Originally Aired On: Tuesday, August 08, 2006
HAVING TROUBLE LEAVING THE PAST BEHIND?
Listen Now | Download | Podcast
OUTLINE
Tuesday, August 8, 2006
"Love thinks no evil" (1 Corinthians 13:5).
IDEA: Paul isn’t talking about emotional memories of past traumatic events; he’s talking about present events and how we handle them.
PURPOSE: To help listeners think more seriously about what it means not to keep a record of wrongs against you.
After yesterday’s conversation, Alice raised a question about forgiving and forgetting when what is brought back is not a conscious memory but an emotional memory. There are times when something happens today that hurts us deeply, and that acts as a trigger, reminding us of other times when we had the same feeling of devastation or hurt. We feel the hurt all over again. It reminds us sharply of past events that caused the same hurt.
Is this what Paul is talking about?
I. What about people who have emotional reactions triggered by something in the present that brings back a flood of emotions?
For example, a woman who was sexually abused as a child will have flashbacks throughout her life when a certain trigger is present.
- walking through a store, she may catch the scent of a particular aftershave lotion used by the person who had abused her
- it could be the sight of a man with the same build or beard or hair coloring
- it could be the smell of urine or semen
These triggers pull her back into memories she’d like to forget but can’t.
Is this what Paul is talking about?
No, that’s not what Paul is dealing with, because there is nothing deliberate on her part to remember this. Paul isn’t hanging a guilt trip on people who feel this.
How do we deal with these emotional memories that have been imprinted on us?
Clinicians diagnose some of these cases as true PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), for which good counseling may be helpful.
II. If not that kind of situation, what kind of situation do you think Paul had in mind?
We can’t argue that only trivial things can be dealt with this way.
We can deal with serious things this way.
The trivial can become major.
Is there a way we can deliberately deal with something when we refuse to put it down on the ledger of our minds?
There are times in which we can make a choice about letting emotional memories trigger other emotional memories. What is a single incident can mushroom into a huge animosity.