A Journey from Spiritual Survival to Secure Attachment
The day I knew my orphan spirit was healed, survival gave way to wholeness – a moment where faith and deep inner healing met.
Dear Friend,
There was a day when I realized the hollow ache I’d carried for so long — the ache of being unseen, unclaimed, orphaned in spirit – was no longer the voice guiding my steps and encompassing my vision.
I knew I was healing when after three years therapy and a year in a Celebrate Recovery Step Study to recover my faith, God gave me a new vision to replace the persistent old.
My entire life I only saw myself under the table like a dog begging for crumbs receiving none.
In my ratty crimson gown with too many stains to count.
Disheveled hair. Curled up as small as I could make myself.
God’s elect feasting above. Joyous and full.
When my shame increased to unbearable due to more severe religious trauma, the vision shifted to me curled up facing the wall not able to even beg for the crumbs that would be handed to the dog.
None offered. None fallen to retrieve. My worth not even above a dog’s. Crimson shame burned through my flesh and suffocated me.
Chronic suicidal ideation my escape. Countered by disassociation to save my life.
This the vision that would always enter my mind as I faded to nothing once my body numbed out and went to sleep.
When I started therapy, my first pleading question to my therapist, “How do you cast out an orphan spirit? I need to know. I want her gone.”
Her grief too much to bare. Being buried alive starved of not even a solitary crumb.
In God’s House. Where she thought for once in her forty plus years she’d belong.
Ripe for spiritual abuse an orphan spirit dying for love.
My one goal in therapy and recovery: to attach to myself and to God. When starting from scratch.
My therapist gently told me, “You can’t cast out an orphan spirit.”
Deflated, I began to cry.
He added, “An orphan spirit must be healed.”
Three years later, God gave me a new vision.
This time, I sat in a seat prepared for me at the large banquet table.
In a white flowing gown.
In this vision, God fed me by His very own hand.
The fruits of the Spirit.
One after the other after the other, He fed me.
Until I was full. No longer starving.
Satisfied. Content.
In His Presence.
Then I noticed all my faceless enemies sitting around the table watching me.
They did not disturb me. I felt nothing for them.
I did not search their faces as I had in the past for my worth.
I only focused on God’s hand feeding me.
This is the only vision that stays with me now. The one given to me by God.
Not the Enemy.
My orphan spirit healed.
Do you have an orphan spirit? It takes time. It takes therapy. It takes Jesus. If she has been starved her whole life, do not expect her to be brought to life overnight. Jesus knows how fragile she is and how gentle she must be coaxed from hiding to trust the hand that feeds her. This is what He does best.
Healing orphan spirits.
You are loved vastly beyond what you can fathom, imagine.
If you have carried the ache of feeling spiritually orphaned, too, there is Hope and Healing. I pray this story reminds you that healing is possible, even for the tenderest places. You are not forgotten. You are not unseen. The same love that found me is holding you, whispering, “You are mine,” even here, even now.
With Love,
Raya
The Gentle Rise 