Toggles Connection Newsletter
Trophies of His Grace
Recognize Your Progress
—by Alaine
(From the Toggles Connection Newsletter)
Recently I went to England to visit some of the same folks I met the last time I was there. Most of them were DID/SRA clients of several Christian counselors. They have it a bit rough there because the psychological community in general doesn’t acknowledge either ritual abuse or the emotional shattering that occurs. The mental health community just thinks that the symptoms are from something else or simply made up. Please pray that those who are working at getting their life back together will find good Christian counselors who understand their situation.
One of the nice things about England is that there are many more retreat centers than we have here in the USA. You can go there for a time-out from life and just collect your thoughts, etc.
One of the places we visited was in the middle of a large pasture of sheep!!! We had to beep-beep the horn to get them to stop grazing enough so that they would move out of the way.
I was glad for a chance to go there and see the TOGGS I met last fall and see how they have been moving ahead in their healing. I think that when we are with a person all the time (like we are with ourselves), it’s hard to realize that there have been positive changes. But if you visit them once in a while, (or look at where you are yourself now compared to last year at this time), it’s easier to see the progress.
Isn’t it amazing how much the enemy tries to use discouragement to tempt us to give up?
I remember when I had gone through quite a bit of my healing process and I was once again bothered with the temptation of suicide. At first, I was discouraged and said, “Here I am again, right back where I was a long time ago! Nothing has changed.”
Then the Lord asked me, “How long has it been since you were last bothered with these thoughts of suicide?” And I realized that although the depth of the temptation was the same, the time in-between these episodes was getting longer and longer! So I was making progress after all!!!
Funny how easy it is to look at the flare-ups and forget how far we have really come!I
