Bringing Our Wounds to Christ – Lent 2025

Summary

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Traumas can often lead us to cling to untruths in our lives for a long time. We should invite Jesus into our painful memories and ask Him to show us where He was in that trauma.

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Reflective Study Guide Questions

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“When you pass through waters, I will be with you,”

Is. 43:2.

1.When we experience traumas in our lives, we often cling to untruths if we don’t have the spiritual maturity to process the situation. What untruths might you be clinging to from past traumas in your life?

2. Kitty says that if we are in a state of grace and a friendship with God, we have nothing to fear except being separated from Him. How can you work on deepening your friendship with God this Lent?

3. Kitty relates how she had a panic attack when she saw a waterfall that once almost killed her. Have you ever had an experience that reopened an old wound like this? How can you work on inviting Jesus into painful memories?

4.  God is always present with us, even in painful events. How can you work on looking for the Lord when He is difficult to find during painful experiences in your life? 

Text: Bringing Our Wounds to Christ

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Hi friends, my name is Kitty Cleveland, and I’m delighted to be back with you for the Pray More Novena’s Lenten Retreat. 

Opening Prayer

Let’s pray. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Lord Jesus, we love you, we praise you, we bless you, and we adore you. Lord, I pray that this retreat will be a time for greater intimacy with you, that we’ll be able to create more silence, and space, and time to listen to your still, small voice in our souls.

And Mother Mary, please help us. Hail Mary full of grace. So Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Bringing Our Life Traumas To Christ

So friends, today my topic is bringing our traumas, life’s traumas to Christ and allowing him to heal them. And you know, when I was 12 years old, I was vacationing with my family in the mountains of North Carolina and we went swimming at this multi leveled waterfall and there is this one really smooth place where you could swim off on the side and there you weren’t in the current.

There was no danger there. And so my sisters and my dad and I and my mom, we were all swimming and enjoying it. And then we got a little rough and I was accidentally pushed into the main stream that was headed for a waterfall. And there were signs that said, you know, danger, et cetera. And I started panicking and I was on my stomach and headed towards the waterfall feet away from going over this waterfall where many other people had lost their lives.

And my big toe caught in a little nick in the rock, and it kept me from going over the waterfall. 

We’ve all had those moments in life of profound trauma. Maybe it’s been the unexpected death of a loved one, different illnesses or setbacks, and prayers that were not answered in the way that you had hoped.

And sometimes lies and bows can get a little foothold in us. When we go through these traumatic experiences and we don’t yet have the spiritual maturity to know really how to process it. And so these vows we make or sometimes, for example, water isn’t safe. I can’t swim anymore because of that experience that I had with the waterfall.

God is Always Protecting Us

Or just anything to protect us. And it can serve us well in that moment, but over time it no longer serves us. And the Lord wants to heal those places and show us where He was in them. 

Just in this last year, I had three, three or four different experiences where I was  blindsided and frightened. And for example, in December of last year, I was in Mexico City for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on pilgrimage with a large, wonderful group of pilgrims from the, from the United States.

So And a couple of days before the big feast day, we went out of town and there was horrendous traffic trying to get back into the city as millions of pilgrims made their way and our bus ended up being ambushed by someone and we think a road rage incident, they blocked our bus with their car, got out one guy with a tire iron shattered the window next to our bus driver.

And it sounded like a gunshot that then shattered the window right next to me. And I was happened to be standing up at the microphone and everyone hit the duck, hit the ground and they were screaming and we were praying and people were crying and we weren’t sure if we were going to survive this incident.

Thanks be to God, it only lasted for a few minutes. Our bus driver was not seriously injured and we were able to leave that area. But it was quite quite traumatic and frightening and then in early summer, I was out fishing with some friends in the Gulf of Mexico and an unexpected summer storm popped up with 50 mile an hour winds and what should have taken us.

An hour maybe to get through took three hours as we were surrounded with lightning and these high winds and waves. The rain was so, was hitting us so hard my husband, my husband’s arms were bruised from the rain. And it was possible that we were not going to survive this storm in the small boat that we were fishing in.

And the whole time I was just praying the Memorare over and over and over again. Mother Teresa’s Flying Novena where you pray nine Memorares in petition and one memorare in Thanksgiving. And so I prayed hundreds  of those Memorares over and over and over again. Please, Lord, let us survive. And I was speaking in faith to the waves and to the wind saying in the name of Jesus.

Peace, be still, Lord, stop this storm. And then it seemed like another big wave would crash and hit me in the face and the temperature dropped like 15 degrees and I was starting to get hypothermia. And we thought maybe we were headed into a tornado, so we had to go a different way. And we lost our GPS, we lost our cell phones we lost our radar.

So we weren’t even sure where we were except for the compass. Fortunately, our wonderful captain had noticed the compass. Before we left, and had filled up our tank with gas, and so we made it back safely. And then, in September, I did a retreat in the western hills of North Carolina, not far from Asheville, and I was there when Hurricane Helene hit.

