TEACHING
HEALING THE BROKEN HEART
By Kim Herum
MY TESTIMONY
For years I was skeptical of psychology or any kind of counseling as I believed that every need could/would be met by God alone. Upon returning home from the mission field, I tried to receive help from God alone. We had come home with shattered dreams and we felt like our calling and destiny had been stolen. My heart was broken. For the first four years that I was home I cried every day and was overwhelmed by sadness and loss. I felt distanced from God and like there was something blocking my intimacy with Him. At the time I was a stay home mom and I spent all day, everyday while the kids were in school, seeking God for more of Himself and for healing. All day I studied my Bible, prayed for healing, and read Christian books searching for the answer to my sadness and the reason I was not being healed of it. I confessed sin over and over again. Went through lists of people I had forgiven and re-forgiven. I fought in prayer using spiritual warfare. I went from church to church and to conferences all over the country asking people to pray for me. All with no relief. Over and over the people that were praying for me from all around the country would say, “you have blockage in your heart.” I didn’t know what ‘heart blockage’ was but I prayed fervently to be healed of it. I know that if God had wanted to instantly heal me in response to my prayers, He could have. Instead of healing me as I sat alone, what happened was that one of the first weeks we were visiting a new church, the pastor preached on “Blockage in the Heart”. I started meeting with him weekly as he also had a full time counseling ministry. Within 6 months my sadness was gone and I was more able to experience intimacy with God, though it wasn't until years later before all of the blockage was healed.
MINISTRY OF THE BODY OF CHRIST
I believe in instant miraculous healings and at times that is exactly what God does. But I also know that God has set up an order in which He Himself has chosen to work through the ministry of the church. He chooses to flow through people ministering His love and power to other people in a way that requires the Body of Christ to be working together with all the gifts. Secondly, “God comforts us in our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” (1 Corinthians 1:4) It is in the place of wounding, which He has healed that God is able to minister to others through us. Through years of seeking God for healing, being healed through counseling, and then getting my degree in Urban Ministry I have wrestled with my theology to understand our human condition and the process of sanctification. I have sought to know how God wants to resolve problems in the Christian’s life that are blocking believers from being all that God wants them to be.
HUMAN BEINGS AT CREATION
“Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23
According to 1 Thessalonians we exist as spirit, soul, and body. The soul being: mind, will, and emotions. At creation, before the fall of man, God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being/soul.” (Genesis 2:7) Body, soul, and spirit were one with the Spirit of God and man was aware and responded to God’s spirit in Him with body, soul, and spirit. I believe before the fall most of the presence of God had resided in the soul and body giving man a capacity to intuitively perceive God and know what God would reveal to him. At the fall, this capacity recessed into unconsciousness and became unusable/ inaccessible to us. Rather we were limited to the knowledge of good and evil in the conscious mind. At the fall of man, instead of responding to the Spirit of God in him, the order became reversed and man chose to use the capacity in his soul’s mind, will, and emotions to rule himself by the knowledge of good and evil. The consequence being spiritual death as the spirit of God no longer resided in the spirit of man. The spirit became separated from and no longer gave life to his soul and body.
REDEEMED HUMAN BEING
Jesus death on the cross redeemed us from the consequences of the fall. At salvation the Holy Spirit of God is restored to the spirit of man and our spirit is given life and is able to perceive God the Holy Spirit in us. However, at salvation the Holy Spirit does not automatically rule man’s soul and body. The soul and body are limited in their experience of God. The actions and problems of the soul and body are not immediately resolved; rather it is the process of a lifetime called sanctification, now days referred to as “spiritual formation”, that the soul and body are saved. It is in the process of sanctification that the soul and body are submitted to the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit gains more access to the soul and body. The believer’s experience of God increases, as well as their capacity to walk the Christian life as the Holy Spirit is given more access to the realm of the soul and body.
This is where I see a huge frustration in Christendom. People become Christians and they expect to immediately act like Christians. The Church’s teaching focuses on what bodies “should”, “ought to” and “need to” be doing; but focusing on bodies doesn’t have the power to create lasting change in the soul. The average Christian struggles day after day with doing what they know they should be doing. There are some people who are “saved,” “born again,” active church goers, who have been defeated their whole life, fight negative emotions, unable to overcome personal issues, and are unable to relate well with friends, family, and coworkers. They wonder why their life isn’t different because they believe Jesus died for them. They have the Holy Spirit in their spirit, but their soul hasn’t been brought under the control of the Holy Spirit in their spirit and they can’t make their body walk the victorious Christian life.
