PTSD? Surviving was the first miracle

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
March 2, 2022

When you survive the cause of PTSD, it sometimes feels as if it is torture. People in your life don't understand what happened to you. They can't figure out why you changed. You hear stupid things like "Well look on the bright side, you're still alive." That isn't very helpful when all you can see is darkness surrounding you. Fear consumes you. At the time when you need to be comforted by someone, you are pushing them away out of fear you will be judged instead of being understood. 

You need help to heal, but may not feel as if you deserve it, even if there is a tiny glimmer of hope you can be. If you feel alone, and everyone is walking away from you, no one comes to help you, and all you see are news reports of others suffering too, you can't see hope.

I know what that's like. I survived over ten events in my life. I still know what that is like when there are many times when I can't find anyone to help me. I end up feeling as if they must not think I deserve any help from them, or even their time to listen to me. I know what it is like to need comforting and reassurance

that these dark days will not last, just like all the other dark days were taken over by brighter ones.

For me, when faced with great need and no one answer my plea for help, I turn toward times in my life when things were really bleak and remember what it felt like to have a miracle happen just when I needed it most of all, even when I felt as if the world was telling me I didn't deserve one.

There are miracles happening all around us. I can't explain why they come or when they come. I can only explain how they come. They come when people hear God and do what they can to answer our prayers.

Oh, sure there are some that come directly from God. The Bible is full of them. Sometimes they are huge ones. Other times they are small ones but when you are in great need and put your trust in God, that mini-miracle makes all the difference in the world to you.

Consider this one I found while searching for something to comfort me this morning. 

From Way Nation
The Never Ending Flour Jar and Oil Jug
For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: There will always be flour and olive oil left in your containers until the time when the Lord sends rain and the crops grow again!”

So she did as Elijah said, and she and Elijah and her family continued to eat for many days. There was always enough flour and olive oil left in the containers, just as the Lord had promised through Elijah. 1 Kings 17:14-16

Why It’s Awesome:
I love this miracle because of its small-ness. It wasn’t big and loud. It didn’t help a huge number of people. And it’s not even the biggest miracle in this chapter. It’s just a woman and her son, yet God sees to it that their suffering and fear are alleviated.

It can be hard to believe that God cares about me and my struggles when so many other big things are going on in the world, but this miracle reminds me that’s just not the case.

 I had no idea this site was even out there, but I found it when I needed to. That was a mini-miracle for me. The fact you are reading this at all is mini-miracle for you, since that is the only way anyone finds this work.

The thing is, when we are forgotten by others, it is easy to forget about the times when we had people in our lives. Easy to forget when we knew we had God in our lives and found hope. I went to sleep last night after crying, feeling defeated because no matter how many times I tried to get help for what I need, no one replied. No one on this earth answered. God did. This morning I woke up with enough hope to even sit here and write this. Considering how much misery I was in last night, that is a monumental miracle for me, even though it may only seem like a mini-miracle to others.

When you survived the cause of PTSD, people helped you do it. You didn't expect strangers to show up, but they did. They showed up because they were sent to let you know you were safe again because God sent them to you and they responded. Every time we survive, we have a choice to make. Do we focus only on what was done to us, or do we focus on what was done for us?

We need to honor the feelings we have as survivors so we can begin to heal. Cry-scream-get angry-and get it out of your system. Then focus on the people who came to help you and let their acts of kindness fill you. Those who came to help, outnumbers those who came to harm. Those are the people I am remembering this morning and remembering they came when I least expected them to help.