November 12, 2012
Survivor’s Guilt
I know a couple of
Veterans who came home from their military Service with survivor’s guilt.
Although their service was decades ago, they still carry the burden of fellow
service men being wounded and killed, while physically they were unscathed.
Certainly the Lord does not want them forever burdened, but Satan is relishing
in the fact that they continue to re-live the past. I’m reminded of Saul/Paul
who, in the early church, was a perpetrator, a persecutor and a supporter of
murder. Paul had blood on his hands and yet the Lord chose him to be the one to
carry the Gospel to the Gentiles. Some people wanted to forever shackle Paul to
his actions, but he responded by openly acknowledged his past and refusing to
let his past maim or cripple his mission.
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3 comments:
Gail;
-----Way to go! Good mental health happens in the meek mind. Of course, you know meekness, that attitude which properly categorizes all aspects of control and submission between itself and “other” according to truth and love. As hard as it actually is, after the emotional attachments have been adjusted by grief to a new set of circumstances, the mental aspects must follow. There are certain realizations which must be grasped because they are nothing short of just real. A person must meekly take control of his mind and grasp them.
-----I was not proximately close to my brother when he died in an auto accident. I was close enough to him to know that he enjoyed his life, while I loathed mine. My mourning involved a deep sense that God tagged the wrong brother to go home. Although my sense of trauma fell short of being beside a buddy blown apart in the chaos of battle, the mental pathway to understanding was the same. It just didn’t go as far into as steep an ascent. Nor did it take as much strength. But the walk was the same.
-----I didn’t complete that walk for two years. And when I did, I knew what had held me back. I then knew the same thing had held me back in many other important facets of my life from even my childhood. It just wore different masks to strike at my heart from different situations. And I always knew it would dent and ding and chip away at me till the day that I would die. For it is the other side of the fence. It is the mirror image of what we were made to be, everything opposite and backwards. It doesn’t accept what it should and accepts what it should not, thinks what is not, forming patterns of thoughts through which flow waves of emotions all in the wrong direction ever deeper into the wrong side of the fence.
-----It was the hardest thing for me to realize that my wrong side of the fence was merely an image in my mind reacting and interacting with the way I wanted real to be, and that soundness of mind and understanding came from interacting with the way things were actually. Accepting that way. Cherishing thought formed about it. Being joyful that it is where God has led me, dead or alive, in a sticky wicket, or lying in a green pasture beside still waters. What is real is glorious. For what is real is where God is dating me, however good or bad that place might be. We’re going to be married, you know. So I know there’s something He wants me to see there for the character He wants me to become now. All is well with my soul.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
I too was in Vietnam. I never saw combat so I can't speak to the trauma and its results.
I can speak to grace and forgiveness. The Holy Spirit can deal with any "trauma." Without judging I have stopped and offered up a prayer of healing for these who are still suffering.
Grace and peace.
Pumice,
Thank you for your service. I served during the Viet Nam era, but at that time women were not allowed in the combat arena, other than nurses. Like you I can’t speak to battlefield trauma, but I can speak to God’s comfort for those who suffered and are suffering.
Steve,
A good reminder to us that survivor’s guilt also shows up on the battlefield of life.
Gail
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