Some of us have endured hard lives at the hands of others. Indeed, many have been dealt a cruel hand leaving them with a great deal of burdens by this. These burdens mistakenly become knitted into our personality to where we think it is who we are so we don’t see it as a problem. The mistake is, not seeing the problem as sin. We may have been violated by another’s sin, but the impact it brings is sin. As a consequence, the violation begins to shape who we are as a person. We may go as far as to seek counseling. Counseling is good but can add to the problem if all we do is manage this burden because God says such burdens need to be washed by His blood and where we must go by the way of Christ’s crucifixion to deal with it. But, since we see the burden life has dealt us as something to live with, and not something that is the product of SIN, we begin to incur its wages into our minds, bodies, and souls.  Romans 6:22-23.  The lie that this sin has told us continues to lie to us even as believers in Christ – because it, the sin, is very much alive in us. We are trapped because we fail to apply the work and power of the cross in this very needed area in our lives!  We fail because we see the sin that has taken root in us – as part of us and our personality or who we are and not something that must be crucified. The counsel of men explores the carnal man in his soul.  The counsel of God explores us with His light that shines in the darkness exposing what does not belong in us any longer.  He reveals where the cutting away must take place – in the areas that have been with us, some all our lives.  It, the sin we keep is comfortable to us for its familiarity and why we do not see it for what it truly is and has done.  These places are where we are bound, and so Jesus cuts the binding off as we confess to Him the place it has had in us.  The place of binding has stunted us, much like when Asian women would bind their feet to prevent them from growing.  We are left sickly but the Lord comes to minister in the places where we have been bound, through His Word so we may no longer be conformed to the sin it was, but instead are transformed by the Living Word into His new Creations sown in Christ. He heals the brokenhearted And binds up their wounds. Ps 147:3 The error is when we seek counsel to try to understand and accommodate our past lives and trauma, and worst yet, to not see we need Jesus by it. The blood of Jesus does not counsel but washes away forever our sin so it no longer has power, place, and influence in our lives. The counsel God gives is for us to renew our minds – through the Word of God. The anecdote to trauma and wounds is the Word of God. Only the Light can heal us of puss-infected wounds. Only His presence can see where we are bound and only His Hand can care for us as He cuts away what we thought for so long was just part of who we are. As we yield to Him and invite Him into the memory of the past in all its wounds and brainwashing it has done to us, we trust in His wisdom and are willing to go and do all that He instructs us. He is the skilled surgeon and we are His patient but also His assistant as we listen to His Word and apply it to the places in our broken hearts. His word is so exact that it can discern what his soul or spirit, we can’t.  It is the light of the Word that will reveal to us things we have believed are part of us that are not and need to go.  He has given us all the tools we need to be free of all that has snared us or has been embedded in our minds as truth.  The Lord only waits for us to join Him so we may be transformed from all these into His image and likeness. For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.  And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. Heb 4:11-13