Emotional Amputees Part 1 of 3.

Written and Published by Jean-Louis Mondon

Our physical senses are designed in such a way that the signals they provide help us in gathering information to apprehend the world around us and to function in it.

On the physiological and neurological level, it is a well documented phenomenon that if a limb or a finger is amputated, the amputee can feel physical pain outside his body where there was and now is no more member. A friend of mine and I were having a conversation related to the subject. He was in a car accident that caused both his legs to be amputated a little below the hip. He acknowledged feeling the pain although his legs were no longer physically present. So I am not making this up. 

Phantom limb pain is pain that you feel in the part of a limb that was removed after an amputation. It might seem unusual to feel pain in an area of your body that doesn't exist anymore, but the pain you feel is real. Phantom limb pain ranges from mild to severe and can last for seconds, hours, days or longer. Source: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/12092-phantom-limb-pain

Could it be the same way on the emotional, psychical (soul) level? Sometimes the same thing can happen in the dissolution of a marriage relationship through separation or divorce. It could also happen through the end of a long friendship in which we have felt betrayed and disappointed. Or in the loss of a loved one, a family member, or simply a dear intimate best friend through death or separation because of life’s contingencies.

The pain we feel is real because so much of ourselves had been invested in that person at different levels of intimacy. The association between the person, the intimacy and the pain is present because of the chemical/electrical impulses in our brain that stimulate the cerebral cortex every time we think of the person or an event associated with the person.

The Lord can heal the physical part if physical harm has taken place through prayer or the intervention of a doctor. We can grieve and time lessens the pain, but if the person has not learnt to disassociate (with time and through repeated efforts) the memory in the past triggering the painful reaction in the present, emotional bondage can occur preventing us from moving forwards with our lives and crippling us emotionally, making us unable to love again, giving of ourselves again and taking risks again in relationships because of the fear of being abandoned, hurt or rejected again.

Is it possible to be free of our guilt feelings, of our sense of being unforgiven or unforgiving in the case of abandonment or betrayal? Is it possible to be aware and defeat any of the other tricks Satan uses to keep us in emotional bondage? Indeed, it is. Everything is possible with the Lord.

Jesus talking about Himself as the door in John 10:9-10 declares: I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he shall be saved and shall go In and Out and find pastures.

Right after that He says: The thief, our enemy comes only to steal, kill and destroy (all the good that God creates and gives His children). I came that you might have life and might have it more abundantly.

A person in emotional bondage and crippled by traumatic past experiences find it very difficult if not impossible to give and receive love and expressions of love, to go in and out so to speak. They can pretend to appear emotionally healthy and try to prevent further rejection, but this only serves to aggravate the condition.

If we acknowledge our condition truthfully the Lord will help us. In Psalms 34: 15, 18 David declares:

The eyes of the Lord are towards the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry. The Lord is near to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in Spirit.

So the invisible parts that have been cut out from us through the breaking off the relationship are similar to the physical amputation. But one must resist the temptation of placing blame on the offending party for having been cut up and been robbed emotionally once we have forgiven, because if not, we just place ourselves into a jail of our own making. Jesus asked us to forgive. Do you remember that He also said to pluck our eye out if it offends us or to cut our hand off if it offends us? I believe He was talking about a spiritual operation performed by the Holy Spirit when we recognize our inability to do God's will without His strength and help. Same Psalm verse 27: "You save the humble, but bring low those whose eyes are haughty."

If we humble ourselves, stop being proud, that is, (haughty eyes), self-sufficient and independent and focus our eyes on the Lord, by the power of His Holy Spirit, He will answer our humble request and give us a pure, undivided heart, one that will be attentive to His voice. This is why it's so important to put on and keep the helmet of salvation on. Salvation in Hebrew or Greek means more than just being born again, it means health, being made whole, being unfragmented, and being one in mind, body, Spirit and soul. (This is the way I felt for the first time in my life when I was 22 and the Holy Spirit came and literally washed me clean of my sin with His Light). You are welcome to visit my blog at https://thelightseed.blogspot.com to read and hear the audio book, an alegorical story titled “The Joshua Tree", a Desert Parable" that digs deeper into such subject.

Psalm 43:3 says: "Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me". The other essential part of the armor is the belt of truth.

The truth of the Word without the Spirit to illuminate it is without effect upon the human hearts and minds. Both go together, just as truth and love go together in our protection. (Ps 40:11). Without the light, we can’t see the truth. Jesus said: I am the way, the truth and the light.

Without the way, there is no going anywhere, without the truth there is no knowing the way, and without the light there is no seeing either the truth or the way.

If we believe Jesus and live (walk) in the light as He is in the light, I John 1:7 says: “we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus His Son purifies us from all sin”. He will open our eyes, the eyes of faith and allow us to see clearly the Truth and the Way and we will not need to walk by natural human sight.

Back to the earlier reference of the symbolic cutting of the hand and the eye; notice that He specifically mentions one eye and one hand. We have two eyes and two hands, but one heart which to me means that when our heart is undivided, (not torn between two things, peoples or events, past and present, faith and doubts, yes and no. on one hand, but then on the other hand, etc), when it is focused on the Lord, our eye (singular) will be full of light.

Matthew 6:2:." the light of the body is the eye, if therefore, thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light”. Our eyes can focus only on one thing at a time.  Talking about the evil of the tongue, James uses a appropriate illustration in James 3:10: "Out of the same mouth comes praise and cursing.... Can both fresh water and salt water come from the same spring? ...Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water."

Psalm 18: 28 declares: You, O LORD, keep my lamp burning, My God turns my darkness into light”

Again, in James 1:5: If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives generously without finding fault and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like the water of the sea blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think that he will receive anything from the Lord, he is a double-minded man, unstable in all that he does” This word double-minded means having two breaths, doubting, wavering. Now let’s contrast this attitude with Abraham’s faith in Hebrews 11:11: By faith, Abraham when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went even though he didn’t know where he was going”.

I love this passage in Isaiah, which describes so well the one who in his ignorant condition seeks the light of God and the other one who seeks his own enlightenment because he is proud and independent.

In chapter 50: 10- 11 the LORD says: (Could this passage be applied in contrasting the true light and the counterfeit lights of humanistic psychology, psychiatry and new age teaching about love and light, occult healing therapies)?

"Who among you fears the LORD and obeys the word of his servant, Let him who walks in the dark who has no light, trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God. But now all you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches, Go; walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you have set ablaze, this is what you shall receive from my hand; You will lie down in torment".

The Bible teaches us to find out what is pleasing to God. Hebrews 11:6 declares: Without faith, it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.

My prayer for us is that we will seek earnestly His will, that our faith will be increased, that the Lord will open our eyes to see, our hears to ear, our heart to receive, and that once we have seen, heard and received, we will have the strength to obey because faith must necessarily lead to obedience.

Jean-Louis