Jesus And The Vacuum

Jesus And The Vacuum

by Sharon Woolbright

I awoke this morning meditating on the Presence of the Lord. I began to think about all the precious people in my life who are going through very trying times. My mind began to process the details of my own journey today. One thought and prayer lead me to another and another. 

Holy Spirit began to remind me of a process He has been unpacking to me over the last few years. By revealing clearer details and taking me through a method He is teaching me to use, that truly brings deliverance to the wounded, battered places in my past. 

He is showing me the places where I have allowed the debris of an event to take hold of my emotions and through my memory of the event. I have experienced the toxic feelings, anxiety, fear, depression that has lead to me being chained in bondage to a past experience. 

All of us have experienced life changing wounds some from childhood and some maybe just yesterday or even today. We replay the words, that created pictures in our minds. We replay the internal video over and over, rewinding the sound track of ugliness until we can retell it with every detail that caused us to feel the pain we are experiencing. 

We have edited and rewritten the script. Until it reflects in great detail, complete with the emotional pain flooding through our words and mind as we share the events with anyone who will listen. 

We may be locked in a tragedy a totally real event. A terrible auto accident, the loss of a romantic love, the death of spouse or child, a miscarriage, divorce, rape, murder…the list is endless and uniquely fitted to our individual book of remembrance.

Most of us as a race are broken and wounded, people in desperate need of salvation! Mostly we need saving from ourselves, I might add. Who will save us? 

Yes, Jesus is the answer, but even He cannot deliver us from our past. If in fact we do not invite Him in or allow Him to show us the way out. 

We need to allow Him to exchange the truth of real forgiveness with what we have excepted as a sloppy substitute. Mostly only giving lip service, and in most cases not truly allowing ourselves to release the negative emotions that are attached to said event.

We haven't understood that just quoting scripture will not set us free. We haven't understood that we have to engage our will, mind and emotions into the process, to truly engage in the truth that will set us free.

We all have probably, said “I will forgive but I will not forget.” This is a statement of truth that doesn't have to hold us negatively in a memory. My forgiving doesn't magically erase my memory of the event. Forgiveness allows me to see the event no longer through prison bars of painful negative emotions, but through the open door of truth.

I humbly submit that I think real forgiveness/deliverance is when I can revisit the event or events of the painful experience and not be over whelmed with the negative emotions that event has evoked in the past. 

My memory of the event or experience imagined or real is still in tact. It just no longer carries the power to chain me with paralyzing emotions, anxiety and pain! 

Someone doing me wrong didn't change. They way I look at them and the situatiton has changed.

Whom the Son has set free is free in his or her deeds! I can now function, more peacefully in my daily life. Not denying the truth that the event happened. I can allow myself to revisit or replay said event. 

With great delight and shocking surprise I realize I am no longer able to FEEL the same level of the painful emotions that have held me captive!

I know, I know, you are saying, “Yes Sharon I see that, but how do I get there?”  

In the church community sometimes we are full of wordy answers but short on practical applications that help us reach a real and lasting experience of the truth that is imparted. 

Under inspiration of the Holy Spirit we as ministers may receive a revelation of a truth and deliver it the best we know how to those who are trusting us to encourage them in the Lord. 

There are many methods of delivery. Most are words, that relate a truth or a series of truths that instruct or explain. Some may include 1, 2, 3, steps to better break down the concept and allow us to better understand what is being taught or released. 

Some will use illustrations, pictures painted with words, experiences they or others have had to help the hearer to be able to better relate the message they are trying to deliver. There are a few who will use props, to demonstrate a major point a visual aid to better involve the corporate whole in the main point of the sermon. 

The more of the five senses involved in an event the greater the understanding. The deeper that message or experience is embedded in our mind and memory.

This is also true for the tragic events we have experienced in our lives. The more of our five senses sight, sound, touch, taste and smell, that were involved when we experienced the trauma the deeper and more intense our memory, and emotional replay will be of that event. 

Some of us have experienced such horrific things that we have even blocked the memory with it's   details from my consciousness.  Not realizing, although we don’t remember what happened, our lives and the way we interact with others may be impacted. Causing an inability to trust, producing panic attacks, angry outbursts, even causing blackouts from the fear, without really knowing what the root cause is.

I like you am human. I don’t have all the answers and don’t pretend to. Although I do know the One who does! 

