Sometimes things happen to us that we never saw coming, unforeseen circumstances that leave marks deeper than anyone realizes. What many people don’t understand is that the enemy often sees your light long before you do. He recognizes the purpose God placed on your life, and because of that, he works overtime to distract you, discourage you, and devour anything that might push you closer to your calling. For some of you, that distraction came through trauma and triggers. I’m not saying your pain doesn’t matter; it does. But there is a higher way to confront it, and that’s by fighting in the spirit. You have to deal with the pain head-on; you cannot heal from what you keep avoiding. Healing means confronting those demons, uprooting what they planted, and choosing to be completely healed. Because when you don’t deal with it, the enemy will begin to pull at your emotions like strings on a puppet. And all you want is relief, so you avoid the feelings, avoid the memories, avoid the hurt. But that avoidance doesn’t free you; it pushes you into autopilot, still functioning, still moving, but silently carrying the weight of what wounded you. If you know that feeling, I want to tell you something: as a child of God, you must learn how to speak to the Holy Spirit because He really does talk back. Jesus said the Father has given us the Holy Spirit “as a Comforter”, the One who stands beside you, counsels you, calms you, corrects you, and guides you into healing. And when He talks back, He doesn’t just comfort; He gives strategy. He gives instructions. He shows you where the wound is and teaches you how to heal. Survival mode happens when your spirit is tired, when your emotions feel unsafe, and when you are constantly on guard. For some, it’s triggered by finances, for others, its family, health, loneliness, marital issues, molestation, or abuse. Maybe you slip into survival mode when the doctor diagnoses you with a particular sickness, or when something happens that you can’t fix on your own. Perhaps it occurs when someone doesn’t respond, or when you feel control slipping from your hands. But God never created you to live in a permanent state of emergency. He didn’t design you to rehearse fear every morning or fall asleep in anxiety every night. Part of healing is choosing to spend time with God, not out of obligation but out of oxygen. You must speak to God, read the Word so your mind has something higher to agree with, make declarations so your brain hears your faith, forgive so your heart can be released, take communion so your spirit remembers who you belong to, and plead the blood of Jesus daily because His blood breaks cycles.

Juna Samuel