Trauma, grief, pain, it is real, it hurts, it is a loss that is hard to process, but my friends, they all must have an expiration date on them. Trauma was not supposed to become an identity; grief was never to be long-lasting; pain is not meant to remain. When we make a culture out of these issues we face, we actually perpetuate, normalize and continue in them, rather than process through them so we can come out on the other side of them.

Biblically the Hebrew people were told to grieve seven days for someone that died, seven days. God put an expiration date on grief. Why? Because grieving past the expiration date causes more issues than we even realize or recognize. Trauma is a bad memory we keep playing over and over again in our head. If we never process through the trauma we will continue to self-sabotage our relationships with new people in our lives. Friends, we must have an end date for these issues.

We have created a counseling culture in which now it is normal to say I am triggered; I have trauma; and it is real, no doubt about it, but when is the expiration date on these issues? Israel struggled with the same thing, they have four months a year that were fasting months to mourn past memories that we very challenging for them nationally and personally. But God said through the prophet Zechariah, those things you are mourning have expired and God gave a new command.

Zechariah 8:18-19 “The word of the LORD of hosts came to me, saying, Thus says the LORD of hosts: The fast of the fourth month and the fast of the fifth and the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Judah seasons of joy and gladness and cheerful feasts. Therefore love truth and peace.”

God is wanting to turn our mourning into dancing, our sackcloth into joy, but we want to hang on to past seasons, past hurts, past experiences and they are hindering us in the now that God is inviting us to enjoy. The hurt is real, the memory is legit, the trauma happened, I know, but friends, when are we going to start living again? When are we going to start loving again? When are we going to start enjoying the new people in our life now who didn’t do that to us? We can’t change the past, so when are we going to let it go, so we can live, feast, fellowship and follow the Lord into the abundance of everything He has for us? Www.apostolicresourcecenter.org