Introduction

When I was three, I watched my brother get hit by a car.

When I was a teenager just learning how to drive, I was involved in a major car accident.

PTSD is a nightmarish disorder.

Shortly after I was born, I fell and hit my head.  I fractured my skull and my brain was sloshed.  No one can be sure what the long term damage could be, and though it can not be proven, my being prone to anxiety could be theorized as being caused by that injury.  Certainly it makes me cringe every time someone makes a 'Were you dropped on your head when you were a baby or something?' joke.  However, it could not have caused the PTSD I suffer with today.

The events mentioned, and others unmentioned could contribute to that.  Indeed, I have flashbacks of all of them, nightmares too, especially the one where I watched my brother being hit by a car.  It is my earliest memory, yet I can and always have been able to remember it vividly.  What happened, how I reacted, who was there.

Perhaps I'll go into more detail about that and other events later but, for now, the purpose of this introduction is to simply allow you, the reader, to know that they happened.

The posts in this free-lance editorial blog are stories of tragedy and triumph from the frontlines of traumatic events.  It is not about PTSD specifically. It is about overcoming and healing from trauma and tragedy.  It is my sincere hope and prayer that through the stories here, someone suffering might be able to benefit.  Someone might be able to relate and, through that relation, be able to take some sort of comfort.  I will do my best to make this blog simple, fair, and unjudging.

The scripture which inspired me to write here is from Habakkuk 3:8,

"O Lord, were You displeased with the rivers,
Was Your anger against the rivers,
Was Your wrath against the sea,
That You rode on Your horses,
Your chariots of salvation?"

I often wonder how the children of Israel reacted to the parting of the sea as they were escaping the Egyptians.  Was it intimidating to see such a thing in their rush to escape captivity, enslavement, even death?

As Dr. J. Vernon McGee said, this scripture is "highly figurative, beautiful language by the way and it's Hebrew poetry, and it speaks to the fact that God was not angry with the rivers because they blocked the way.  He just merely opened up the Red Sea and let them cross over as He did later the Jordan river."

I love how Dr. McGee uses the term 'merely', as opening up the Red Sea was only a simple thing for Almighty God to do.  It is an amazing comfort to know that, though these traumatic events in our life can be horrific, even life-altering, God will see us through.

No matter what hinders us, no matter how great the forces that "block the way", God has the power to merely open them up and let us cross over.
I hope you will join me in this journey.