Emotional Abuse

Our bodies were created with the ability to heal itself.  When our body receives an injury, large or small, it immediately begins to heal itself.  Our bodies can fight off infection resulting from an injury, can regrow new bone where one has been broken, and construct new blood cells to name a few ways that our bodies work to restore itself back to health.

However, our souls- the intangible piece of you and I that floats between the spirit and the body- does not have that ability naturally.  That is why emotional abuse is almost more diabolical than physical abuse.  Your body can recover and heal itself; your soul begins to feed on the injury and it turns into a cancer of the soul, eating away at all that is good and lovely.

Our souls are a most interesting piece of our make-up.  We are the only created being that possesses a soul.  Animals and plants do not have this.  We were made in the image and likeness of God Himself.  God blew into Adam's nostrils and filled him with His own life and man lived.  No other being has God's breath filling and flooding their life.  However, when Adam sinned and took all of us with him into a life of sin there was a severing between our soul and God's Spirit.  We have been trying to get back to that place since the fall and this is why Jesus came.  When the disconnect between us and God happened, our souls were left to fend for themselves.  When we were connected to Him, His divinity was easily supplied to our inner man and we did not know sickness or injury to our souls.

Our souls are fed by whatever they are connected to.  When we were connected to God, He feeds us and supplies what our souls need.  When we are connected to something or someone other than God, our souls lack the completeness that was found in God.  As a result, our souls become twisted, deformed, and vulnerable to any and all attacks.  This is why emotional abuse is so deadly.  It has the ability to kill from the inside out.

Victims of emotional abuse do not fit into any mold or demographic.  On the outside they may look right as rain but on the inside they are crumbling to pieces.  They put up brave fronts to the world but in secret they deal with depression, physical self abuse, and suicide.  And within the marital context, the victim's mentality is extremely dangerous.

When we all pledged our life to our spouses, we joined our soul to theirs.  We are no longer two but one...not only in body but in soul and spirit as well.  And being joined to another in this manner, we allow ourselves to be opened up to anything and everything that our spouses connect with.  They are able to access your deep inner man and you have access to theirs.

What does emotional abuse look like?  That is a hard question to answer.  It could look like nothing; it could look like everything.  It can take the shape of rude and insensitive comments.  It can take the appearance of belittling and hateful words.  It can be no attention given when it is needed.  It can play favorites.  It can be the silent treatment or shouting matches laced with obscenities.

The purpose of emotional abuse, from a human viewpoint, is to tear a person down from the inside so that they will not fight back on the outside.  It is tortuous and inhumane.  If you treated your dog in this manner, the authorities would take them away from you.  But, in this world and culture we are taught to keep silent about such matters between husbands and wives.  The purpose of emotional abuse, from a spiritual viewpoint, is to make you forget who you are and WHOSE you are.

The words that are spoken over and to a spouse can hit harder than a prize-fighter and can cut deeper than a surgeon's scalpel.  A wound suffered in the soul is one that is virtually impossible to heal, especially when dealt from the lips of the man or woman that you pledged your life to.  This is not to say that it cannot be healed.  But, wounds in the soul can only be healed by the One that put your soul there to begin with.

Even if the victim of emotional abuse (outside of the grace of God) is able to reconcile on the outside with their abuser and that abuse never happens again, there will always be a tiny piece in the back of their mind that says, "What if...?"  Only through God and His unending grace and mercy can a victim emotional abuse find the healing that they so desperately need.  When you allow God to begin the work of healing a wounded soul, He begins by telling you who He is, who you are, and WHOSE you are.  You belong to Him.  The enemy of our souls would have believe that you are nothing and are worthless.  But, YOU BELONG TO HIM!!  You are worth more than anything else in all of creation.  You are so worth so great a price that the only thing worthy to pay your ransom was the blood of Christ.  That is what you are worth!!

In order to experience this healing you MUST reconnect your souls to God Almighty and allow His divinity to come in contact with the wound.  We understand that it will take a level of trust that you seem to not have.  But, the choice is yours...you can live with growing cancer of a wounded soul or you can take a risk and allow the Creator of your soul to touch the wound and heal it.

It is interesting that at the core of emotional abuse both the abuser and the victim are suffering from the same lack and the same root problem.  Both have lost their identity.  Both feel worthless.  Both are suffering.  Both are where they are by what they have been told.

It doesn't matter which one you are, victim or abuser, both of you can receive the healing from Jehovah simply by asking.  We are praying for each of you.

Josh and Serena