Jesus left us the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us into all truth. If the truth will set me free or deliver me from my past chains and afflictions, I want the truth. 

I too, like one who has experienced the reality of finding out first hand what hot means, don't relish revisiting areas of my life where I have been burned. 

Areas of emotional scalding, from situations or circumstances that were so hot with emotions, or true physical experience, they have covered me with severe emotional burns. 

A burn nurse in a burn unit is the most hated and loved person in a burn patients life. She must cut or scrub away the dead tissue so that the new growth of healthy tissue can live and not become infected from the effects of the burn event. 

Holy Spirit is like that burn nurse. He will come and debride the wounds of our past. 

The deriding process may include the scrubbing of dead flesh and tissue. Using an antiseptic solution to impede infection. It may also be necessary to cut away the dead tissue to allow for the growth of healthy new tissue.

In the first few hours and days after a burn event, the burn victim is given large doses of pain killers. If the burns are severe, they may even be placed in a coma. Allowing the body to begin the healing process. 

They are feed with IV solutions and medications are administered through an IV. 

As time progresses the bandages are changed and the burned areas are exposed to light and air to aid the healing. A salve may be applied topically to aid the healing process and keep the bandages from adhering to the wounds.

A horrible picture isn’t it? We can all quickly formulate this picture in our minds eye. Realizing that there is a long process ahead of this one as they recover. 

The doctors and nurses will have to do things that bring great pain to the one who is burned, knowing it is to save their life. Skin grafts may have to be used. In some cases amputation may have to take place to save their life.

We in many ways are this burn patient. We have been injured through the fire of life’s trials. 

Some injuries have been the result of our own actions. Others because of the choices of others we were involved with. Some have even occurred from random acts of violence from strangers. 

No matter the cause, we are still burnt, injured, scared, traumatized on many levels because of the experience.

At conception we began to develop all the parts that make up the human being. All the DNA contributed begins to multiply and divide making a life. 

At birth we stopped being sustained from fluid in the womb and began to breath air. The human brain told the lungs to operate and we inhaled and exhaled! At first under protest! 

We cried and that sound caused the room to rejoice and explode with joy, a new life was now no longer hidden in the safety of the hidden place but was here for all to see and enjoy!

I have started a journey to sort of return to the womb of my emotions. To truly be born again! To have my mind renewed. In the area of my emotional interpretations of past experiences. 

I am allowing Holy Spirit to help me return to the secret place of my memories. Where all the pain and joy of my life’s experience reside. I have ask Him to help me revisit any and all events remembered or blocked that have played a part in my negative emotional development. 

Unbalanced negative emotions that are holding me captive to lies and half truths! Places of bondage, wounds and burns that have developed scar tissue and have restricted full range of movement in my life.

Just as physical therapy is painful but necessary to regain motion after a break or surgical intervention. This spiritual therapy is quite painful at times. 

Although day by day, secession by secession I am adding the sense of accomplishment and freedom of movement to my library of memories and testimonies. The memories of something awful is now becoming full of Awe!

Yes, Yes, thats good Sharon, but HOW do I do it?  Well, glad you ask. 

There is an exercise Holy Spirit takes me through. It is a therapy sessionod sorts.

Now, here is where I may lose some of you. Some of you may fall on the floor with laughter. Some in shock because they believe what I am about to share is not scriptural. Others will lose interest and just stop reading.

Casting down thoughts and imaginations that exalt themselves above the knowledge of God, can be hard work and exhausting. 

Thoughts and things I have imagined at the time of the event. Were solely based on my limited ability to understand what was happening. The age I was at the time of the event may limit my ability to reason through the details. 

For those of you who can relate to the journey, and have a burning desire to be fully set free. Let us continue. 

A counseling session with the Holy One may go something like this:

I find a quiet place where I won’t be disturbed. For me it seems to be the first thing in the morning as I am waking up. I just lay there and invite Holy Spirit to take me to the place where we left off last and walk me through the healing process. Sometimes it is yesterdays offenses that are playing on my mind or past memories that have captured me from years gone by.

Sometimes I have my Holy Spirit session as I am going to sleep. Allowing Him to speak to me through my dreams.

I close my eyes, for me this helps me to concentrate more easily. I clear my mind of the sounds around me and just relax. I begin a conversation with Holy Spirit, AKA George.

