for my family.

This flashback was vivid. Briefly, I forgot that I was actually laying on my bed in my own home. My mind traveled back to one of the worst periods of my life. The trauma occurred over a duration of 112 days. The daily doctor’s reports. The good news and then bad news. Knowing my mom was fighting for her life, confined to her hospital bed.

Trauma takes shape in many forms: years of abuse, months of divorce court, weeks of bullying, hours of a still-born childbirth, seconds of an accident.

One cannot measure trauma simply by how long or short the event. The intensity of the moment might affect future flashbacks, but so can the longevity of the undesirable circumstance in your own personal history.

My flashback felt so real because it produced a high level of stress within my body. My heart was pounding and my muscles were tensing up as if I was reliving this tragedy again. The hormones that coursed through my veins after I heard “bad news” about my mom in the hospital were the same hormones I was experiencing laying on my own bed.

Have you ever wondered why you get flashbacks of traumatic events? I have discovered that my mind is still learning to cope with seeing my mom in a hospital bed for almost four months. Maybe my mind repressed these thoughts for a later time when I would be more prepared to deal with them.  

That “later time” was last week. How do I handle a flashback like that? It was painful to visualize my mom suffering. I don’t want my mind to be transported back to this horrible period of my life. It seems that my mind needs healing from these events. Maybe your mind needs healing from a similar event?

I reminded myself at the end of the flashback that it was in the past. It felt real and I hated the way my body responded. Throughout the day, I kept thinking about this disturbing moment. My heart was filled with anxiety, that is, until I went to Christ and asked Him what I should do with this unsettling feeling. I could hear a gentle whisper say to my heart, “Read Hebrews 12:1-3.”

I opened my Bible and read the first three verses of Hebrews 12.

Since we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before Him He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinners, so you won't grow weary and lose heart.

After studying these verses, the Lord gently told me that I need to focus on three truths in order to heal my mind from these flashbacks.

Truth #1: My mom is a part of the CLOUD of WITNESSES now.

The cloud of witnesses is an extension of all the men and women of the faith in Hebrews 11. Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Samson, David and many more were all commended for their faith and now make up this heavenly cloud of witnesses. But the cloud does not just have “Bible people” in it. Every Christian who has died is now in the cloud, witnessing God’s glory.

When you attend the funeral of a Christian, you can be assured that they are fully glorifying God in heaven and are very interested in what is happening to you on earth. This does not mean that they are always watching us, for they have many exciting new opportunities in heaven. But they are invested in your life here. They are rooting for you! They want you to also become a part of the cloud of witnesses.

God helped me combat my flashback by supplying me with Scripture that helped me look forward. Forward to what is real, not the past.  

My mom laying in a hospital bed is not reality anymore. What is true about my mom now? She is not suffering anymore. She is making new friends. She is watching my family and the events of the world. She is one of my biggest champions in heaven! Knowing this helps heal my heart.  

Truth #2: It’s now my turn to FINISH my race.

My mom has finished her race. Her race was approximately three-fourths of a century. My race might be half over, or maybe I haven’t even gotten to the back nine yet. No one knows when they will breathe their last breath. But someday, each of our races will be finished. And we will be able to look back and ask ourselves, “Am I satisfied with how I ran the race? Did I give God my all? Is God happy with my life?”

I don’t think there is anyone who arrives at the gates of heaven that will be completely satisfied with his or her race. Noah wished he wouldn’t have gotten drunk. Abraham hated that he lied so much. Sarah wished that she wouldn’t have doubted God. Moses regretted murdering a man. Samson bemoaned his weakness for women. And those are only the sins we read about. The so called “heroes of the faith” had many flaws and sinned much more than they planned to when trying to follow God.

That is why it is called “finishing the race” and not “running the perfect race.” So, how can we finish the race? Two verses hold the secret:   

We want to get the prize. That prize is the ability to keep the faith. In the darkest days of her life, my mom kept the faith.

