This is how, one of the major ways, that God heals traumatic pictures. I usually explain to the person that they’ve just put this memory in a room and locked it up. I explain they’ve tried to save themselves. I ask them to be willing to go back to remember what they didn’t want to remember; and invite Jesus to come in. So, often the person will start to weep as they remember; and then I ask them: “Look and see where Jesus is. What is He doing? What is His face like? What is He saying?” I get the person just to talk to me, what they’re seeing. What happens is, a different picture comes in; and it overwhelms and changes the memory. It shifts it, and puts something in that wasn’t there, and that’s the last thing they remember.
For example, I had one girl, and she had been adopted when she was 5. She shared her testimony to the church that she’d been adopted, and how when she heard our testimony and she came to Christ. When I heard her testimony, I said: “Look, I feel the Lord put on my heart to pray for you. He wants to heal you. Can you remember the day your mother gave you up?” This is what she said: “I remember it vividly.” In other words, it’s a picture in her mind; and in that picture is a lot of grief. In that memory is a picture of her mother handing her over to a stranger. A huge amount of grief; and she questions: why she do this? What’s wrong with me? I must be bad, because I’m being given away. All kinds of things were in her mind.
So I said: “I’d like you to do this. Just to close your eyes, and to allow yourself to remember that experience” and she began to cry. She remembered the experience, and she began to just weep in front of us all. Then I said: “Look and see if you can see Jesus.” She said: “I can see Him.” I said: “What does He look like?” She said: “He’s weeping. He’s very sad about what’s happening.” I said: “Why don’t you just reach out to Him?” Now, I didn’t expect her to literally reach out. It’s like she reached out like that, and then she froze; and she remained there like that for an hour and a half, standing in a meeting just like this. Just down on the ground like that, frozen for an hour and a half.
You just can’t do that. It’s impossible to do that, and hold your hand out like that. She was literally caught up in a vision, and then I just preached; held an alter-call for salvation; we got people to stand around her, so she didn’t get bumped. Then suddenly she just came out of it like that; and I said: “What happened?” She had been in an encounter with Jesus. I said: “What did He say to you?” “He said to me: it’s not my fault.” All these years she had believed the lie: ‘it’s my fault’, and she was tormented by spirits. When Jesus spoke to her the truth –“it’s not your fault. You’re not a bad person. I love you. I’ll never leave you.” Jesus spoke with her. I saw her the next day, and I actually didn’t recognise her, she looked so different. There was a joy and a life in her.
I remember praying for another girl who’d been sexually abused and I asked: “Are you willing to go and remember what happened?” She began to weep, described the scene, and described her father coming into the room. I said: “Now look for Jesus”; and she saw Him, she began to weep. She said: “He’s full of compassion. He’s weeping, because He sees what’s happening, and He’s very sad.” I said: “Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, looking for what He does and says.” She just interacted. She said: “He’s coming towards me. He’s standing between me and my father, and I can’t see my father now. Jesus says He’ll protect me.”
So, she was totally transformed. Within a space of about 3 weeks, she was greatly reconciled with her father. So, she got healed from the trauma. The picture of the trauma was replaced with a picture of something different. Now, sometimes there are demons inside the trauma, there are soul ties to the trauma. So when you feel the Holy Spirit lead, break the soul tie to the trauma, and command spirits to come out; but let the Holy Spirit do the work of revealing Jesus.