Inner-healing is tough work!

I created a list of the wounds that came to mind. They formed a chronological order tied to place and the church or school I was in at the time. After I finished I sighed heavily. The list spanned two pages. This was going to be difficult work.

Since I was sitting in an empty coffeehouse (some weeks from opening) I brewed myself some herbal tea, chamomile and hibiscus, to settle in with God.

The next hours were wrenching. I found I was able to get through only a couple hurts. The one that really got me surrounded the three years my family lived in Grand Rapids Minnesota pastoring the Assembly of God church there. The church chewed up and spit out my dad. He shielded us from all the things that happened, we never became bitter or angry about it, but tonight to my surprise I found there were a lot of pent up emotions about it. I must have perceived more than I realized at the time. Perhaps the night of fear and agony with stomach pain stemmed from being aware of it, or perhaps it was from the enemy. At any rate, God and I had a lot to go through tonight.


To begin with I couldn’t square what I knew of God with what I experienced. I remember how close I was to Jesus then. I knew he was with me. He moved with me, he was the one friend I didn’t have to leave behind, the one friend I didn’t have to win. I remember singing to him and playing with him in the back yard. But, why then, was I so scared? Where was he when I felt alone? Where was he when I was scared? Where was he when my stomach was tied in knots all night from fear? Where was he when my family was hurt? Why did he bring us here to hurt us?

Through all of those questions he didn’t give me an image of where he was with us. He left me with my frustration and disappointment toward him. I prayed Psalm 42. “My tears have been my food
day and night,
while men say to me all day long,
‘Where is your God?’” (vs 3)

I repeatedly cried Jesus’ words from the cross, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” Why did you forsake my dad? My family? I know Jesus had to die for the world, but he was a grown man, we were just children!

God answered, Jesus was my child.

No answers, but his presence was there. The Spirit also groaned with in me. Both praying in tongues and just groaning in pain we grieved together. God grieved with me.

I got the sense that He was like the protective father standing with my dad, his child, as the church hurled insults at him. I sensed that they sinned against Him that day. Eventually I would ask him to please forgive them.

I also sensed that the place he was for us as children was in our family. While I felt it was His family that had hurt us, and caused me to this day to mistrust them, he was found in my family, sustaining us together.

Over the time grieving together, I asked God finally to bless that church, to give me a deep compassion for them. To bless the deacons in their ministry even when they don’t deserve it. To visit them with supernatural presence in revival and forgive them for what they did to his child.

I now believe this may be one of the most significant wounds I have faced in my life. This may be the pain I was so reluctant to visit. I have never attended to grieving this hurt, counting it behind me and being grateful that my dad protected us from the brunt of it. Perhaps what it did to him is one of the most significant sources of my pain. God and I may have more work to do in this as he continues to fill the void that is in me. To be sure we have some more of the list to go through this summer.