Tag Archives: faith

Healing from Traumatic Flashbacks

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).

“Endurance is not just the ability to bear a difficult thing, but to turn it into glory.”

William Barclay

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.    

FEAR of BAD NEWS

It is easy to call God good when things are good. But to look tragedy in the face and still believe wholeheartedly that God is good, that is faith.

God doesn’t always come through for you in the way you envision, pray or hope. The words of too many contemporary worship songs inspire us to believe in the impossible and then when we experience a real life tragedy we’re devasted. Too many preachers present theology in such a way that we think that if we have the faith the size of a mustard seed, then we obligate God to work on our behalf. But real life contradicts that kind of preaching. What we need to help us through tragedy is the fullness of Scripture in our lives.  

The older someone gets, the more they realize that they live within this general cycle: about to enter a trial, in the midst of a trial or recently got out of a trial. Yet, we never seem ready to go into a trial. The fear of receiving bad news can paralyze our minds. We spend many hours a day thinking about what “bad thing” is going to happen next. If you don’t struggle with this kind of anxiety, good for you. But I have seen many individuals struggle with this crippling nervousness.

Have you ever looked at the name of the person calling you on your phone and you freeze in fear for a moment because you dread what that person is going to tell you on the other line? You answer the phone call anyway because not knowing is also agonizing. If you have had to endure “receiving bad news” from various people and in different ways, then certain situations will trigger your emotions. 

Psychologists call the fear of receiving bad news anticipatory anxiety. When you cannot predict or control the future and it negatively impacts your daily life, then you need to face this fear and overcome it. Hopefully, the following story will help you find a way to free yourself from the fear of receiving bad news.  

My dad picked my mom’s favorite flower (Jewel of Tibet) and placed it at her grave.

At 7:55 p.m. on a Friday night, I received one of those dreaded calls. My sister called and said that they were taking my mom to the emergency room because she was having a hard time breathing. Fear sunk into my heart that night, but I tried my best to push it aside and believe for the best. The trip to the hospital was precautionary, or so I had hoped.

112 days. My mom spent 112 days in the hospital. When she first checked into the hospital, we were optimistic that she would be out in a couple weeks. But that first weekend she was moved into the Intensive Care Unit. A couple weeks later she was placed on the ventilator. A few weeks after that they placed a tracheostomy tube in her so that she could continue on the ventilator. She developed pneumonia several times. She fought sepsis a couple times. She started to get better and then would have set backs. We would receive positive news one day and then the next we would be given devasting news. 

In the middle of the 112 days, we discovered a verse in the Bible that encouraged us. We had no idea that my mom would spend 112 days in the hospital, so when we read the words of Psalm 112, we held onto these words not knowing that God, in His sovereignty, was preparing us. For example, we found Psalm 112 during February. My mom had been in the hospital for about fifty days at that point. There was no numerical connection between Psalm 112 and her spending 112 days in the hospital yet. This is what Psalm 112 states:

“They will have no fear of bad news” (Psalm 112:7).

Whenever my dad, my sisters or myself would receive bad news from the doctor or from lab reports, we would continue to hold onto hope. We were given bad news dozens of times during these 112 days, but we never remained in a place of fear.

We refused to allow bad news to shake us. Our hearts stood steadfast and secure. We trusted in the Lord. 

We met several doctors who had one hundred percent trust in medicine and the health care system, but zero percent trust in God. We also met a couple doctors that seemed to be believers. A doctor who is skilled in medicine and trusts in God can become one of the most powerful forces in our world. For God created medicine and He is the author of both natural miracles and supernatural miracles.  

Late one night, I was reading a report from one of the doctors. He didn’t give my mom much of a chance for recovery. At the end of his report, he wrote the words, “Prognosis is poor.” When I first read this three-word phrase, fear entered my heart. I envisioned an outcome that I was dreading. But then just as quickly as fear struck me, I was also given a peace that filled my heart instead. I had to make a choice in that moment. Will I fear the bad news, or will I trust God? Will I be consumed with terror, or will I rest in calmness that God is in control? 

The doctor was not God. He cannot determine the future. I am not God. I cannot determine the future. God is the one who decides what the future holds. 

Why should we have no fear of bad news? Is it because everything will turn out exactly how we want? No. Anyone who has lived long enough realizes that sometimes bad news turns into reality. In the midst of the unknown, God wants us to trust Him. But when we fear the bad news, we worry, we increase our anxiety levels, we fret about things we cannot change and we miss out on learning a valuable lesson: God wants us to rest in Him while we wait, wondering if good or bad will actually happen. 

Fast forward to day 112. The bad news turned into reality. My mom died. Why did God, in His sovereignty, allow my mom to live the last several months of her life in the hospital? Would it have been better if she would have died after ten days? Or a month? When I counted up the days in my head as I was driving home from the hospital that night, I couldn’t believe the number. So, I counted again. And then I counted a third time. My mind immediately went to Psalm 112.

In Psalm 112, we are told to not fear bad news. But how does that work? God is specific in how that is possible. 

Their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord. Their hearts are secure, they will have no fear;in the end they will look in triumph on their foes (Psalm 112:7-8).

Bad news tries to shake us, but if we have a relationship with Jesus Christ, we remain steadfast and secure no matter what happens. Even in those moments of weakness when we feel our emotions melting into a puddle on the floor, we focus our attention upon God and we trust Him to sustain us and take care of us in the midst of a trial. 

But you might ask, “God didn’t come through for you. He allowed your mom to die. Don’t you feel like God failed you?” 

No. Because my perspective as a Christian is not just what happens on this earth. Look at verse eight again. “In the end they will look in triumph on their foes (enemies).” In this case, disease and death were the foes. Disease and death won the battle. But because of my faith, I know that in the end, God will make all things right. I hold onto that hope that when I breathe my last breath I will see my mom once again and it will be for millions and billions and trillions of years with no end in sight. With this eternal perspective, death has been swallowed up in victory and no longer has a sting (1 Corinthians 15:54-55).

Let me rephrase that. I will feel the sting of my mom’s death until the day that I die. I miss her fiercely. But I know that I will see her again. I trust in my God because of what He DID (“He has risen” – Matthew 28:6) and what He SAID (“I am making everything new!” – Revelation 21:5).

I will see my mom again someday. I am deeply saddened because I wish she could have enjoyed this upcoming decade and watched more ball games, seen more graduations and taken more family trips.

We will miss her presence at our family events because she will be absent from my earthly life. But as a Christian, I must trust in Christ if I am to claim that He is my savior. 

It is easy to call God good when things are good. But to look tragedy in the face and still believe wholeheartedly that God is good, that is faith. And it is a faith that is steadfast and secure. 

I have found that God is a God of details. There is no coincidence that God allowed my mom to live 112 days in the hospital and then pointed our family to Psalm 112. You might be thinking how difficult it was to see someone suffering for that long. Yes, it was a long time in our eyes. But when you measure 112 days in view of the next life that is ever lasting, the 112 days are barely a blink. 

Most of those 112 days were exhausting emotionally and physically. They were filled with many tears and questions about the future. But during this time, our family had a peace that transcended our own human understanding. It is because we trusted in the Rock eternal.

You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal (Isaiah 26:3-4).