Breaking through Emotional Numbness

²⁵ I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.  ²⁶ And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  ²⁷ And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. ²⁸ You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.  ²⁹ And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses.  And I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you (Ezekiel 36:25-29, ESV). 

Growing up we had a picture that hung in our living room titled, Children Learn What They Live. It read something like this:   

If a child lives with criticism, they learn to condemn.

If a child lives with hostility, they learn to fight.

If a child lives with ridicule, they learn to be shy.

If a child lives with shame, they learn to feel guilty. 

If a child lives with tolerance, they learn to be patient.

If a child lives with encouragement, they learn confidence.

If a child lives with praise, they learn to appreciate.

If a child lives with fairness, they learn justice.

If a child lives with security, they learn to have faith.

If a child lives with approval, they learn to like themselves.

If a child lives with acceptance and friendship, they learn to find love in this world.  

Very true!  If there was one more I could add it would read, if a child lives with emotional wounds, they learn to shut down.  I was never taught how to deal with unhealthy emotional wounds.  And honestly, it’s usually a topic that is never discussed anyway, right?  We avoid it and many times we’ve been told to just move on from it. Through the years, it had become my defense mechanism.  Seriously, why feel the pain when I can just numb it over. If I didn’t think about it then I didn’t have to feel it, or so I thought.  However, it was still there, just buried deep down and eventually sprouted up in other ways.  One way was building walls around my heart to keep people out, to keep from being wounded again.  Some other ways it surfaced was through depression, anger, resentment, and apathy.  Shutting down became second nature and for many years I wasn’t even aware of it.  

All those years of emotional shut down, time and pressure began forming hardness of heart.  Some years back, I started to realize, not only was I blocking the bad or painful emotions, but good emotions too.  Things like excitement, joy, and even love. 

As you could only imagine, when God began to break through the numbness there followed some major emotional upheaval.  It was difficult to walk through and “feel” the hurt, grief, regret, and pain all over again. I never realized avoiding those emotional wounds could be so damaging to my inner being.  Although numbing it over served as a defense mechanism for many years, God had a different plan. 

Friends, some of you know this well.  You have walked through the breaking of emotional numbness.  And for some, it is the very thing God is addressing right now.  When everything inside of us wants to resist, remember He has a different plan.  A plan of divine intervention to break through the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  

Prayer:

Lord, sprinkle us with the cleansing water of Your Spirit, that we shall be clean from all our uncleanliness, and from all our idols would You cleanse us.  Lord, remove our heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh.  Put Your Spirit within us, and cause us to walk in Your statutes and be careful to obey Your rules; that we would be Your people and You would be our God. In Jesus Name, Amen.