PROBLEM OF THE SOUL
Problem of the Conscious
Their problem lies in the realm of their soul. The conscious part of the soul and the part of the unconscious that is not blocked can be controlled by the spiritual disciplines. Our mind, will and emotions can be controlled by the transforming of our mind by the word of God. As our mind learns the truth of Scripture it can reject the lies Satan wants us to believe; our emotions can desire God and His will; our will can choose to do what we know as truth; and our bodies can act on and walk out the truth. Through this process the Holy Spirit gains more and more access to our soul from our spirit. The best book on this topic is Neil Andersons: Victory Over the Darkness.
Romans 12:1-2
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. [2] Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Ephesians. 4:22-24
You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; [23] to be made new in the attitude of your minds; [24] and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Problem of the unconscious
However, a portion of the soul remains unconscious as a consequence of the Fall.
For people who have been wounded, parts of their unconscious soul realm is blocked. In the unconscious part of their soul are buried traumas and pains that have “broken the heart” (the unconscious part of the soul) and block the Holy Spirit from flowing from their spirit, through their soul, to the body. These pains and traumas are stuck in the soul and body with all the initial pain as when they happened. The person suffers internal pain in the form of negative emotions or depression, and the damage to their soul blocks their relationship with God and the ability of the Holy Spirit to flow through them. Usually the trauma/pain not only damages the soul, but the body suffers as well. In meeting with people, if I ask them where in their body they feel the emotional pain…and they usually are able to tell me, and inevitably they have chronic health problems there. Some traumas and pains are places in the soul and body, where the demonic has been able to hook into and magnify the suffering that is already there and to create more problems. The trauma and pain are hooks which the demons can hang on to and not respond to deliverance, or they are doors through which the demons can return if the root issue is not dealt with. When the trauma and pain is healed there is no place for the demonic and they usually leave on their own automatically and can not return.
THE BROKEN HEART
Let’s look more closely at the broken heart.
Psalm 34:18
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
Psalm 51:17
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Psalm 147:3
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
Isaiah 61:1
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
The heart is broken by the daily exposure to the fallenness of the world and by traumas. The heart is broken into parts that hold shame, sadness, fear, anger, abandonment, feelings of being unloved, unwanted, unaccepted, etc. Protecting these painful parts and trying to keep the pain isolated outside of consciousness are coping mechanisms. [“just try harder,” “I don’t need,” “I can take care of myself,” “I won’t be hurt again,” “just do it,” “be happy,” “don’t feel,” “be perfect,” “others needs are more important than my own,” etc.] When coping mechanisms can’t keep the pain repressed, addictions take over to distract, medicate, and avoid the pain [busyness, alcohol, work, shopping, pornography, sleep, etc]. These broken parts are blockage in the soul that causes problems in our life and blocks intimacy with God and the flow of the Holy Spirit into our life.
These broken pieces of the heart won’t heal on their own; the trauma and pain will not go away with time or by themselves. If trauma and pain is continually disowned and repressed, it will eventually cause health problems. Often the pain leaks out at inappropriate times. As we age, our ability to contain our pain weakens and we have a choice to be in uncontrolled internal pain usually affecting our relationships, or strengthen our containment with anti-depressant drugs, or face our pain, become more self aware, and bring the memories and pain to God for healing. For the pain to be removed or healed the trauma needs to be briefly identified (never relived nor re-experienced,) the feelings/coping mechanisms need to be acknowledged, and both need to be brought to God in prayer for healing
TRUTH TO THE HEART
As a child the trauma/pain was too unbearable to handle and beyond a child’s understanding; so for survival, the memory of the trauma and the pain it caused was repressed as a decision of the child’s will. Because of the free will given us by God, it is necessary as an adult to use that same free will to identify the buried trauma, acknowledge the pain, address the coping mechanisms with truth and ask God for healing. Often there is a need to understand the trauma with an adult’s perspective on reality rather than the misunderstandings and lies of childhood. Another reason why the memories and pain that has been repressed are a problem is because the individual is not coming to God in truth and God’s reality. Their reality, with repressed memories and pain, is not based on truth. We can only worship God in spirit and truth. God only answers those who call upon Him in truth. Only the truth sets us free. I see healing prayer ministry as a spiritual journey with God bringing the good news of God’s truth to the broken pieces of the heart. Every part of our heart needs to know and believe the truth of Jesus as Savior and be brought under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Sometimes this process of making Jesus Savior and Lord of every part of the heart requires a special healing prayer ministry which invites God to remove the blockage, heal the broken heart, and fill that place with the Holy Spirit and truth.
Psalm 51:6
Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
Psalm 139:23-24
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalm 145:18
The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.
Jeremiah 17:9-10
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
"I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his
conduct, according to what his deeds deserve."
Luke 8:15
But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.
John 4:23
Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.
John 8:31-32
To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