I may pray a prayer or just start a conversation as with a friend. He is my friend, my best friend the one who has always been there and knows first hand what I am talking about and feeling. 

He also knows the thoughts and intents of my heart and the thoughts and intents of those who were involved in my present and past issues. 

He is fair and loving. I can trust Him even if He points out my part in the whole event as being the one who is wrong. 

He never accuses me or forces me to visit an event in my memory life that I am unready to visit.

I close my eyes, snuggle into the warmth and safety of my pillow and allow my mind to picture the event that is holding me hostage to negative feelings and emotions. 

I replay the event and allow myself to one last time feel the full impact of the emotional pain I experienced when the event took place. 

This event may be from my childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, or even now in my somewhat more mature state. LOL

I search out every feeling, emotion, pain, fear, failure, betrayal, attack, assault. This can be a painful process, my desperate determination to be whole, gives me the courage to visit these rooms of my past. I let the emotions of the event throughly and randomly play out. 

I then move my thinking from the feeling position and into the doing position. Asking my self this questions. What am I going to do about it? Where is holding these thoughts and feelings getting me? What would I prefer my thoughts and feelings to be?

I no longer replay all the detailed words that were spoken or review all the mental pictures that surround the event. I choose to no longer plot and plan the demise of those who were involved. I truly decide if I am going to give it up or hold on to it to justify myself.

Now, if you are game go with me on a short mental pictorial journey. I guarantee you will never look at the event that is causing you pain the same. 

You will NEVER feel the pain, fear and rejection you have been battling with for so long, the same way ever again!

Jesus through your own experience will set you free and cut the chains that have bound you!

Here we go!

1. Close your eyes and allow yourself to relive and feel the emotions of the event you want to be set free of. Take as much time as you need. I know it is hard and painful, but remember this is the last time you will ever visit this event and feel this pain on the same level! If it is too painful to view the whole event, just start with the first place you are overwhelmed by the negative emotions.

2. When you are ready look with me through your minds eye and see Jesus standing in front of you. Look at His hands He is holding something. It is a vacuum cleaner, it is in the shape of the cross. He is stretching out the end toward your painful memories. He is waiting for you to give Him permission to vacuum up all the dusty, decaying, moldy, old painful memories that have cluttered your emotional man all this time.Will you say yes? Or will you wrap yourself in the dirty security blanket of this your past and hold tightly? You can choose. He will not rip the clutter away from you. He will wait as long as you need for you to decide.

3. Relax and allow Him to do the work of the vacuum of the cross. Just sit and watch as all the dusty past pain filled emotions go right out of your memory and into His sacrificial provision. We have all watched dust and debris go into our vacuum cleaners. There are some things we have to reach down and pick up because they are too large to be sucked up into the vacuum cleaner.

4. Watch what He does with those larger pieces. He is taking His hand where the nail print is now visible, look… there is blood dripping on to those larger pieces of my pain filled memories and the blood is breaking them down so that the vacuum of the cross can suck them up into the bag.

5. I am relaxing, resting, safe, allowing Him to do the work. I find myself now pointing to other places in the room of my pain where the dusty painful emotions have blown, making sure He gets it all!

6. Jesus looks at me with His immeasurable love shooting from His eyes, imploring me to see my true reflexion in Him and not in the pain of my past!

7. He smiles with a knowing twinkle in His eyes and asks me to look around in the room of my pain.

8. What do you see? He asks. The event is still in tact in my memory.

9. What do you feel? He asks. Where is the pain, anger, resentment, frustration, anxiety, shame, guilt, sorrow, grief, despair, confusion, depression?

10. These negative emotions have GONE, into the vacuum of the cross. Where is Jesus? Watch what He does next. He opens the door of my room, walks out and takes the vacuum bag that contains the trash from the cleansing of my event. There in front of Him is a sea. Look there is a sign, it reads SEA OF FORGETFULNESS. He tosses the vacuum bag filled with the emotional trash of my past. It sinks out of sight never to be seen or remembered again!

11. I then revisit the room that held my pain. I try my hardest to feel the emotions and pain from this past event. No matter how hard I try I CANNOT! I am free truly free.

One room of my past cleaned, I can hardly wait to get to the next one!

written in February 2015, updated June, 2017