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HEALING IS POSSIBLE By Carol A. Jenkins Over the years, I've talked with many men and women who have been abused. Regardless of the type of abuse or the relationship to the abuser (family, friend or stranger), there are some similar responses: shame; guilt or depression or anger; and hopelessness. Many individuals who have been abused believe that they are the only one who has ever lived through such humiliation and pain and degradation. They feel isolated and alone. In other words, they feel devastated by hopelessness. Until you live in a world of darkness, void of light and of possibility, it is hard to imagine that kind of imprisonment. Even if you close your eyes real tight, lock every ray of light out of your field of vision, you can not imagine the darkness of no hope. It is a shroud that slowly, over a period of time, suffocates your soul until there is nothing left, not even a breath of life. But, hopelessness, I have found, doesn't have to have the final word! There is hope in this: God understands the crushing blow of hopelessness and He sent His Son, Jesus, to defeat it! Light is what chases darkness away! It is a fact of physics and it is a fact of life. Darkness is the absence of light. It can not sustain itself when the light comes. It merely slinks away, chased out by a higher and holier power. There is hope in that light. It is a hope that grows as the light grows. In fact, the analogy of growth is perfect for hope because hope grows eternal in fertile soil - a space (your soul), a seed (God's Word), living springs (time and truth) and light (God). You see, Jesus is the reason that we can have hope! Let me tell you why. When Jesus began His public ministry, He stood up in the synagogue and read from Isaiah 61, a passage that proclaimed that He was the Messiah, sent by God to accomplish God's plan of hope! In the passage, Jesus wasn't proclaiming the establishment of His rule; He wasn't laying the groundwork for a Kingdom taken by force. He wasn't even preparing to free the Jews from Roman rule. He had something much more important and eternal to do. Jesus was and is proclaiming hope to the hopeless! "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me To bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to captives, And freedom to prisoners; To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord, And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn, To grant those who mourn in Zion, Giving them a garland instead of ashes, The oil of gladness instead of mourning, The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified." Isaiah 61:1-3 Do you see how big that is? Jesus didn't come as a conqueror, though He could have. He came instead as a healer, a comforter, a giver of hope! Jesus came that we might have hope! It was and is His mission, His ministry to bring light and comfort and freedom to all of us who have been imprisoned by darkness. So how do we find and embrace that hope? It isn't easy. It is going to require you to pick up God's Word and read it. It is going to require you to lay aside the lies about yourself and about God that you have come to believe and be open to hear and apply God's truth. It is going to require you to step out of the darkness of isolation and shame and fear and into the light of fellowship and of worship and of study and of prayer. It is going to require you to accept the free gift of life, of forgiveness and of salvation that God is offering you through His Son, Jesus Christ! (See the Introduction in "Healing the Past God's Way" for more on this.) But, it is possible; there is hope and you don't have to live in the shame and guilt and pain of the past. You can be set free because of Jesus! It is His light that has brought healing into a dying world! Remember Jesus' own words: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives, and freedom to prisoners; to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord." I have had the privilege of seeing that light, that hope work a healing in my own life. I have seen it work a miracle in the lives of so many others! You are not alone. You don't have to live in darkness and hopelessness and imprisonment. There is hope because healing, through Jesus, is possible! © 2001 Epiphany Communications. All rights reserved.