An Invitation To Transformation by Randolph Jason for Gospel News Network
God, through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, loves to transform people. God loves to see the brokenness that we have created, remove it from us and have us reborn into new life in Jesus Christ, Emmanuel.
To clarify, what usually happens is we get hurt at a young age and we begin listening to and accepting lies. This in turn brings forth the negative emotions from the hurt we experienced. Additionally we begin to turn away from God as “anger” begins showing up in our lives.
Watch for negative emotion. Negative emotion is the invitation to transformation. When everything’s fine, you’re praying together and everything’s going well When that negative emotion is expressed the negative emotion is the invitation to address a lie that is being presented. That’s the beauty of negative emotion. ~ Jamie Winship
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Saved Or Redeemed
In the Christian community it is not uncommon to hear people talk about “being saved”, but rarely use the word “redeemed”.
Let’s take a quick look at the Merriam-Webster definition for redeemed
1a: to buy back : REPURCHASE
b: to get or win back
2: to free from what distresses or harms: such as
a: to free from captivity by payment of ransom
b: to extricate from or help to overcome something detrimental
c: to release from blame or debt : CLEAR
**d: to free from the consequences of sin**
3: to change for the better : REFORM
4: REPAIR, RESTORE
5a: to free from a lien by payment of an amount secured thereby
b(1): to remove the obligation of by payment
(2): to exchange for something of value
c: to make good : FULFILL
6a: to atone for : EXPIATE
b(1): to offset the bad effect of
**(2): to make worthwhile : RETRIEVE**
WOW! Not sure anyone expected that!
What about the word “saved” – delivered from sin and from spiritual death : rescued from eternal punishment
Trauma Leading To Transformation
If a person looks at the wide variety of definitions for redeemed one may see something similar to the quote by Mr. Winship. We encounter an attack, something like “you’re ugly”, “you’re stupid”, “why are you acting like a baby?” along with the endless list of other words and phrases that people hurl at us all day everyday. Please keep in mind most people don’t realize what they are doing and what is actually happening.
“Depression is anger turned inward and downward in a person.” ~ Jamie Winship
C.S. Lewis describes anger like this – I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her true name which is grief.
Both views, decades apart, describe the same thing. Anger is not anger, but rather, pain and hurt that have been masked, covered up, with another emotion that we can more easily accept. Anger hides the pain and allows us to transfer the pain and hurt to others more easily.
The Invitation
We can not be saved, we can not be redeemed if our lives are filled with depression turned inward and downward, morphing into grief which is masquerading as anger. When this collision happens tears fall, hearts break and lives are forever changed. Which way it turns is up to the person having the experience.
The person hurling these words of hurt and pain is doing two things without having any idea of what they are doing. The first thing is they are exposing a “hurt”, a “wrong” they have suffered. When these things are said what actually happens is we are merely spreading the previously experienced pain to another person. The hurt / wrong is nothing more than a lie. At some point we accepted all types of lies and, in some cases, we even begin repeating the lies we have been told.
Source Of All Pain
The lie that has now been released from the original source of pain is where a person loses themselves. The new person has a decision regarding this lie. Most of us believe it, receive it and live with it for years. We have focused on these exact same issues from another perspective in a number of articles on this website. This is one of the main roots of the overall trauma we are discussing.
Furthermore, what happens next is the person whom one of these words or phrases is directed now has an opportunity. We can be hurt just like the person saying these things or it can be used in the moment for transformation. Consequently the “negative emotion” the person is feeling becomes the invitation to address a lie. We can actually be healed, restored, repaired and several other definitions for the word “redeemed”, so long as we know what is happening.
Specifically Identify What Happened
When someone says, for example, “you’re a loser” (fill in the blank with other lies like ugly, drug addict, stupid, terrible son / daughter, terrible parent and the like), the person saying it doesn’t understand they are speaking from their own pain. The lie they accepted years or decades before needs to be forgiven and healed. For the person the lie is now being directed towards the invitation has just been delivered.
We need to find the source of our pain. Was it a parent, sibling, teacher, church authority figure or someone else? Who in our lives first told us the lie that we were a loser, ugly, a terrible child?
In this example what was stolen was your winning spirit, our beauty or sense of belonging. Unless we have a way to deal with this loss, this theft, we will sit in our anger (grief) for a long, long time.
Once the source, of the first time our innocence was stripped, we need to forgive that person. We need to seek God’s Healing in our heart to move past this situation. We must look at ourselves and come to realize who God is calling us to be. God doesn’t make losers or anything other than perfect, anointed and holy people. We are made in His image. Someone stole that from us and we can not get it back from this world, from other people’s validation. We can only receive this healing from God, and we must receive it into our heart.