The hardest and yet most wonderful conversation I ever overheard between my dad and mom took place right before the doctors placed her on a ventilator. I was sitting in my living room. My dad was standing a few feet away from me holding his phone out so that I could hear my mom on “speaker.” The following is the dialogue as precisely as I can remember.

Mom: “I love you and love all my children and all my grandchildren. Please tell them all how much grandma loves them.”

Dad: “I will. You will get through this.”

Mom: “If I get through this, I will see you at home. But if I don’t, I will see you in heaven.”

Dad: “You will get through this.”

Mom: “I need you to know that if I don’t get through this, I will see you in heaven.”

She is now in heaven. Her prize is Jesus Christ. But she isn’t there because she was a great mom and grandma. There is no such thing as a “saint” who deserves heaven. After people pass away, we often do a disservice to those trying to grasp how we can actually get into heaven by turning those who lived an overall selfish life into a saint. We have all “raised our eye brows” listening to someone paint a perfect picture of a deceased person who was anything but a saint. While my mom was a super person, she was ushered into heaven because she accepted the gift of salvation.

Probably more than twenty years ago, my mom was vulnerable with me. Towards the end of a Sunday afternoon lunch, she shared that she didn’t always feel saved and often doubted that she will go to heaven when she died. Sadly, she grew up in a church that taught a subtle “saved by works” mentality instead of a “saved by grace” reality. We talked for awhile about what it meant to be saved by grace and how it was never based upon anything we could do past, present or future in our life.

I believe that was a defining moment in my mom’s spiritual life. She had been taught for decades that we might forfeit our salvation if we get too many things wrong as we run the race and will be left out of heaven. But little by little, year after year, over that twenty-year stretch, my mom would hear the teaching of “grace” at her church and by the end of her life, she didn’t have to fear at all where she was headed because she was convinced that Jesus was holding her safely in His arms and there was no one and nothing that could snatch her away.  

In the last chapter of her life, my mom realized what genuine salvation was and how we are truly saved by the grace of God. The last four lines of this song say it all:

Oh, when I come to die,

Oh, when I come to die,

Oh, when I come to die,

Give me Jesus.

My own race must be ran with an increasing awareness of God’s grace. I want to grow more secure in His mercy, compassion, and love. And so when I approach the final lap of life, I will have known that God has always been and will forever be the “starter” of my faith and “finisher” of my faith.

Truth #3: I can endure and persevere by FIXING my EYES on Jesus.

The last few months of her earthly race were painstakingly difficult. Almost unbearable at times.  

When I get those flashbacks, I must remind myself that those four months in the hospital was a “light and momentary trouble” that achieved for my mom an “eternal glory that far outweighs everything” (2 Corinthians 4:17).

What I saw in that hospital room was temporary, but what was unseen is eternal. Knowing this truth, I fix my eyes on the unseen, not the flashback of my mom in that bed.

What does it mean for us, after any traumatic event, to fix our eyes on Jesus? It means calling out to Jesus to help your heart heal. For Jesus to sustain you with strength when you feel weak and you want to give in to the struggles of life. Jesus always comes through. This is how Jesus came through for me.

Seventeen hours had passed since I had the first flashback. I kept thinking about the flashback throughout the day and was trying to fix my eyes on Jesus. I repeatedly asked Him to heal my heart and wash away the pain of that picture in my mind.

Around 11pm, I did my normal “check on the girls in their rooms” before I turned in for the night. I walk into each of their rooms, shining the light from my phone in order to see their faces. After checking on one of my daughters, I turned to walk out of the room, and my flashlight shined on a picture on the wall. It was a picture of my mom with my daughter. I froze and started to tear up. I heard the Spirit whisper to me, “Fix your eyes on that picture and remember your mom in this way, with a big smile loving her grandchildren.”

This is the picture I have fixed my eyes on every night the last couple weeks before I fall asleep.

The sweetness of the Spirit filled my soul, and I could feel the anxiety melt away. For Jesus was right beside me, mending my broken heart.