In each and everyone of us there is a suffering child carrying hurt from childhood experiences such as rejection, abandonment and abuse. Many of these experiences also have the power to leave us with feelings of shame.
To protect and defend ourselves from a future similar pain, we often involve ourselves with activities that will shut the noise made by the child in us. However, we often fail to realise that by ignoring that voice we are merely suppressing the problem. All of our experiences are stored in our subconscious mind, which is why when a similar incident occurs in our lives we find past pains reappearing and manifesting in fear, bitterness, hatred and anger. This often leads to us saying and doing things that we regret later on.
The failure to find healing and closure often result in fights between friends or family members. One can try to run away and not deal with issues but the inner child will always cry for attention. Ways of running is avoiding introspection and busying ourselves with things such as watching television, going to movies, drinking alcohol, using drugs, gambling and other forms of socializing. The inner child, however, still cries out for help.
People around us may often carry around their own past pain and because we have not dealt with our own pain, are unable to accept them. Our judgment and rejection of others will simply increase the pain and open up wounds in themselves. Often strife between people is the result of this inability to deal with critical issues.
Take the South African society as an example - today we are facing a huge crisis of manifesting hatred and anger. People of different races hate one another, that sometimes result in death. Crime is rife and nobody seems to be willing to look at the root of this problem, which is simply the results of unaddressed issues that has been passed from generation to generation. Left alone the level of anger and aggression will rise daily. The world is confused and seeking answers from churches and governments; when these expected answers are not forthcoming fingers get pointed at them, blaming them for the failure and the ignorance of society.
According to Exodus 20:5, God is saying that He will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children until the third and the fourth generation. Our forefathers started segregation policies, religion and tribalism, all of which were bad seeds that grew to be hatred and bitterness today. This animosity will affect the future generations as well as our children in their own lives.
Healing from pain and hurt will make for healthy relationships and peaceful living. The sooner one stops running away from issues and rather address them, the sooner we can look outward to society at large. It is critical we deal with every unconscious pain (the hurting child) of our past.
Practically speaking it starts by writing down every trauma that happened in our lives since we were born, identifying the root of our pain. If people were involved in causing the pain (most often it will be people) we have to forgive them. By doing this, we are emptying our subconscious minds form all toxic thoughts that were there for all those years and replace them with positive and Godly thoughts, thoughts of love, peace, forgiveness, patience and kindness. We also have to forgive ourselves!
Then, allow the love of Jesus Christ to flow in your life and let Him heal you from all your inner pain because He paid for them on the cross. You might pray something like this, "Lord Jesus, thank you for bearing my burden on the cross. I ask you to take these inner pains, hurts and memories and heal my wounded child right now, I submit them to you and I accept Your peace now in Your name. Amen".
