God Knows How to Heal PTSD Spiritually

How God Delivered John from PTSD and Healed His Body

I came to Be in Health to attend the For My Life Retreat and the Walk Out Workshop. I heard about this ministry from a friend and am forever grateful for these retreats because they changed my life in an amazing way.

I was born in 1982 as a Siamese twin. My brother and I were connected by the soles of our feet, but we were separated at birth. We were taken from our biological mother within four months and spent the next five and a half years bouncing between eight foster homes and back to our biological mother four times. We were taken from her due to negligence, being found in an unclean, unhealthy environment.

A few of the foster homes that we stayed at were not very kind to my brother and me. In one of those instances, we remember being fed with a food tray that was slid through a slot at the bottom of the door. Things became so bad that we threw a toy through the window, climbed out, and ran away.

 Trauma and victimization continued throughout childhood

We were going to be put up for adoption separately, but then we were placed together. Our adoptive parents had just started getting involved in the Jehovah’s Witnesses organization. For the first few years, things were really good, then things changed. My brother turned on me and became abusive towards me and then would blame me and pit our adoptive mother against me too.

From 12 to 18 years of age, I lived in much fear, my mother was always angry with me and became violent, and my brother’s violence towards me became increasingly unbearable.

Continued exposure to multiple traumatic events

I joined the Army in 2008 and was deployed to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010. While there, I experienced head trauma due to multiple concussions from concussive blasts. I also sustained serious injuries to my leg due to a traumatic fall during active combat. After our tour, a doctor spent the next four months trying to fix my leg. I had a broken fibula, a split tendon, all the ligaments were completely torn, and a severed muscle.

After surgery and recovery, I only had less than three months left on my contract with the army. I began to get really depressed because they wouldn’t re-enlist me. When my contract expired, I became very bitter and depressed. At one point, I contemplated driving my car off a bridge.

I was homeless for about a year and a half until I was picked up by someone from the local VA who’d found out about my situation. They helped me get back on my feet, and I began searching for something to do. The next season of my life was full of ups and downs as I struggled to find my place in the world again.

My struggle with severe PTSD symptoms and deteriorating physical health

I met my wife in 2016. Since I’ve been with her, a lot of the issues from the injuries in Afghanistan continued to get worse and worse, including severe PTSD. I spent years dealing with hospitals, doctors, and all kinds of different therapies and procedures. I was on so much medication it looked like a bag of skittles that I had to take every morning and night.

Due to the injuries to my leg, I had severe pain in my hip, as well as tingling and loss of feeling in my leg and foot. After MRIs and X-rays, I was told it was spinal stenosis. However, they would not operate on it due to the risk of paralyzing me.

In addition, in 2021, the doctor discovered that the ligament in my left ankle was completely stretched, causing me to roll it frequently. I was scheduled for surgery to fix my ankle, but it kept getting postponed, and we couldn’t figure out why.

I was also scheduled for surgery to burn the nerve endings in parts of my lower back to eliminate the intense pain that prevented me from being able to stand for more than ten minutes. That surgery, too, was canceled and rescheduled four times in the months leading up to the For My Life Retreat.

The battleground in my mind tormented our marriage

I left my wife four times since we were married because of all of the internal turmoil in my head. I felt like leaving would be easier, but I kept coming back because I believed that we were supposed to be together. I am so grateful to God that my wife was patient with me and endured through all that time.

The first week of November 2021 was really bad. I had left my wife again for what I believed was the last time, and I was in a ton of pain. A week after I’d left, she called me and told me about this retreat that our friend told her about called “For My Life.” I looked up the ministry online and read what they were about and how their ministry worked and became very excited.

I finally found answers for my deep struggle with my religious beliefs

I have been looking for a way to connect with God since I left home. I have spent years struggling with my religious beliefs, searching for different religions and organizations, and trying to make sure that I was on the right side of God’s war when the time of the end came. I stressed almost every day of my life about whether I was doing the right thing in God’s eyes.

But when I read the “About” section of the Be in Health website, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief and truly felt like this was exactly where I was supposed to be; this was the answer to all of those years of stressing and searching! It included everything that I was hoping to learn about God’s Kingdom and how to live as a Christian. It was about more than religious faith or spiritual practices, it was about a real, loving relationship with the Living God.

The enemy tried to hinder me from receiving the help that I needed

I came back home to my wife because I really do love her, and I had renewed hope that God would help us work through our relationship struggles. However, the week before the Retreat, my wife got very sick. After three days, I told her that if she didn’t get any better, we were going to cancel the Retreat. She said that no matter what happens, I was going to that Retreat.

The next morning, she felt better, but then I started getting sick. As we drove to Georgia, I was feeling worse and worse and considered going back home. But then I suddenly realized that this was an attack from the enemy to keep us from getting what we needed from God. I felt assured that I just needed to get to the hotel and everything would be fine. My wife dropped me off at the hotel, and I got some rest. Two hours later, I woke up feeling so good, as if I was never sick!

I learned spiritual concepts from the Word of God that led me to freedom and hope

When the Retreat started, I was so excited to start this journey. A couple of days into it, I dedicated my life to God and was baptized in the Holy Spirit and with water. The Retreat was way more amazing than I had ever anticipated. I was so enthralled with everything they were teaching.

I was so excited to learn that I could take responsibility, repent for and remove spiritual strongholds in my life and my generations. Then I heard that we can ask for God’s forgiveness and tell Him that we accept His forgiveness and thank Him for forgiving us. I had never heard of this before, but I felt an amazing feeling of excitement about it.

God began His work on my mental and physical health

On Wednesday morning, they did deliverance for a spirit of accusation. As soon as they cast out that spirit in Jesus’ name, I felt a snap in my hip. It felt like I had a bunch of rubber bands between my spine and my hip, and the enemy just let go of them, and they snapped back into place. The intense pain that prevented me from walking or standing too long disappeared! When I felt that snap, I started moving around, trying to figure out what just happened. I never knew God still healed people. I was always taught that healing ended in the Bible times.

At break time, I went for a walk as far as I could go in the time I had before the next class. I could not believe how amazing I felt with no pain in my hip or burning or numbness. I was flabbergasted.

During ministry time, when they cast out the spirit of fear, the spots on the sides of my lower spine (that I was supposed to have surgery for, but it kept getting canceled) stopped hurting!

How God delivered me from all of my PTSD symptoms

On Sunday after church, one of the deacons, who had noticed that I had classic symptoms of PTSD throughout the week, asked if he could pray for me. After putting his hand on the back of my head and praying for my amygdala to go back to normal size, the headache behind my eyes and the constant pain began to dim.

I can say now, after months of being home, that it’s completely gone away. I no longer have nightmares, I don’t startle easily, and I’m not stressed about being in crowds or groups of people anymore.

God has continued to walk with me through my healing process

About a month after I’d returned home from the Retreat, I also noticed that God had completely healed my left ankle! It was sound and strong again.

Another thing that I’d like to mention is that I have been battling type two diabetes for the last seven years. My A1C has been as high as 11.8, and the lowest was 6.8 one time, but usually, the numbers stayed between the sevens and tens. A few months before I attended the Retreat, I had scheduled a test at the VA, and I took the test the week after I got back from the Retreat. When the tests came back, my A1C was 4.3.

One more blessing that has come as a direct result of what I learned at For My Life is our marriage is healed. Our relationship has never been stronger. I am absolutely amazed and thrilled at all that has happened to me since the Retreat. I am so grateful!

J.S.