Emotional Trauma

February 10, 2022
Blog

Learning to Identify Soul Wounds

A Personal Testimony, written by Suzy Griswold

Emotional trauma is one of the hardest things to overcome in our healing journey, but I believe it is one of the most important aspects that we need to address.

I, Suzy, have never shared parts of what I am going to share below publicly, but I believe that now more than ever we need to be sharing our own testimonies. Testimony means, “to overcome again, Lord, with power and authority.”

I was born to a single mother who was an alcoholic. My two older brothers lived with her at my great grandmother’s house on a small farm in North Carolina. When my Mother became pregnant with me, she was enjoying the party life and the man who took responsibility for the pregnancy believed she should marry him. My Mom was not keen on this idea because this particular man wasn’t someone she wanted around her children. When the man realized that she was going to reject him and his offer, he kidnapped her at gunpoint and drove to a hotel away from her hometown. At this point in time, my Mom was 6 months pregnant with me.

Although she was a lover of much wine, my Mom fiercely loved her children. She sobered up enough to realize that she had to get away from this man. She convinced him she needed to borrow the car to run errands with her other two children, my brothers, and after receiving the keys, she put her foot on the gas and took off towards her hometown. Barrelling down the highway, she left the car with her friends at the local bar, told them what had happened knowing full well they had her back, and returned to her grandmother’s home to leave the boys. With one last kiss goodbye to her loved ones, she went into hiding for the remaining months of her pregnancy. During that time, she met with Mother Superior and a Priest from the local Catholic church who selected a family to take the baby (me).

3 months later, I was born.

Many years later, I learned why I was never adopted, but from that point on, Mom began to turn her life around. She took me and the boys and moved to Texas. Shortly thereafter, she met my Dad, Gains, who raised all of us as one of his own. My Dad, maybe you have met him, joins us on Around the Word in 80 Days regularly, and is a faithful prayer warrior for our HealingStrong community.

But it wasn’t always like this… Our soul wounds run deep and they tend to hurt those around us and bruise our relationships, sometimes unintentionally.

I held a great deal of bitterness towards my Mom and Dad for many years, feeling ostracized, betrayed, lied to, and most of all…who would want to claim the genetics of a birth father who would kidnap your own mother? My mother’s alcoholism continued until she almost lost everything when I was 12. For me, I had a lot of healing to do that didn’t really begin until my cancer diagnosis.

Roughly 7 years into my healing, while HealingStrong was up and running, I was invited into an intercessory, inner healing prayer session. The sweet lady was led to ask me about my birth and I broke down weeping as I shared my story. I expressed that I couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that there was so much darkness and shame surrounding my conception and birth and I continued to battle with the feeling of rejection.

That inner healing session changed my life…

She replaced my thoughts with the Truth that Jesus knows us from the moment we are conceived, every hair on our head and every moment in our lives. Jesus was there the day I was conceived. He was there the day my mother was kidnapped, protecting her and protecting ME. He was there the day my adopted earthly father came into my life and ultimately led our family down a road that would help us all find Jesus. HE was there the WHOLE time. He had never rejected me or forgotten me… He knew my hurts and He had a plan for redemption. All I had to do was receive it.

Without these events, I wonder what my life would have been like. I can’t speak enough about the true power of inner healing. It’s so greatly needed if we want to experience joy and wholeness in this life. Healing is an action word. Strong is an adjective with much power.

This week, we want to invite you to several ways you can begin to address your soul wounds by the work of true inner healing.

All my love,

Below are 6 amazing resources to help process and work through your own soul wounds and experience inner-healing.

Trauma and Healing – Video presented by Gel Roa, HealingStrong Group Leader and Stage 4 breast cancer thriver. Listen as she walks us through the important steps to address, along with free resources to heal emotional wounds for wholeness and healing.
4 Truths and a Lie – Webinar with special guest Laura Bradshaw, CEO of JourneyU and author of 4 Truths and a Lie, who shares the importance of forgiveness and principles to inner healing that lead to wholeness.
RAK Ministry – Visit their website to set up a prayer call with one of their emotional healing trained professionals. You can also learn how to help others through their workshops!
Courage to be Healed – My favorite book on this topic! Written by Dr. Mark Rutland.
PRAYER – Our prayer team is made up of folks who have been through their own inner healing sessions, and truly want to help you. Feel free to email us anytime – we want to know how we can pray for you!
Monday Morning with HealingStrong – Not only do we spend time, every Monday morning, reading and discussing God’s Word but we also make intentional time to share stories, testimonies and encourage one another. This is an open and transparent group and it is POWERFUL – we’d love to have you!