I’ve had my share of surgeries during my lifetime, especially this year. I have the scars to prove it. Healing does come over time, physical scars do heal, diminish in size and visibility, and eventually you are back to normal, at least physically. This week, though, while counseling a young woman, I was reminded that emotional scars are much worse and, unfortunately, may never heal.
What do I mean about emotional scars? They are the trauma we experience from planned or unplanned events in our life. They are the words we use in anger to tear someone down or rip the heart and soul out of a person. After a disaster, we measure the size of the catastrophe by the number of the people who lost their lives. But the survivors of a catastrophe quite often are statistics, too, having a life sentence of despair and darkness.
Emotional wounds can be far more crippling than a physical injury. Victims of violence, abortion, loss, often suffer life-long consequences, physical as well as emotional. Therefore, to gauge the depth of the loss and the human tragedy, we must look farther than the loss of life and limb.
Researchers treating the victims of trauma reveal how severely a person will suffer from a man-made trauma depends on the meaning that traumatic event holds for that person. A victim of trauma is robbed of the five basic emotional needs: Safety, Trust, Control, Esteem, Intimacy. Take away any of these and scars start forming.
My expertise is in trauma following an abortion. I hear first hand heart-wrenching stories of years of silent torment and the residual effects of unresolved grief. Fortunately, there is life-transforming help available in a post-abortion Bible study. However, getting the message to those who need to hear it is our biggest challenge. Will you help?
Isaiah 53:5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
Tagged: abortion recovery, pro-life