And we lost all ability to communicate with the outside world, and when I did try to fly home, And we realize, I realized what had happened and that there were people who had just lost their lives. Anarchy was starting to break out because people were panicking because they didn’t have food and water and electricity.

And so all of these things, sometimes it feels like you’re in the, in the ocean and a wave hits and knocks you down and you’re kind of stunned and you stand back up again. And before you fully catch your breath, another wave hits. And for people of faith, we know and believe that God is good. And in fact, in John Chapter 13, Jesus said, “Whatever you ask in my name, I will do. So as to glorify the father in the son, anything you ask me in my name, I will do.”

Well, that can be kind of confusing. In fact, on the boat. As we got back to safe harbor, a wonderful priest happened to be in the back, Father Mitch Pacqua from EWTN said, Father Mitch, I have a question for you. I said, Jesus said in John, he said, “Anything you ask me in my name, I will do.”

And I was asking him to rebuke the wind and the waves and the storm, and it still came. And he said, Kitty, I’m just glad we made it back alive. And I said, yeah, well, I’m a both and girl. I am both happy to be alive and I have questions. How does a good and loving God allow traumatic events to happen to us?

Now sometimes we bring them on ourselves. There was a no swimming danger ahead sign at that waterfall. If we had looked more carefully at the the forecast for the day, would we have known that it was possible we could have gotten in a summer storm.  And yeah, I don’t know about Mexico City, except that we weren’t killed.

You Are Mine

And when I asked Father Mitch that question, you know, what’s up with that? Why does God allow good things to happen to those who, I mean, sorry, bad things to happen to those who love Him. And he said, Kitty, that’s a question for management and I’m in sales, which was so typical, hilarious. And so then I had to take it to Jesus in prayer.

And I said, Lord, Lord, help me understand. And He spoke very clearly to my heart, Kitty, whether you live or you die, you are mine. Whether we live or we die, we are the Lord’s. If we are in a state of grace, we’ve availed ourselves of the sacraments. If we are people of prayer in the word every day and praying our  rosaries, if we walk in friendship with God, then what do we have to fear except being separated from him?

And he tells us, nothing can separate you from my love. Nothing. And so I want to encourage you as we continue these recordings together, this Lenten retreat, to bring your own traumas, your own disappointments, those things perhaps that were confusing to you, that you buried. Maybe there’s grief that has not been fully processed and brought to the Lord.

When I did that retreat in North Carolina it was on Lake Toxaway and about 40 minutes or so, 45 minutes from Asheville. And as I was driving to this house where the retreat was taking place, my husband and I drove into the subdivision.  And there, on the left side as I was driving, was the waterfall that I had almost gone over when I was 12 years old, that I had honestly completely forgotten about.

And I had never seen it from down below. As I looked at it, I thought, dear Lord, I would have certainly died if I had gone over that waterfall. And I had a panic attack, and I stopped the car right in the middle of the road and took some deep breaths and prayed my way through it, and I was able to drive to the house.

And when I mentioned it to my spiritual director, he said, you know, take it to Jesus, ask him about that. And He basically said to me, Kitty, it wasn’t your time yet. I still had more for you to do. I had more for you to learn before I called you home. And the same was true in Mexico City.  And the same it was not true, however, for one of the pilgrims we saw walking on the road who had been hit by a car and had perished there on the side of the road.

And so we, our bus prayed for that person, but it was their time. Whether we live or we die, we are the Lord’s. And so let’s invite the Lord Jesus. I’m going to lead you in a prayer right now to come, to bring up, give the Lord permission to bring up any of those memories that might still trigger some anxiety, perhaps some neurotic behavior that is not serving you anymore and to bring in His healing and peace and also to show us where He was during that event.

Closing Prayer

So let’s pray. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord Jesus, thank you for giving us the gift of life.  So many blessings that we haven’t even noticed or appreciated many times. You are good. You are the Lord. You are our Messiah. And you have good plans in minds for us, plans for our welfare, not for woe, Lord, you alone know the depths of the traumas that we’ve experienced in this life.

And Lord, you were there. If there are any maladaptive behaviors, thinking patterns, vows, beliefs that are not consistent with reality, and with your goodness, Lord, please bring them to mind. And I ask you, Lord, to take us gently by the hand, back to those memories and to show us where you were;

and to speak to us the truth. And I praise and thank you, Lord, that you have protected us from so many dangers that we didn’t even know about. And that you have only permitted the ones that were necessary either to bring about a greater good that couldn’t come in any other way, to teach us an important spiritual lesson, or perhaps to even keep a greater evil from taking place.

And you know, and other, I’m also getting just a word that sometimes it’s also reparation. Sometimes friends our suffering; when we unite it to the cross of Jesus, and we offer it to Him, that it is reparation for the sins of other people. And only in heaven will we fully comprehend, but know that God is good.

He knows you. He loves you. His plans for  you are magnificent. Let’s trust him. Amen.

About Kitty Cleveland

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