Sometimes we remember Traumatic Experiences from a healing point of view and other times we experience remembrances from a traumatic point of view. We cannot control flashbacks, but we can control – with help – how we respond to them when we realize we are having one or that someone else is having one.
Today I’ve heard rumblings about remembering the traumatic event of 911 – it was surreal for so many people around the world. I myself thought it was a movie when I first saw television that morning. My co-workers explained that it wasn’t. I was shocked and began praying immediately for our country, for the immediate victims and for the people who were experiencing second hand trauma. I prayed with many people throughout the day as they recounted some of their own stories of wars they had witnessed. Reactions were mixed – everyone was stressed. One elderly woman quietly spoke up during lunch and said she had resolved to become a teacher in a school in a far away land to help educate people in hopes that good solid education could help to prevent future wars. Later in the day she and I spent time visiting together. She wept as she shared some stories with me and then said – “Overcoming evil the world is the hardest work that can ever be done.” I think I agree with her. And there are no easy or simplistic answers to overcoming evil.
Recently as I sat near a river an elderly man said to me – “Imagine you are being attacked from the other side – what would you do? I felt my heart stop and start again, I had a lump in my throat and realized that we all have instincts of fight or flight. Either you stay and protect someone or run for protection, or you run in closer to get someone out.
We saw both reactions on 911 – people fleeing from danger and others rushing in to help. The responses and reactions must be based on some internal capabilities – innate makeup – spiritual calling.
Each year as we approach this day I always remember standing in front of the television at work for a few minutes praying and then I saw the face of Christ appear and the words “I came to seek and save the lost” roll across the screen in white lettering. No one else at work could tell me they saw that and others were watching . . . I think the appearance was given to me as an answer to my prayer – in the midst of chaos – Jesus Christ was present and actively pursuing the souls of everyone there – those who died and those who survived.
I still weep when I have remembrances of all those chaotic days – and I never went out east to help (sometimes I felt guilty about that) but the people I worked with and prayed with here in the small town where I live and work told me “God needed you here for us.”
We are all in this world together. I still look forward to and hope for a day when we have More Peace and Less War on Earth. If we don’t keep striving for that in each generation we won’t make progress in that direction. Don’t wait until tomorrow to start taking steps toward finding healing memories of the tragic remembrances of the past. Ask for healing, celebrate triumphs and victories, mourn with those who mourn and remind yourself and others that joy will return – choose life, breathe deeply, forgive the trespass. Understand that forgiveness does not mean you condone what happened. Forgiveness is a life giving choice that you give yourself. Remember the words of Jesus Christ – crucified by an angry mob of men – ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Hard to imagine that people don’t always know what they are doing. Maybe sometimes we have to start with saying “Father forgive them, because I don’t have the strength or desire to do that right now. If it be your will that I forgive too, then grant me a forgiving heart and heal the hatred I feel in my heart.”
I share with you now a page from the book:
A Prayer for Anger
by June G Paul
This is inspired from the verse in the bible that tells us God will take our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26)
Lord,
Take
My anger
And turn it
Into a Manger for You
Take
My heart
of stone
and give it
Your flesh
Your life
Your love
Make me
New.
Lord, help me to forgive as you do. AMEN
Lord, give me your peace, not the kind this world gives, but the kind you give, the kind that helps me love when I don’t feel like loving, the kind that helps me keep on keeping on through the chaotic times, through times of grief and strife. Give me your peace, the kind of peace that helps me live like you lived so my life may glorify you. AMEN
[When we allow the Lord to ‘turn my anger into a manger’ we are giving God control to use our anger for His good purposes and use us in the way he wants to use us in the particular situation we find ourselves in. Turning our anger over to the Lord helps us to prevent from sinning – helps us prevent taking things into our own hands which can sometimes lead to more disaster and people getting involved into areas of peacemaking that they are not equipped for or called into. Left to our own wills and devices we often cause more havoc rather than healing and bringing about peaceful resolutions.] **
A Prayer For our Enemies – From The Red Book of Common Prayer
O God, the Father of all, whose Son commanded us to love our enemies: Lead them and us from prejudice to truth; deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in your good time enable us all to stand reconciled before you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN
pages 116 and 117 Praying Our Way Through Stress, Drawing Wisdom from the Lord’s Life and Prayer – Westbow Press 2013
** (This bracketed section does not appear in the book]
Let Us Pray,
Lord God, Please continue to help us. Please continue to heal us and guide us into all truth, liberty and justice. Let your love flow from the heights of heavens through the depths of our souls and pour your Holy Spirit across this land and the throughout the world. We ask this for the restoration of the land and of our souls. Lord God, forgive us all our trespasses and deliver us all from evil that we may live together on this fragile earth in Peace. AMEN
