“Help me Lord with all of these negative triggers.”  This was my prayer last week as I entered the doors of the rehab center. My sister-in-love is recovering from a brain injury after a bad car crash, and my family and I are amazed yet again at the healing power of God.  She is doing way better than the doctors expected of her. On this particular day my brother needed to attend to some business and he needed someone to stay with her until he returned. I jumped at the opportunity.  That meant I would have to attend her physical, occupational, and voice therapy sessions to document this faith fight with videos.

The clock strikes 10:00am and in comes the aide to escort her to the first session. Grabbing my phone to record, I followed not too far behind her wheelchair as we entered the workout room.  Hesitating at the door, I began to experience a squeamish, nauseating feeling; wanting to grab my head and say, “God, make it stop!”  It all seemed too familiar, and I had to gather myself.  Almost two years exactly I had entered a similar center with my husband as he was recovering. Frankly, the imagery was disturbing. You see, I remember when Mike couldn’t sit up, walk or even lift his arms.  I remember them wheeling him to therapy and walking behind him with my phone recording every detail.  I remember the parallel bars they would stand him in between so that he could learn how to walk again.  I remember the straps, the balls, the playdough and hoya lifts.  I remember all of that stuff and unfortunately seeing that stuff was all negative triggers for me.  Yet, I knew exactly what to do with those triggers.  I didn’t allow what I saw or felt to dictate to me what happened next, but I started to think of all of you that read my blogs.

Like me, many of you are dealing with some negative triggers.  Triggers are those things that you experience in your five senses that remind you of past episodes. Not all triggers are bad.  There are some that remind you of some good and happy times.  Then there are those that remind you of something horrible that happened.  Reading the prayers on our prayer wall I know that some of you are confronted with some pretty bad triggers of death, abuse, adultery, sickness, murder or even not having children.  So I wanted to share with you how I handle negative triggers. I have three words for you: FEEL, FOCUS, and FIND.  It’s okay for you to feel what you feel.  God gave us feelings so it’s natural.  However, He didn’t give you feelings to lead you in your decision making.  That’s Holy Spirit’s job. So make sure that Holy Spirit leads your decisions and allow Him to confront those negative feelings.  Then focus here means to gather yourself, to get a grip, to snap out of it.  You are the only one that can give yourself an inner slap. Things happen in life, but that is not where you want your life to park. That bad thing that happened in your life is not the climax of your story, but you have to focus. Lastly, find new triggers. Start creating new happy memories out of what you see. Like to see my sister in this ordeal I started to picture her back in full strength like my husband. You may be asking, “How do you find new triggers with what you are experiencing?” Well, if there is a date that something bad happened and it messes you up every year, plan to do something way out of the ordinary and have so much fun doing it that it will trump the bad.

God has given us too many tools to allow the enemy to have our happy. Don’t let him have your happy anymore! Cast down every evil thought that contradicts the Word of God for your life. I love you my sister and my ear is on the breastplate of God to hear each week what to write to you.  This Wednesday is our ministry prayer and fasting day and I will be taking all of the prayer request from our prayer wall to church with me.  Go to the wall and post so that we can come into agreement with you.

Stay connected,
drdee_sig_black