Classic Reading: Damaged Emotions

from Healing for Damaged Emotions by David Seamands If you visit the far west, you will see those beautiful giant sequoia and redwood trees. In most of the parks, the naturalists can show you a cross-section of a great tree they have cut and point out that the rings of the tree reveal the development history year-by-year. Here’s a ring that represents a year when there was terrible drought. Here a couple of rings from years when there was too much rain. Here’s where the tree was struck by lightning. Here are some normal years of growth. This ring shows a forest fire that almost destroyed the tree. Here’s another of savage blight and disease. All of this lies embedded in the heart of the tree representing the autobiography of its growth. And that’s the way it is with us. Just a few minutes beneath the protective bark, the concealing protective mask, are recorded the rings of our lives. There are scars of ancient, painful hurts… the discoloration of a tragic stain that muddied all of life… the pressure of a painful, repressed memory. Such scars have been buried in pain for so long that they are causing hurt and rage that are inexplicable. In the rings of our thoughts and emotions the record is there; the memories are recorded and all are alive. And they directly and deeply affect our concepts, our feelings, our relationships. They affect the way we look at life, and God, at others and ourselves.

This book was published in 1991 by Chariot Victor (div. of David C. Cook) and is still recommended by counselors today. The book is now available in 15 different languages.