Healing Life's Hurts Part 3 - The Denial Stage

We learned in Parts 1 & 2 that healing past hurts must go through the 5 stages of healing: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. There are also two feelings with God about God to work through as well. 

This post addresses the 1st stage, the Denial Stage. 

Denial brings in its wake the psychological defense mechanism and patterns of sin that try to make me feel important again.

Some of the most common defense mechanisms are:

• Rationalization - an attempt to prove by reason that what happened is fine.

• Repression of hurt feelings – sometimes with mind and body numbing pornography, alcohol and drugs, but also more acceptable forms such as eating, tv, ministry, work, sleep

• Approval seeking – seeking approval from others and God rather than willing to listen, receive correction, and be challenged.

We control what we hear by doing all the talking, even in prayer. Rather than face weakness and tender feelings, we pray eloquently, hoping God will be impressed.

Usually He is silent, so we begin to pray less because it isn’t rewarding, and God becomes less important to us. When God is unimportant and I am insecure, I try to hide my insecurity under the dark cloak of sin, continuing to cover up the insecurity with additional coping mechanisms.

Rationalization, intellectualization, repression, projection, fantasy, reaction formation, compensation...sin returns whenever we are hurt. The deeper the hurt, the more we utilize these defenses and they become unconscious habits.

We see denial in Scripture, such as Luke 15 – the two sons both had problems they were unwilling or unable to admit.

Just like we can have physical shock, we can also have emotional shock and be in denial. Denial can be good in this sense, preventing us from being overwhelmed by too much anxiety, disapproval, or insecurity until we are ready to face reality. We can use denial to our advantage, too.

For example, one particular ancient church practice was to focus on correcting only one rather than five faults during the day.  If we focus on eliminating gratitude by thanking God for whatever is happening, my other four faults will disappear because when grateful we can find God better, listen better, pray more, and come prepared to give thanks. It’s a healthy way of being in denial, choosing not to look at all the ways to improve but just focusing on one memory of hurt.

Whatever the hurt, we can be healed like the disciples at Emmaus by the same steps they were healed:

• Tell Christ how we feel (Luke 24:13-24);

• Listen through Scripture to how Christ feels (Luke 24:25-27; and

• With hearts burning live out Christ’s reaction (Luke 24:32-35).

When we allow Christ to absorb our reaction and then absorb Christ’s reaction we are somehow able to forgive. In essence, we are gazing lovingly on the humanity of Christ, we are filled with His divine love and forgiveness, and then we are healed of the painful memory.