There are very few of us who have been able to live without experiencing trauma. Trauma is an unpleasant fact. It can happen to anybody at any time. Nobody has immunity. Trauma involves physical and emotional pain. Emotional pain receives less attention than physical pain from the medical profession. When we allow this pain to accumulate over the years it creates turmoil in our lives. How we choose to deal with our emotional pain will affect our quality of life. There are different options or pathways open to us. During my own struggle with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, I have traveled these pathways. I would like to share what I have learned with those of us who continue to struggle with their emotional pain.   Our Traditional Pathways   When we experience a painful and traumatic event, often, all aspects of that event are stored in our memory. Our memory becomes a closet of our past. Stored in our closet is the emotional pain that we experienced. Rather than dealing with our pain, we allow it to beat us down until we reach a point where we give into the pain by closing the door rather than continue the fight. We believe that the Lord will not give us any more burdens than we can handle. However, the lies within these burdens become overwhelming to us beyond what our closet will hold. Once we realize that our closets are no longer manageable, we would like to seal the door forever, but we find ourselves fighting to keep the closet door shut. Sometimes, no matter how hard we fight to keep the door closed, our emotional pain escapes through the crack out into the community causing us embarrassing situations that we have to deal with from time to time. However, somehow we manage to live out our lives behind a shut door that keeps us hidden from public view. Living our pain silently becomes a way of life for us. We accept our sentence and live out our lives in our own misery never enjoying what life really has to offer us. The Preferred Pathway   For others like us, Eventually, our emotional pain becomes unbearable. We realize that we now have a problem that we cannot deal with on own. Nobody wants to admit to himself or herself that they cannot cope with our problems. They are now having noticeable problems at home, in the workplace and even in the community. They know that they have to do something so they seek advice from a close friend or even from their minister. Everybody knows somebody who might be able to help him or her with whatever it is that is troubling him or her. This conversation usually reveals that they too have problems and are not alone. They provide them with a mental health source. Like most families, we have a medical doctor to treat us when we are physically sick or injured and we have a family therapist to treat us for any mental health issues that we might encounter. We spend our time and money between the two trusting them to help us keep our lives normal and healthy. Sometimes our visits to our therapist are infrequent and other times it involves us entering a long- term treatment program. Eventually we wonder if treatment really work. Treatment, Does It Work?   Today, how we handle Trauma is a hidden issue. We choose not to discuss openly or even deal with. Our tendency is to ignore its existence. Trauma usually results from severe physical injury sometimes experienced in life-threatening accidents. Abuse is also traumatic. Abuse whether it is physical, sexual, verbal or mental, our minds have difficulty accepting the horror of what they have experienced. The senselessness of the act is more than what our minds can accept. Therefore, when these kinds of things happen to us, we are not able to deal with them at all. When trauma strikes it destroys our belief system that generally says, " The world is a good and safe place to live in.� We loose our ability to trust others. We are our worst enemies because we put the blame on ourselves first and then on others. We expressed our emotional pain negatively in anger, depression, irritability and rage. We will not trust our family members, our friends and even our mental health professionals. Mental health professionals cannot repair the damage done by trauma, but through medication and therapy, they can provide temporary relief. Many Christians are contented to being on medication and in therapy for the rest of their lives. After all, it is better than living with the pain.   Treatment does not cure any mental illness derived from a traumatic past. Treatment is nothing more than trial and error approach to dealing with unresolved issues that is interfering with one's life. It involves different diagnoses that are nothing but labels for mental illnesses. The best that treatment will ever do is temporary relief from the emotional pain. The medication numbs the emotions, but also hampers therapy. The numbing effect robs the mind of the ability to deal with the unresolved issues that are causing the emotional pain. Once the medication wears off, the pain flare up and intensifies. It takes more medication to be normal again. The treatment process becomes routine for us. It involves a long-term commitment. It is an ongoing struggle to restore the mind�s ability to trust another human being. Treatment is tolerable, but it is just a temporary fix to reoccurring problem. For those who stay in treatment, there is no closure. Beyond Recovery   For those of us who have been in and out of treatment over a long period time, we eventually come to the cross roads where we want more than what treatment can offer us. We come to realize that treatment cannot provide us with the closure that our minds and memory are seeking. At this stage of fight, there are not many choices left or new pathways to travel. It is either stay in treatment or give into the illness. Even though we know that these choices are not the best, strangely as it may seem, it opens another pathway that could lead us in a direction that is "beyond recovery" and abridges a long-standing gap in our relationship with the Lord.   I was not willing to give into my illness nor was I willing to enter another treatment program. I wanted to be free of my Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. I had always given the Lord credit for sparing my life, but I never thought about giving him the opportunity to heal me. It seems like we put our trust in man first rather than in the Lord. The thought of healing is more than we can comprehend or even imagine. We hear stories about miracles but being a miracle is beyond our own belief. When I tell others that the Lord healed me of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, I see the disbelief in their eyes. I can understand their skepticism, but never the less I know without a doubt my posttraumatic Stress Disorder has disappeared. All the symptoms including flashbacks, nightmares, lost of sleep, mood swings along with depression, anger and rage have vanished. My moods are very normal now and I can now deal with situations that I could not handle five years ago. I am one of few trauma victims diagnosed with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder who has completely recovered. I will never be in treatment again nor will I ever be on medication. My past can no longer cause me any emotional pain. My mind and memory are peaceful and calm now.   How did this miracle happen? The New Testament teaches us that the Lord will heal those who want to be healed. Healing is more that spoken words in a prayer. Healing is getting to the root of the lies that stores the pain in our memory. It is allowing the Lord to speak his truth to these unresolved issues or lies. Instead of closing the closet door, healing is opening the door and confronting these lies in the presence of the Lord. When the Lord speaks his truth to our memory, his light of truth fills our closets forcing the darkness to leave. When the darkness is gone, the lie causing the emotional pain also vanishes leaving the memory peaceful and calm. The Lord light is permanent. Healing also involves forgiveness. If we cannot forgive, we cannot heal. Forgiveness cancels out the debts of those who have trespassed against us. Once we forgive, we are in harmony with the Lord and healing can occur. The good news is that the Lord has provided us with Theophostic Ministry, a new tool through which healing can become our miracle. Theo is the Greek word for God and phostic is the Greek word for illumination. When we as Christians receive the Lord�s truth about our emotional pain, his light removes the darkness out of our lives and seals our closet doors forever. A Place To Heal   I have been free of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder for about four years now. What happened to me is still in my memory, but the emotional pain attached to that incident is gone. It no longer controls my life. In fact, I am back in control. My healing is permanent. I will never return to where I was ten years ago. The Lord restored my life through the Theopostic Ministry. It is a method of delivering God�s healing grace to hurting emotional wounded people. It is biblically sound. The Lord chose Dr. Edward M. Smith; D Min. to put his concepts down and fashion them into a practice. The Theophostic Ministry was established in 1996. There is more to this healing process than I can share. I can only share with you what I have experience and do for you what the Lord has done for me. If it worked for me, then it might work for others. Along with many other Christians, I have been trained in the Theophostic Ministry. The pathway is there for those who want to be healed. Several years ago, I started a non-profit organization called Another Day Ministries. Another Day worked with trauma victims who suffered from painful and traumatic past. Another Day operated the Victims-N-Crises Retreat Center in the rural community of Renno in Southern Laurens County. The center was free to all trauma victims nationally who wanted to come and learn about their emotional pain in a supportive environment free from the secondary wounding that they had experienced in their communities. Victims who wanted intervention from the Lord were given the opportunity to participate in Theophostic Ministry. Another Day Ministries operated only from contributions. The idea was good and it worked until the money ran out. During those four years, Another Day worked with over two hundred trauma victims. The timing was not right but my desire to help trauma victims is very much alive. I have a dream of reopening the old historic Renno School house for hurting emotional wounded Christians who want to be healed of their emotional pain forever. I think that I would like to reopen under the name of �A Place To Heal". I am looking for �Aaron�. A person or a group of Christians who believe in miracles and the Lord�s power to heal those want to be healed. Theophostic Ministry, P.O. Box 489, Campbellsville, Kentucky 42719 Dr. Edward M. Smith D Min, Author of Beyond Tolerable Recovery (270) 465-3757 Theophostic Ministry

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